IN  MEMORIAM 
BERNARD   MOSES 


LECTURES 


ON 


MODERN    HISTORY 


LECTURES 


MODERN  HISTORY, 


FROM 


THE  IRRUPTION  OF  THE  NORTHERN  NATIONS 


TO 


THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION. 


By    WILLIAM    SMYTH, 

PaOPBSSOE  OP  MODERN  HISTORY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  CAMBRIDGB. 


THIRD  AMERICAN  EDITION,  REVISED  ANP/  CORRECTED. 


WITH    ADDITIONS- 

1NCI,UDIN« 

\ 

A   PREFACE,    AND   A   LIST    OF    BOOKS    ON   AMERICAN   HISTORY 


By  JARED  sparks. 


BOSTON: 
CHASE,    NICHOLS    AND    HILL, 

1860. 


1    4«  *  •» 


2)/oz 


BERNARD  MOSES 

Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1849,  by 

Benjamiw  B  Musset  and  Company, 
io  ;he  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


PBINTED  BT 
OBOBOB    O.    BAND    &    XTBBT. 


PREFACE 


to 


THE    FIRST    AMERICAN    EDITION. 


Nothing  so  mucli  embarrasses  a  student,  who  is  beginning  the 
study  of  history,  as  the  difficulty  he  finds  in  selecting  the  best 
authors,  ascertaining  their  intrinsic  and  relative  merits,  and  in 
marking  out  for  himself  the  most  profitable  course  of  reading.  He 
is  bewildered  amidst  a  multitude  of  books,  and  perpetually  at  a 
loss,  as  he  proceeds,  to  determine  the  comparative  importance  of 
periods,  events,  and  characters.  If  he  seeks  a  guide,  he  is  either 
met  by  a  dry  catalogue  of  authors,  arranged  with  little  discrimina- 
tion, or  referred  to  abridgments  and  abstracts,  as  destitute  of  the 
soul  and  substance  of  history,  properly  so  called,  as  a  skeleton  is 
of  the  spirit  and  proportions  of  a  living  man.  His  time  is  thus  lost 
and  his  patience  exhausted,  while  he  makes  scarcely  any  progress 
in  those  acquisitions  which  it  is  the  design  of  history  to  communi- 
cate, and  by  which  the  mind  should  be  expanded  and  strengthened 
at  the  same  time  that  it  is  enriched  with  facts. 

Professor  Smyth  has  undertaken  to  remove  these  obstacles ;  and, 
if  we  may  judge  by  the  manner  in  which  his  task  has  been  executed 
in  these  volumes,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  could  not  have  fallen  into 
more  skilful  or  experienced  hands.  His  object  is  to  teach  students, 
and  readers  generally,  how  to  read  history  for  themselves ;  to  show 
them  the  path,  and  furnish  them  the  best  lights  for  pursuing  it ;  to 
enable  them  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  the  principal  authors,  and 

787723 


vi  PREFACE  TO  THE 

to  bring  forward  in  bold  relief  those  prominent  parts  of  history  to 
which  their  attention  should  chiefly  be  directed.  His  plan  is  un- 
folded with  clearness  and  precision  in  his  Introductory  Lecture. 
It  is  broad  and  comprehensive,  and  such  as  could  not  have  been 
carried  out,  in  the  finished  manner  it  has  been,  without  a  critical 
examination  of  a  large  number  of  authors,  and  close  and  patient 
meditation  upon  the  contents  of  their  works.  There  is  nothing 
superficial  or  ill  digested;  nothing  taken  at  second  hand;  the  lec- 
turer's mind  is  brought  to  bear,  with  its  own  original  vigor,  upon 
all  the  subjects  that  come  under  his  notice ;  his  opinions  are  frankly 
and  fearlessly  expressed,  and  sustained  by  a  force  of  reasoning 
which  rarely  fails  to  produce  conviction,  never  to  inspire  respect 
and  confidence. 

He  adopts  a  method  at  once  perspicuous  and  well  suited  to  the 
end  he  has  in  view.  He  selects  certain  periods  of  history,  and 
groups  together  the  great  events  in  each,  investigating  their  relsr 
tion  to  each  other  in  the  order  of  cause  and  effect,  and  their  results 
on  the  civil  and  political  condition  of  states  and  communities ;  pre- 
serving, as  he  advances,  an  easy  and  natural  transition  from  one 
period  to  another. 

This  method  affords  occasion  for  philosophical  reflections,  in  which 
the  author  is  profound  and  sagacious,  without  any  of  the  vague 
generalization  and  speculative  theories  which  too  much  abound  in 
works  assuming  the  title  of  philosophical  history.  Professor  Smyth's 
philosophy  is  of  that  rational  kind  which  builds  itself  on  established 
principles  and  truths,  and  in  which  he  has  so  much  respect  for  the 
good  sense  of  his  readers,  that  he  is  wilhng  to  address  himself  to 
their  understanding.  He  betrays  no  affection  for  that  spurious 
philosophy  which  disdains  the  wisdom  of  experience,  which  finds 
truth  only  in  novelties,  and  substitutes  the  dreams  of  the  imagina- 
tion for  the  dictates  of  a  sound  judgment,  soaring  above  or  sinking 
below  the  comprehension  of  ordinary  minds.  He  looks  deeply  into 
the  workings  of  the  human  heart,  and  studies  the  passions  of  men 
as  they  have  been  implanted  in  their  nature  and  exhibited  on  ^he 
great  theatre  of  human  action,  tracing  out  their  influence  in  mould 


FIRST  AMERICAN  EDITION.  Vll 

ing  the  structure  of  society,  in  raising  up  nations  to  power  and 
glory,  or  bringing  them  down  to  degradation  and  ruin ;  thus  deduc-    ' 
ing  lessons  of  practical  application  and  utility. 

He  never  forgets  that  the  legitimate  use  of  history,  as  a  study,  is 
to  teach  by  examples.  Like  the  inductive  philosophy  in  science, 
the  instruction  sought  from  history  proceeds  from  known  facts  to 
general  results.  History  itself  is  a  record  of  a  series  of  experi-  , 
ments  which  men  have  tried  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  their 
well-being  and  happiness  in  a  social  state.  Some  of  these  experi- 
ments have  succeeded,  others  have  failed ;  but  the  lessons  in  each 
case  are  valuable,  as  showing  what  is  to  be  either  imitated  or  avoid- 
ed. To  explain  and  enforce  these  lessons,  drawn  from  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  progress  of  nations  in  political  science,  and  of  men 
in  attaining  civil  liberty  and  a  free  enjoyment  of  their  rights  under 
different  forms  of  government,  constitutes  the  most  useful  element 
of  the  philosophy  of  history ;  and  in  this  part  of  his  subject  no  writer 
has  been  more  successful  than  Professor  Smyth,  whether  we  regard 
the  extent  of  his  inquiries,  the  solidity  and  directness  of  his  opin- 
ions, or  his  felicitous  manner  of  representing  them. 

His  plan  restricts  him  to  a  general  survey,  without  the  detail  of 
narrative,  or  elaborate  discussions  of  complicated  and  doubtful  ques- 
tions, which,  however  necessary  they  may  sometimes  be  in  a  regular 
historical  composition,  are  frequently  more  cumbersome  than  con- 
vincing, more  tedious  than  instructive.  His  work  embraces  Modem 
History.  As  preparatory  to  his  main  subject,  he  touches  upon  the 
period  immediately  following  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire ; 
the  laws,  customs,  and  political  state  of  the  barbarous  nations  of 
Europe ;  the  principal  features  of  the  Mahometan  religion,  and  the 
remarkable  events  of  the  Dark  Ages.  In  this  outline  he  confines 
himself  to  such  particulars  as  mark  the  progress  of  civilization  and 
open  the  way  to  the  political  organizations  of  modern  Europie,  and 
as  explain  the  causes  of  those  vast  changes  in  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  which  have  taken  place  within  the  last  three  hundred  years. 
These  changes  and  their  consequences  are  made  the  theme  of  his 
Bubsequent  lectures.     Proceeding  in  the  same  spirit  of  philosophical 


Viii  PREFACE  TO  THE 

analysis,  seizing  upon  the  prominent  events  and  pursuing  them  in 
their  natural  course  and  through  their  intricate  combinations,  he 
examines  under  separate  heads  the  history  of  the  European  nations. 
Yet  the  periods  and  the  states  which  pass  in  review  before  him 
are  not  considered  as  detached  from  each  other,  but  as  parts  of  a 
general  system  having  their  distinctive  relations  and  uniting  to  con- 
stitute a  whole. 

A  large  portion  of  the  work  is  devoted  to  England,  —  the  origin 
of  the  British  constitution,  the  vicissitudes  it  has  undergone,  the 
dangers  it  has  encountered,  the  obstacles  it  has  overcome,  and  the 
means  by  which  it  has  advanced  to  be  the  consolidating  principle  of 
an  empire  vast  in  territory  and  power.  The  great  struggle  which 
long  existed  between  the  prerogative  and  popular  claims,  before  the 
balance  was  duly  adjusted  by  securing  the  weight  of  an  efficient  Par- 
liament, is  fully  investigated  and  clearly  explained.  The  characters 
of  British  statesmen,  and  their  influence  on  the  history  of  their  coun- 
try and  the  growth  of  its  institutions,  are  likewise  discussed  with  a 
freedom  and  ability  which  clothe  the  aTuthor's  remarks  on  these  sub- 
jects with  peculiar  interest.  Nor  does  he  speak  of  the  eminent  men 
of  other  countries  with  less  candor  or  discrimination,  assigning  to  all 
their  just  meed  of  praise  or  censure,  according  as  they  have  been 
the  benefactors  of  their  race,  ambitious  demagogues,  or  the  tools  of 
despotism. 

Other  characteristics  of  these  volumes  demand  high  commendsr 
tion.  No  writer  could  be  more  impartial ;  his  sentiments  are  gener- 
ous and  liberal ;  he  is  never  the  blind  advocate  of  a  party,  nor  the 
defender  of  tortuous  measures ;  his  zeal  for  favorite  opinions,  and  for 
men  w^hose  policy  he  approves  and  whose  talents  he  extols,  is  always 
tempered  with  moderation  and  judgment.  He  does  not,  like  too 
many  historians,  pass  sentence  on  motives  which  he  has  only  con- 
jectured, and  condemn  conduct  merely  because  he  cannot  discover 
all  the  reasons  by  which  it  has  been  prompted.  He  is  neither  the 
champion  of  a  school  nor  the  slave  of  a  theory ;  he  never  talks  of 
optimism  or  of  perfectibility ;  he  takes  facts  as  they  are  presented  to 
him,  analyzes,  combines,  and  compares  them  without  bias  or  predi- 


FIRST  AMERICAN  EDITION.  ix 

lection,  and  establishes  his  conclusions  on  the  basis  of  truth  and 
justice.  * 

In  remarking  on  forms  of  government,  and  the  acts  of  princes, 
statesmen,  and  military  leaders,  he  is  equally  free,  on  the  one  hand, 
from  the  narrow  prejudice  and  illiberal  invective,  and,  on  the  other, 
from  the  indiscriminate  admiration  and  applause,  in  which  writers  of 
hss  compass  of  thought  and  less  acuteness  of  observation  are  apt 
to  indulge.  He  considers  the  government  best  for  a  people,  which, 
when  well  administered,  is  best  suited  to  their  circumstances,  and 
best  fitted  for  securing  the  prosperity  of  individuals  and  the  peace 
and  tranquillity  of  the  public.  While  he  sternly  rebukes  all  symp- 
toms of  despotism,  all  abuses  of  power,  all  encroachments  upon 
rights,  wherever  they  appear,  he  is  not  bound  to  a  system,  nor  slow 
to  discern  the  advantages  which  every  system  may  possess,  nor  re- 
luctant to  bestow  praise  where  it  is  due.  Although  friendly  to  re- 
form, because  society  is  progressive,  gathering  intelligence  as  it  ad- 
vances and  wisdom  from  the  experience  of  the  past,  yet  he  would 
correct  errors  gradually  arid  with  caution,  rather  than  eradicate 
them  by  violence ;  he  would  repair,  strengthen,  and  adorn  the  edi- 
fice, rather  than  undermine  its  foundations  and  triumph  over  its 
ruins.  Systems  of  government  have  grown  up  with  time,  till  they 
have  become  rooted  in  the  habits,  usages,  customs,  and  often  the  af- 
fections of  the  people ;  to  destroy  the  former  would  be  to  derange 
the  latter,  and  to  produce  misery  instead  of  happiness.  Innovation 
is  not  always  improvement;  change  may  be  for  the  worse,  and  is 
likely  to  be  so  when  ill-timed  or  rashly  directed.  Revolution  is  an 
extreme  remedy;  it  may  break  the  chains  of  oppression  or  rivet 
them  more  strongly,  according  as  it  proceeds  from  just  causes  and  is 
guided  by  prudence,  or  as  it  arises  from  factious  discontent  and  is 
pushed  forward  by  a  reckless  disregard  of  consequences.  There  are 
evils  in  all  systems,  there  is  good  in  all ;  to  correct  the  one  and  re- 
tain the  other,  to  infuse  into  the  constitution  and  laws  of  a  state  the 
spirit  of  each  succeeding  age,  and  to  adapt  them  to  the  increasing 
intelligence  and  wants  of  society,  should  be  the  policy,  as  it  is  the 
duty,  of  every  statesman  and  legislator. 


X  PREFACE  TO  THE 

Professor  Smyth's  judicious  estimate  of  the  characters  of  men,  his 
hberal  construction  of  their  motives,  and  his  indulgence  to  the  in 
firmities  of  their  nature,  are  not  confined  to  his  pohtical  views.  His 
benevolence  rises  to  the  higher  virtue  of  toleration.  Religion  has 
been  a  powerful  agent  in  modem  civilization.  He  weighs  with  an 
impartial  hand  the  impelling  forces  which  have  sprung  from  this 
source,  and  assigns  them  to  their  appropriate  spheres.  The  enlarge- 
ment of  mind,  equanimity  of  temper,  and  bland  moderation,  which 
characterize  his  pohtical  investigations,  are  equally  conspicuous  here. 
He  neither  assails  modes  of  faith,  nor  arraigns  the  conscience  which 
adopts  them,  nor  condemns  whole  orders  of  men  because  they  have 
exercised  the  privilege  of  thinking  for  themselves.  He  makes  no 
terms  with  despotism  seeking  to  disguise  itself  under  the  garb  of  re- 
ligion, or  ecclesiastical  domination  grasping  at  secular  power,  or  the 
superstition  which  deludes  men  into  follies  and  chains  them  in  igno- 
rance, or  the  fanaticism  which  breeds  disorders  and  degenerates  into 
crime ;  but  he  has  a  wide  mantle  of  charity  for  all  who  show  the  sin- 
cerity of  their  behef  by  the  calm  and  steady  zeal  with  which  they 
adhere  to  it,  and  by  its  benign  influence  on  their  lives  as  members 
of  society  and  practical  Christians.  Even  sectarian  extravagance  he 
can  tolerate,  when  it  avoids  persecution,  clothes  itself  with  humility, 
and  strives  to  promote  peace  and  concord.  He  is  no  dogmatist  him- 
self, nor  an  approver  of  dogmatism  in  others,  however  it  may  shield 
itself  under  the  imposing  name  of  church  or  state.  On  the  freedom 
of  opinion  and  speech,  which  is  the  birthright  of  every  being  who 
can  think  and  talk,  he  would  lay  no  other  restraints  than  are  re- 
quired by  public  order  and  the  security  of  individuals.  In  short, 
although  firm  in  his  own  sentiments,  both  in  politics  and  religion, 
and  maintaining  them  when  occasions  offer,  yet  his  convictions 
neither  harden  his  heart  nor  pervert  his  understanding ;  they  do  not 
check  the  current  of  his  kind  feeUngs,  or  darken  his  perceptions,  or 
mislead  his  judgment. 

These  lectures  were  composed  for  young  men,  but  they  furnish 
nutriment  for  minds  in  every  stage  of  culture.  It  is  not  one  of  their 
least  merits,  that  they  incite  the  reader  to  reflection,  at  the  same 


FIRST  AMERICAN  EDITION.  xi 

time  that  they  supply  him  with  materials  and  encourage  him  by  ex- 
amples. This  is  an  important  use  of  history,  which  Professor  Smyth 
turns  to  its  best  account.  A  mere  knowledge  of  facts  is  only  the 
first  rudiment  of  instruction,  —  an  effort  of  memory,  and  nothing 
more.  This  knowledge  is  necessary  in  studying  history,  but  he  who 
proceeds  no  farther  has  scarcely  entered  the  vestibule.  Facts  are 
the  germs  of  profitable  knowledge,  which  the  mind  must  nurture  and 
cherish,  or  they  will  decay  and  die.  In  themselves  they  are  single 
and-  loosely  connected,  forming  a  chain  whose  links  are  perpetually 
falling  asunder.  Let  them  be  employed  for  their  legitimate  pur- 
poses while  fresh  and  strong ;  let  the  reader  seize  their  fleeting  spirit 
and  incorporate  it  with  his  thoughts ;  let  him  compare  and  combine, 
reflect  and  draw  conclusions,  till  impressions  are  stamped  that  will 
become  part  of  himself.  No  branch  of  study  calls  more  loudly  for 
this  kind  of  meditation  than  that  of  history,  where  the  transactions 
of  men  under  all  imaginable  circumstances  are  laid  open,  where  the 
passions  are  ever  at  work,  and  where  the  economy  of  life  is  seen  in 
all  its  phases  and  vicissitudes. 

Another  feature  of  this  work  remains  to  be  mentioned,  which  con- 
tributes greatly  to  enhance  its  value. 

The  reader  is  not  only  taught  how  to  read  history,  and  what  use 
to  make  of  it,  but  he  is  at  the  same  time  furnished  with  the  best 
guides.  The  principal  authors,  both  in  the  English  and  French 
languages,  are  brought  before  him,  with  such  criticisms  and  explana- 
tions as  enable  him  to  understand  their  design,  character,  compara- 
tive merits,  and  the  particular  periods  or  subjects  to  which  they  re- 
late. Aware  of  the  importance  of  this  part  of  his  plan,  the  lecturer 
has  bestowed  upon  it  special  attention,  and  has  thus  rendered  an  in- 
valuable service  to  all  readers  of  history,  who  would  employ  their 
time  to  the  best  advantage,  and  derive  instruction  from  the  highest 
sources.  He  distinguishes  books  that  are  only  to  be  consulted  from 
those  which  are  to  be  carefully  perused,  and,  in  referring  to  volumi- 
nous works,  he  often  recommends  parts  and  even  single  chapters, 
thereby  relieving  the  student  from  the  fruitless  toil  he  would  other- 
wise encounter  in  attempting  to  select  and  judge  for  himself.     As  a 

h 


m  PREFACE  TO  THE 

critic,  his  discernment  is  quick,  his  decisions  fair  and  judicious, 
His  remarks  on  the  characteristics  of  Hume  as  an  historian,  and  on 
the  style  of  Gibbon,  are  examples  in  point.  His  own  style  is  per- 
spicuous and  forcible,  without  elaborate  ornament  or  studied  dic- 
tion. 

But  the  portion  of  the  work  which  will  be  most  likely  to  interest 
readers  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  is  the  last  six  lectures,  in  which 
he  speaks  of  the  American  Revolution.  No  British  writer  has 
treated  this  subject  witji  so  much  candor,  or  such  perfect  freedom 
from  party  feelings  and  national  prejudice ;  and  it  may  at  least  be 
doubted,  if  any  American  writer  can  claim,  on  this  score,  a  higher 
degree  of  confidence.  The  fault  of  ignorance,  so  justly  ascribed  to 
almost  all  the  writers  in  England  who  have  touched  on  that  event, 
capnot  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  Professor  Smyth.  He  has  examined 
thf*  American  side  with  no  less  diligence  than  the  English.  He 
has  drawn  from  original  fountains,  consulted  public  documents,  and 
taken  as  his  guides  Washington's  official  letters,  Marshall,  and  Bam- 
say,  whose  authority  he  respects  and  in  whose  representations  he 
confides.  The  causes  of  the  controversy  are  briefly  stated.  With- 
out laboring  to  decide  whether  these  causes  justified  the  measures  of 
the  British  ministry  in  strictness  of  law  and  constitutional  right,  he 
allows,  what  is  now  assented  to  by  all  the  world,  that  both  ministers 
and  people  sufiered  themselves  to  be  led  astray  by  a  mistaken  policy 
in  the  first  instance,  and  by  national  pride  to  the  end  of  the  contest. 
Mild  government  is  a  maxim  which  Professor  Smyth  inculcates 
throughout  his  lectures,  and  which  he  especially  urges  upon  every 
sovereign  power  in  regard  to  its  colonies  or  dependent  states.  This 
maxim  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  parallel  he  draws  between  the 
Netherlands,  shaking  off  the  yoke  of  Spain,  and  the  American  colo- 
nies, asserting  and  maintaining  their  independence.  The  pride  of 
Spam  was  tyrannical,  and  she  lost  the  Netherlands ;  the  pride  of 
England  was  blind  and  obstinate,  and  she  lost  her  colonies.  A  Httle 
yielding  to  circumstances  would  have  saved  both.  It  was  easy  to 
cry  out  faction,  treason,  and  rebellion,  and  thus  to  kindle  irritation 
on  one  side  and  a  rancorous  spirit  on  the  other,  till  the  breach  was 


FIRST  AMERICAN  EDITION.  xiu 

past  healing ;  but  it  was  not  easy  to  conquer  a  people  borne  down 
by  wrongs  which  they  were  determined  to  redress.  Their  hearts 
might  have  been  subdued  and  their  affections  won,  not  by  coercion 
and  harshness,  but  by  mild  treatment  and  a  due  regard  to  thar 
rights.  This  truth,  deduced  from  the  two  cases  in  question,  is  con- 
firmed by  so  many  examples  in  history,  that  rulers  might  long  ago 
have  learned  from  it  a  practical  lesson  of  poHcy  and  interest,  to  say 
nothing  of  wisdom  and  duty. 

The  conduct  of  both  parties  in  carrying  on  the  American  war  is 
freely  canvassed  by  the  author.  He  finds  little  to  praise  in  the 
British  counsels,  and  some  things  to  blame  in  those  of  the  Ameri- 
cans. He  wonders,  and  rightly  enough,  that  there  should  be  so 
much  patriotism  in  passing  resolves  and  publishing  addresses,  and  so 
little  in  paying  taxes  and  furnishing  supplies  for  the  army.  He  is 
surprised  at  the  readiness  to  contract  debts  for  the  public  benefit, 
and  at  the  reluctance  to  recognize  and  provide  for  them.  The  sol- 
diers, who  had  fought  the  battles  and  secured  the  freedom  of  their 
country,  were  dismissed  and  sent  home  without  even  a  promise  that 
they  should  be  paid.  But  he  justly  accounts  for  these  inconsis- 
tencies, and  some  others,  by  the  weakness  of  the  executive  power. 
Congress  could  debate,  resolve,  and  recommend,  and  here  their 
functions  ended.  As  an  executive  body  they  were  feeble,  in  fact 
powerless,  in  regard  to  the  most  important  objects  of  government. 
Nevertheless,  it  argues  much  for  the  virtue  of  the  people,  that  they 
could  sustain  a  war  for  so  long  a  time  under  such  a  system.  It 
argues  more;  it  proves  the  strength  of  principle  with  which  they 
were  united,  and  a  deep-rooted  conviction  of  the  justice  of  their 
cause,  that  they  could  be  roused  to  such  efforts  and  sacrifices 
through  years  of  conflict,  privation,  and  suffering. 

The  American  patriots  were  not  merely  lovers  of  their  country, 
thay  were  lovers  of  mankind.  Their  ideas  of  liberty  were  not  those 
of  license  or  insubordination ;  nor  did  they  regard  this  hberty  as  a 
conventional  privilege,  which  a  supreme  power,  however  organized, 
might  grant  or  withhold  at  its  option.  They  believed  it  to  be  an 
element  in  the  constitution  of  man,  which  he  has  a  right  to  claim  and 


xiv  PREFACE  TO  FIRST  AMERICAN  EDITION. 

exercise  for  his  own  well-being.  Men  may  agree  how  they  will  ex 
ercise  it  for  the  good  of  each  other  and  of  the  whole.  The  old  gov- 
ernments of  Europe  have  turned  it  to  the  advantage  of  a  few  at  the 
expense  of  the  many.  Liberty  with  them  is  fidelity  to  existing 
establishments.  This  may  be  all  that  the  people  desire,  or  all  that 
they  can  bear,  in  the  present  state  of  things.  The  Americans  found 
themselves  in  a  condition  to  enjoy  more  ;  they  had  increased  in  num- 
bers and  grown  strong  on  the  soil  of  freedom ;  their  habits  of  thought 
and  of  action  had  partaken  of  its  spirit ;  and  when  they  perceived 
the  coils  of  a  distant  and  irresponsible  power  gradually  drawn 
tighter  and  tighter  around  them,  it  was  natural'  that  they  should 
struggle  to  release  themselves,  and  provide  for  their  future  inde- 
pendence and  safety. 

It  is  not  inferred  that  Professor  Smyth  would  agree  to  these  senti- 
ments in  their  full  latitude.  He  thinks  the  British  system,  with  its 
nicely  balanced  checks  of  King,  Lords,  and  Commons,  on  the  whole 
better  adapted  to  the  growth  and  durability  of  a  great  power,  and  to 
the  preservation  of  the  people's  liberties,  than  any  that  has  yet  been 
tried.  But  he  is  not  an  enemy  to  republics,  when  placed  on  their 
proper  footing ;  and  he  would  have  the  experiment  fairly  carried  out 
in  America,  especially  as  it  has  commenced  under  auspices  entirely 
different  from  those  which  have  proved  abortive  in  the  Old  World. 
At  all  events,  he  is  entitled  to  the  thanks  of  Americans  for  the  pains 
he  has  bestowed  in  describing  their  contest  for  liberty,  and  the  im- 
partiality and  generous  spirit  with  which  he  has  accomplished  what 
he  has  undertaken.  If  errors  can  be  discovered,  they  are  not  those 
of  negligence,  a  narrow  mind,  or  a  biased  judgment.  His  char- 
acter of  Washington,  sketched  near  the  end  of  his  work,  is  happily 
conceived  and  well  delineated.  In  short,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
any  treatise  on  the  American  Revolution,  comprised  within  the  com- 
pass of  his  six  lectures,  from  which  so  much  can  be  learned,  or  so  ac- 
curate an  estimate  of  the  merits  of  both  sides  of  the  question  can  b« 
formed. 

J.  S. 

Cambridge,  October  6th,  1841. 


NOTE 


TO 


THE    THIRD   AMERICAN  EDITION 


In  the  present  edition  of  these  Lectures,  it  has  been  attempted 
to  supply  in  some  measure  the  want  of  that  editorial  care  which 
the  author  himself,  in  consequence,  as  it  is  understood,  of  impaired 
sight,  was  unfortunately  prevented  from  bestowing  on  them. 

The  variations  from  the  former  editions,  resulting  from  the  re- 
vision here  undertaken,  are  briefly  the  following. 

Where  necessary  to  bring  out  the  divisions  of  a  subject  distinctly, 
or  to  indicate  a  transition,  or  to  give  the  proper  continuity  to  a 
course  of  reasoning  or  remark,  paragraphs  have  been  divided  or 
united,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  case,  —  but  in  no  instance 
have  they  been  transposed. 

Quotations,  found  on  collation  to  be  inexact,  have  been  conformed 
to  the  text  of  the  original  authorities,  except  in  a  few  instances 
where  these  could  not  be  ascertained  or  were  inaccessible,  —  and 
in  some  others,  where  it  appeared  to  be  the  Lecturer's  intention 
merely  to  give  a  condensed  statement  of  the  substance  of  a  passage. 

Inaccurate  or  defective  references  to  authorities,  and  any  errors 
as  to  matters  of  fact  which  have  been  incidentally  observed,  are 
pointed  out  in  the  marginal  notes. 

Obvious  faults  in  punctuation  and  grammar  have  of  course  been 
corrected. 

The  Notes,  which  in  the  former  editions  are  subjoined  to  several 
of  the  Lectures,  are  here,  for  greater  convenience,  brought  together 
at  the  end  of  the  volume. 


ni  NOTE. 

The  matters  appended  to  the  former  American  editions  are  re- 
printed with  some  modifications  ;  —  the  List  of  Books  relating  to  the 
History  of  the  United  States,  with  a  few  additions  bj  the  original 
compiler ;  the  Chronological  Table  of  Events  and  the  Index,  shght- 
ly  amended.  The  Tables  of  Contemporary  European  Sovereigns, 
taken  from  Sir  Harris  Nicolas's  "  Chronology  of  History,"  have 
been  found,  on  a  critical  examination,  to  be  constructed  with  little 
of  their  author's  usual  accuracy ;  they  have  accordingly  been  care- 
fully revised  throughout,  —  principally  with  the  aid  of  the  leading 
authority  in  this  department,  "  L'Art  de  verifier  les  Dates,''  in  the 
octavo  edition  of  1818  -  37.  The  Table  of  Sovereigns  of  the  Lesser 
European  States,  which  in  the  original  commences  with  the  year 
1699,  is  here,  for  the  convenience  of  the  student,  carried  back  two 
centuries ;  while,  both  in  this  and  in  the  principal  Table,  the  portions 
embracing  the  present  century  are  omitted,  as  unnecessary  to  the 

illustration  of  the  Lectures. 

G.  N. 

University  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass. 
July  21,  1849. 


TO 


HENRY,  MARQUIS  OF  LANSDOWNE. 

My  Lord,  — 

You  have  been  always  distinguished  for  your  sympathy  with  the 
welfare  of  your  fellow-creatures,  of .  whatever  country ;  for  your 
ready  patronage  of  every  art,  science,  or  institution,  contributing 
to  tfie  embellishment,  or  advancing  the  interests,  of  the  community ; 
for  welcoming  to  the  hospitality  of  your  splendid  mansion  every 
man,  whether  native  or  foreigner,  who  could  be  supposed  to  have 
any  merit  deserving  of  your  attention :  it  has  therefore  been  always 
a  source  of  pride  to  me,  to  have  owed  my  Professorship  to  your 
Lordship's  favorable  opinion ;  and  these  Lectures,  the  result  of  my 
appointment,  are  now  dedicated  to  your  Lordship,  witK  every  senti- 
ment of  affection,  gratitude,  and  respect. 

WILLIAM    SMYTH. 

St  Peter's  College,  Cambridge, 

Nov.,  1839.  * 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  following  Lectures  were  drawn  up  to  be  delivered  to  a  youth 
ful  audience,  at  an  English  University,  voluntarily  assembled. 

The  reader  is  requested  never  to  lose  sight  of  this  particular  cir- 
cumstance, —  they  were  to  be  listened  to,  not  read ;  they  are  now 
published  in  the  hope  that  they  may  be  useful  to  others,  at  a  similar 
period  of  life. 

Minute  historical  disqmsition  or  research  cannot  be  expected  in 
compositions  of  this  nature :  what  the  author  has  hoped  to  accompHsh 
will  be  found  explained  in  the  Introductory  Lecture ;  and  the  maxim 
of  the  poet  seems  but  equitable,  — 

"  In  every  work  regard  the  writer's  end, 
Since  none  can  compass  more  than  they  intend." 


CONTENTS. 


MOB 

Introductory  Lecture           .... 

I 

Lecture  L 

Barbarians  and  Bomans     . 

•           .           . 

19 

IL 

Laws  of  the  Barbarians 

31 

in. 

Mahomet.  —  Progress  of  Society.  —  Gibbon 

48 

IV. 

The  Dark  Ages            .           .           .           • 

.      66 

V. 

England      ..... 

80 

VI. 

England            ..... 

.     101 

VII. 

France         ..... 

. 

119 

VIII. 

Spain,  Italy,  Germany,  Switzerland    . 

.    134 

IX. 

The  Reformation    .... 

. 

149 

X 

The  Reformation          .... 

.    163 

XL 

France.  —  Civil  and  Religious  Wars 

. 

182 

XIL 

Henry  the  Fourth,  and  the  Low  Countries     . 

.    199 

XIII. 

The  Thirty  Years' War     . 

. 

216 

•    XIV. 

Henry  the  Eighth.  —  Elizabeth.  —  James  the  First.  —  Charles 

the 

First 

. 

232 

XV. 

Charles  the  First          .... 

.    253 

XVI. 

The  Civil  War       .... 

268 

XVIL 

Cromwell.  —  Monk.  ~  The  Regicides,  etc     . 

283 

XVIIL 

Charles  the  Second 

301 

XIX. 

Charles  the  Second      .... 

.    319 

XX. 

James  the  Second.  —  The  Revolution 

333 

XXI. 

East  an(i  West  Indies   .... 

.    356 

xxn. 

William  the  Thurd    .... 

373 

XXIIL 

Anne     ...... 

.    392 

XXIV. 

Anne           ..... 

409 

XXV. 

Anne.  —  Union  of  England  and  Scotland 

.    429 

XX  VT. 

Sir  Robert  Walpole 

450 

xxvn 

Law.  —  Mississippi  Scheme.  —  South-Sea  Bubble,  etc 

.    470 

XXVIIL 

George  the  Second.  — -  Pelham.  —  Rebellion  of  1 745,  etc 

488 

XXIX 

Prussia  and  Maria  Theresa      . 

. 

.    509 

Xxx, 

George  the  Third  . 

•           •          • 

627 

xxii  CONTENTS. 

Lecture  XXXI.  American  War  .......  547 

XXXII.  American  War  ......  570 

XXXIII.  American  War 589 

XXXIV.  American  War 610 

XXXV.  American  War.  .  .  *,.-••  627 

XXXVI.  American  War  .  .  ...  643 


Notes  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  667 

List  of  Books  on  Modern  Histobt       .....  708 

List  of  Books  on  American  History  .  .  .   ,  716 

Chronological  Table         .......  720 

Table  of  Contesiporart  Sovereigns  .....  723 

Index     .  .  .  •  .  .  -  ^  731 


LECTUEE  S 


ON 


MODERN     HISTOHY'. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

1809. 

* 

I  MUST  avail  myself  of  the  privilege  of  a  prefatory  address  to  enter 
into  some  explanations  with  respect  to  the  lectures  I  am  going  to 
deliver,  which  could  not  well  find  a  place  in  the  lectures  themselves. 
I  must  mention  to  you  the  plan  upon  which  they  are  drawn  up. 
And  I  think  it  best  to  give  you  at  once  the  history  of  my  ot\ti 
thoughts  in  forming  this  plan,  because  such  a  detail  will  serve  to 
display  the  general  nature  of  the  study  in  which  you  are  now  to 
engage,  and  will  lead  to  observations  that  may  afford  to  these  lec- 
tures their  best  chance  of  being  useful. 

My  first  impressions,  then,  with  respect  to  a  scheme  for  Lectures 
on  Modern  History,  were  these :  —  That,  in  the  first  place,  all  detail, 
all  narrative,  were  impossible.  That  the  great  subject  before  me  was 
the  situation  of  Europe  in  different  periods  of  these  later  ages, — the 
progress  of  the  human  mind,  of  human  society,  of  human  happiness, 
of  the  intellectual  character  of  the  species,  for  the  last  fifteen  centu- 
ries. Every  thing,  therefore,  of  a  temporary  nature  was  to  be  ex> 
eluded,  —  all  more  particular  and  local  history,  —  all  pecuhar  delin- 
eations of  characters,  revolutions,  and  events,  that  concerned  not  the 
general  interests  of  mankind.  That  the  history  of  France,  or  Spain, 
or  England  was  not  to  be  considered  separately  and  distinctly,  but 
only  in  conjunction,  each  with  the  other  ;  each,  only  as  it  affected  by 
its  relations  the  great  community  of  Europe.  That,  in  short,  such 
occurrences  only  were  to  be  mentioned,  as  indicated  the  character  of 
the  times,  —  such  changes  only,  as  left  permanent  effects.  That  a 
summary,  an  estimate  of  human  nature,  .as  it  had  shown  itself,  since 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  on  the  great  theatre  of  the  civilized 
part  of  the  world,  was,  if  possible,  to  be  given. 

1  A 


2  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

I  must  confess  that  this  still  appears  to  me  to  be  the  genuine  and 
proper  idea  of  a  course  of  lectures  on  modern  history.  But  to  this 
plan  the  obvious  objection  was  its  extent  and  its  difficulty.  The 
great  Lord  Bacon  did  not  find  himself  unworthily  employed,  when  he 
was  considering  the  existing  situation,  and  contemplating  the  future 
advancement,  of  human  learning  ;  but  to  look  back  upon  the  world 
and  to  consider  the  different  movements  of  different  nations,  whether 
retrograde  or  in  advance,  and  to  state  the  progress  of  the  whole  from 
liaije  .to  timc-,,as  re;Siilting  from  the  combined  effect  of  the  failures  and 
successes  of  all  the  'p^fts,  —  to  attempt  this  is  to  attempt  more  than 
was  effected  even  by  the  enterprising  mind  of  Bacon ;  for  it  is  to 
appreciate  the  facts  as  well  as  to  exhibit  the  theory  of  human  soci- 
ety, —  to  weigh  in  the  balance  the  conduct  as  well  as  the  intelligence 
of  mankind,  —  and  to  extend  to  the  rehgion,  legislation,  and  pohcy  of 
states,  and  to  the  infinitely  diversified  subject  of  their  poHtical  happi- 
ness, the  same  inquiry,  criticism,  and  speculation  which  the  wisest 
and  brightest  of  mankind  had  been  content  to  extend  only  to  tho 
more  particular  theme  of  human  knowledge. 

Such  were  the  first  impressions  produced  upon  my  m!nd  by  the 
plan  that  had  thus  occurred  to  me.  It  is  very  true,  that,  when  they 
had  somewhat  subsided,  I  became  sufficiently  aware  that  objections 
like  thes^  must  not  be  urged  too  far ;  that  a  plan  might  be  very 
imperfectly  executed,  and  yet  answer  many  of  its  original  purposes, 
as  far  as  the  instruction  of  the  hearer  w^as  concerned,  and  that  tlm 
was,  on  the  whole,  sufficient,  —  the  effect  upon  the  hearer  being  the 
point  of  real  consequence,  not  the  literary  failures  or  successes  of 
the  lectm'er. 

This  scheme  of  lectures,  however,  I  have  not  adopted  ;  for,  though 
I  might  fairly  have  been  permitted  to  execute  it  in  a  slight  and  in- 
adequate manner,  I  was  persuaded  that  lectures  would  be  expected 
from  me  in  this  place  long  before  I  could  have  attempted  to  execute 
it  in  any  manner,  however  imperfect  and  inadequate  to  my  wishes. 
Having  mentioned  this  reason,  it  is  unnecessary  to  mention  others 
which  might  also  have  induced  me  to  form  the  same  resolution. 

'  But  a  plan  of  this  sort,  though  rejected  by  me  as  a  lecturer,  should 
always  be  present  to  you  as  readers  of  history.  By  no  other  means 
can  you  derive  the  full  benefit  that  may  and  should  be  deiived  from 
the  annals  of  the  past.  Large  and  comprehensive  views,  —  the  con- 
nection of  causes  and  effects,  —  the  steady,  though  often  slow,  and, 
at  the  time,  unperceived  influence  of  general  principles, —  habits  of 
calm  speculation,  of  foresight,  of  deliberative  and  providing  msdom, 
—  these  are  the  lessons  of  instruction,  and  these  the  best  advantages, 
to  be  gained  by  the  contemplation  of  history ;  and  it  is  to  these  that 
the  ambition  of  an  historical  student  should  be  at  all  events  directed. 

The  next  scheme  of  lectures  that  occurred  to  me  was  to  take  par- 
ticular periods  of  liistory,  and  to  review  and  estimate  several  of  them, 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  3 

if  possible,  in  a  connected  manner ;  the  period,  for  instance,  of  tlie 
Dark  Ages,  of  the  Revival  of  Learning,  of  the  Reformation,  of  the 
Religious  Wars,  of  the  power  and  enterprises  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth, 
of  the  prosperity  of  Europe  towards  the  close  of  the  last  century. 
These  periods  could  not  be  described  and  examined  without  convey- 
ing to  the  hearer  a  very  full  impression,  not  only  of  the  leading 
events,  but  of  the  general  meaning  and  importance,  of  modem  his- 
tory. All  the  proper  purposes  of  a  system  of  lectures  would  be, 
therefore,  by  these  means,  very  sufficiently  answered ;  and,  as  the 
plan  is  somewhat  confined  and  brought  within  a  definite  compass,  it 
has  the  important  merit  of  being  practicable. 

But,  after  some  deliberation,  this  plan,  also,  I  have  thought  it  best 
to  reject ;  chiefly  because  to  attempt  it  would  be  rather  to  attempt 
to  write  a  book,  than  to  give  lectures.  I  do  not  say  that  those  pages 
which  now  make  a  good  book  can  ever  have  made  bad  lectures.  But 
a  lecture  is,  after  all,  not  a  book  ;  and  the  question  is,  whether  the 
same  lecturer  might  not  have  improved  his  hearers  more  by  a  less 
elaborate  mode  of  address. 

Instead,  then,  of  endeavouring  to  draw  up  any  general  history  of 
Europe  since  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  West,  and 
instead  of  attempting  any  discussion  of  different  periods  under  the 
form  of  regular  treatises,  I  at  last  thought  it  best  to  fix  my  atten- 
tion on  my  hearers  only,  and  to  confine  my  efforts  to  one  point.  The 
object,  therefore,  which  I  have  selected  is  this,  —  to  endeavour  to 
assist  my  hearers  in  reading  history  for  themselves. 

Now  this  plan  of  lectures,  simple  as  it  may  at  first  appear,  will  be 
found  to  comprehend  a  task  of  more  than  sufficient  difficulty  for  me, 
and  be  very  adequate,  as  I  conceive,  to  all  the  purposes  which  lec- 
tures can  attempt  to  accomplish  for  you. 

For,  with  respect  to  myself,  what  must  be  the  province  allotted  to 
me  ?  I  must  prefer  one  book  to  another,  and  must  have  reasons  for 
my  preference,  and  must  therefore  read  and  examine  many.  In  the 
next  place,  I  must,  from  the  endless  detail  of  European  transactions, 
direct  the  attention  of  my  hearers  to  such  particular  trains  in  these 
transactions,  as  will,  on  the  whole,  give,  if  possible,  a  general  and 
commanding  view  of  the  great  subjects  of  modern  history.  This 
cannot  be  attempted  by  me  without  meditating  the  whole,  and  con- 
sidering the  relations  of  all  the  different  parts  with  great  care  and 
patience.  Lastly,  I  must  endeavour,  if  I  can,  to  state  why  particu- 
lar periods  or  characters  in  history  have  become  interesting,  and  to 
convey  some  portion  of  that  interest  to  my  hearers. 

Such  are  the  objects  which  I  have  selected  as  the  fittest  to  excite 
my  own  wishes  and  engage  my  own  labors. 

What,  in  the  mean  time,  is  to  be  the  task  that  is  to  devolve  upon 
you  ?  It  must  be  for  you  to  carry  with  you  into  your  own  studies 
the  advice  1  have  offered,  the  criticisms  I  have  made,  the  moral  sym- 


4  mXRODIJCTORY  LECTURE. 

pathies,  the  political  principles,  by  wliich  I  appear  to  have  been 
myself  affected ;  and  these  must,  all  of  them,  become  the  topics  of 
your  own  reflection  and  examination. 

It  is,  therefore,  already  evident,  that  we  have,  each  of  us,  in  our 
several  provinces,  enough  to  perform,  if  we  do  but  endeavour  to  dis- 
charge with  proper  diligence  and  ardor  the  several  duties  that  belong 
to  us. 

Turning,  now,  from  the  consideration  of  the  plan  of  the  lectures,  to 
the  mode  in  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  execute  it,  as  my  object 
was  to  assist  my  hearers  in  reading  history  for  themselves,  my  first 
inquiry  was  this :  —  What  course  of  historical  reading  it  would  be 
fittest  to  recommend,  —  what  were  the  books,  and  how  were  they  to 
be  read  ? 

The  first  direction  of  a  student's  mind  would  be,  I  knew,  to  have 
recourse  to  general  histories^  to  summaries  and  abridgments  of  his- 
tory; for  in  this  manner  it  would  naturally  be  thought  that  the 
greatest  possible  historical  information  might  be  procured  with  the 
least  possible  exertion.  I  therefore  devoted  a  considerable  portion 
of  time  to  the  General  History  of  Voltaire,  the  Modern  History  of 
Russell,  and  to  the  French  General  History  by  the  Chevalier  Mehe- 
gan ;  all  works  of  merit  and  reputation ;  the  first  and  last  of  great 
celebrity. 

The  first  advice,  then,  which  I  shall  take  upon  me  to  give,  as  the 
result  of  my  experience,  is  this :  —  not  to  read  general  histories  and 
abridgments  of  history,  as  a  more  summary  method  of  acquiring  his- 
torical knowledge.  There  is  no  summary  method  of  acquiring  knowl- 
edge. Abridgments  of  history  have  their  use  ;  but  this  is  not  their 
use,  nor  can  be.  When  the  detail  is  tolerably  known,  the  summary 
can  then  be  understood,  but  not  before.  Summaries  may  ahvays 
serve,  most  usefully,  to  revive  the  knowledge  that  has  been  before 
acquired,  may  throw  it  into  proper  shapes  and  proportions,  and  leave 
it  in  this  state  upon  the  memory,  to  supply  the  materials  of  subse- 
quent reflection.  But  general  histories,  if  they  are  read  first,  and 
before  the  particular  history  is  known,  are  a  sort  of  chain  of  which 
the  links  seem  not  connected ;  contain  representations  and  state- 
ments which  cannot  be  understood,  and  therefore  cannot  be  remem 
bered ;  and  exhibit  to  the  mind  a  succession  of  objects  and  images, 
each  of  which  appears  and  retires  too  rapidly  to  be  surveyed,  and, 
when  the  whole  vision  has  passed  by,  as  soon  it  does,  scarcely  a  trace 
of  it  is  found  to  remaui.  Were  I  to  look  from  an  eminence  over  a 
country  which  I  had  never  before  seen,  I  should  discover  only  the 
principal  objects,  —  the  villa,  the  stream,  the  lawn,  or  the  wood. 
But  if  the  landscape  before  me  had  been  the  scene  of  my  childhood 
or  lately  of  my  residence,  every  object  would  bring  along  Avith  it  all 
its  attendant  associations,  and  the  picture  that  was  presented  to  the 
eye  would  be  the  least  part  of  the  impression  that  was  received  by 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  5 

the  mind.  Such  is  the  difference  between  reading  general  historiea 
before,  or  after,  the  particular  histories  to  which  they  refer. 

I  must  not,  indeed,  omit  to  observe,  that  there  are  some  parts  of 
history  so  obscure  and  of  so  little  importance,  that  general  accounts 
of  them  are  all  that  can  either  be  expected  or  required.  Abridg- 
ments and  general  histories  must  here  be  used.  Not  that  much 
can  be  thus  received,  but  that  much  is  not  wanted,  and  that  what 
little  is  necessary  may  be  thus  obtained. 

I  must  also  confess  that  general  histories  may  in  like  manner  be 
resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring  a  general  notion  of  the  great 
leading  features  of  any  particular  history ;  they  may  be  to  the  stu- 
dent what  maps  are  to  the  traveller,  and  give  an  idea  of  the  nature 
of  the  country,  and  of  the  magnitude  and  situation  of  the  to^vns, 
through  which  he  is  to  pass ;  they  may  teach  him  what  he  is  to  ex- 
pect, and  at  what  points  he  is  to  be  the  most  diligent  in  his  inquiries. 
Viewed  in  this  light,  general  histories  may  be  considered  as  of  great 
importance,  and  that  even  hefore  the  perusal  of  the  particular  his- 
tories to  which  they  refer ;  but  they  must  never  be  resorted  to,  ex- 
cept in  the  instances  and  for  the  purposes  just  mentioned,  —  they 
must  not  be  used  as  substitutes  for  more  minute  and  regular  histories, 
not  as  short  methods  of  acquiring  knowledge.  They  are  meant  to 
give,  and  they  may  most  usefully  give,  commanding  views,  compre- 
hensive estimates,  general  impressions ;  but  these  cannot  supersede 
that  labor  w^hich  must  be  endured  by  all  those  who  would  possess 
themselves  of  information. 

If,  therefore,  general  histories  and  summaries  of  history  are  not  to 
be  read  as  a  short  way  of  acquiring  historical  knowledge,  and  if  his- 
tory, when  it  is  of  importance,  must  be  read  in  the  detail,  a  most 
melancholy  prospect  immediately  presents  itself;  for  the  books  of 
historical  detail,  the  volumes  which  constitute  modern  history,  are 
innumerable  ;  Alps  on  Alps  arise.  This  is  a  difficulty  of  all  others 
the  most  invincible  and  embarrassing.  I  must  endeavour  to  consider 
it  with  all  possible  attention. 

The  great  authority  on  a  subject  like  this  is  Dufresnoy,  —  Dufre^ 
noy's  Chronology.  After  laying  down  a  course  of  historical  reading, 
suc"h  as  he  conceives  indispensably  necessary  and  quite  practicable, 
he  calmly  observes  that  the  time  which  it  is  to  take  up  is  ten  years ; 
and  this,  too,  upon  a  supposition,  that  much  more  of  every  day  is 
to  be  occupied  with  study  than  can  possibly  be  expected,  and  that 
many  more  pages  shall  be  read  in  the  tAventy-four  hours  than  can 
possibly  be  reflected  upon. 

I  remember  to  have  heard  that  a  man  of  literature  and  great 
nistorical.  reading  had  once  been  speaking  of  the  great  French  his- 
torian Thuanus  in  those  terms  of  commendation  which  it  was  natural 
for  him  to  employ,  when  alluding  to  a  work  of  such  extraordinary 
merit.     A  youth  who  had  listened  to  him,  with  all  the  laudable  ardor 

A* 


6  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

of  Ms  particular  time  of  life,  had  no  sooner  retired  from  his  compan;y 
than  he  instantly  sent  for  Thuanus,  resolving  to  begin  immediately 
the  perusal  of  a  performance  so  celebrated,  and  from  that  moment  to 
become  a  reader  of  history.  Thuanus  was  brought  to  him,  —  seven 
folio  volumes.  Ardent  as  was  the  student,  surprise  was  soon  suc- 
ceeded by  total  and  irremediable  despair.  Art  was  indeed  too  long, 
he  must  have  thought,  and  life  too  short,  if  such  was  to  be  his  en- 
trance to  knowledge,  and  not  indeed  to  knowledge,  but  to  one  de- 
partment among  many  others  of  human  inquiry. 

Now  this  effect  was  certainly  not  the  effect  which  was  intended. 
All  risk  of  any  event  hke  this  must  be  most  carefully  avoided.  And, 
on  the  whole,  it  is  sufficiently  evident,  that  any  lecturer  in  history 
cannot  be  better  employed  than  in  studying  how  to  render  the  course 
of  reading  which  he  proposes  as  short,  that  is,  as  practicable,  as  it 
can  possibly  be  made,  —  such  as,  amid  the  natural  occupations  of 
human  life,  may  be  accomphshed.  It  is  in  vain  to  recommend  to 
the  generality  of  readers  books  which  it  might  be  the  labor  of  years* 
to  peruse ;  they  will  certainly  not  be  perused ;  and  the  lecturer, 
while  he  conceives  that  he  has  discharged  his  office,  has  only  made 
the  mistake  so  natural  to  his  situation,  that  of  supposing  that  there 
is  no  art,  or  science,  or  species  of  knowledge  in  existence,  but  the 
one  he  professes,  and  that  his  audience  are,  like  himself,  to  be  almost 
exclusively  occupied  in  its  consideration. 

But  evUs  are  more  easily  described  than  remedied.  What  is  in 
this  case  to  be  done  ?  Are  the  great  writers  of  history  not  to  be 
read  ?     What  is  the  study  of  history  but  the  reading  of  them  ? 

The  first  object,  therefore,  of  my  anxieties,  in  consequence  of  this 
difficulty,  has  been,  through  the  whole  of  my  lectures,  to  recommend, 
not  as  many  books  as  the  subject  admitted  of,  but  as  few.  And  I 
am  the  more  at  ease  while  I  do  this,  because  the  best  authors  in 
every  different  part  of  history  have  their  margins  crowded  with 
references  to  other  books  and  to  original  authorities ;  and  such 
readers  as  are  called  upon  to  study  any  particular  point  or  period 
of  history  more  minutely  than  can  in  general  be  necessary  need  be 
at  no  loss  for  proper  materials  on  w^hich  to  exercise  their  diligence, 
and  cannot  want  to  receive  from  me  an  enumeration  of  those  refer- 
ences and  means  of  information  which  they  can  in  this  manner  so 
readily  find. 

But  I  have  ventured  to  do  more  than  this ;  for  I  have  not  only 
recommended  as  few  books  as  possible,  but  I  have  recommended 
only  parts  of  books,  and  sometimes  only  a  few  pages  in  a  volume. 

This,  it  will  be  said,  is  surely  a  supei*ficial  way  of  reading  history. 
Wliat  can  be  known  of  a  book,  when  only  a  part  is  read  ? .  This  is 
not  the  manner  in  which  subjects  were  studied  by  our  ancestors,  the 
scholars  of  other  times.  But  there  were  giants  in  those  days,  it  will 
be  added,  and  we  are  but  a  puny  race  of  sciolists,  who  cannot,  it 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  7 

seems,  find  leisure  enough  even  to  peruse,  much  less  to  rival,  the 
works  which  their  labors  have  transmitted  for  our  instruction. 

I  mean  not  to  deny  that  there  is  considerable  weight  in  this  objec- 
tion; and  nothing  but  the  intolerable  perplexity  of  the.  case,  its 
insurmountable  difficulty,  the  impossibility  of  adopting  any  other 
course,  would  ever  have  induced  me  to  propose  to  students  to  read 
books  in  parts ;  but  I  must  repeat  it,  that  human  life  does  not  now 
admit  of  any  other  expedient,  and  the  alternative  to  which  we  are 
reduced,  in  plain  truth,  is  this,  —  either  to  read  books  of  history  in 
this  manner,  or  not  to  read  them  at  all. 

He  knows  little  of  human  learning  or  of  himself  who  venerates  not 
the  scholars  of  former  times,  the  great  intellectual  laborers  that  have 
preceded  us.  It  would  be  an  ill  interpretation,  indeed,  of  what  I 
shall  recommend,  if  it  be  concluded,  that,  because  I  think  their 
volumes  are  often  to  be  read  in  parts  only,  I  do  so  from  the  slightest 
feeling  of  disrespect  to  authors  like  these,  or  to  the  great  literary 
works  that  they  have  so  meritoriously  accomplished.  But  the  con- 
dition of  society  is  continually  changing,  and  the  situation  of  our 
ancestors  is  no  longer  ovirs.  In  no  respect  has  it  altered  more  than 
in  the  interior  economy  of  the  management  of  time,  more  especially 
of  a  student's  time.  Avenues  of  inquiry  and  knowledge  have  been 
opened  to  us,  that  were  to  them  unknoAvn.  The  regions  of  science, 
for  instance,  may  be  considered  as  a  world  lately  found,  hitherto  but 
parti^ly  explored,  and  in  itself  inexhaustible.  What  are  we  to  say, 
in  like  manner,  of  the  avocations,  and  even  amusements,  of  social  hfe, 
which  have  everywhere  been  multiphed  by  the  growing  prosperity  of 
mankind,  —  many  of  them  not  only  intellectual,  but  intellectual  in 
the  highest  sense  of  the  word?  The  patient  and  solitary  student 
can  never  be  a  character  without  its  value  and  respectability ;  but 
the  character  can  no  longer  be  met  with,  as  it  once  was,  new  that 
the  genius  of  men  is  attracted  to  the  inventions  of  art,  the  discoveries 
of  science,  and  the  various  prizes  of  affluence  and  of  honor,  that  are 
more  and  more  held  up  to  ambition,  as  a  country  more  and  more  im- 
proves in  civilization  and  prosperity. 

There  is  another  consideration  which  must  not  be  forgotten,  when 
this  method  which  I  have  mentioned,  of  reading  books  in  parts,  is 
considered.  Literature,  like  society,  advances  step  by  step.  Every 
treatise  and  book  of  value  contains  some  particular  part  that  is  of 
more  value  than  the  rest,  —  something  by  which  it  has  added  to  the 
general  stock  of  human  knowledge  or  entertainment,  —  somethmg 
on  accoimt  of  which  it  was  more  particularly  read  and  admired  while 
a  new  book,  and  on  account  of  which  it  continues  to  be  read  and 
admired  while  an  old  one.  Now  it  is  these  different  portions  of 
every  different  volume,  that  united  form  the  effective  literature  or 
knowledge  of  every  civilized  nation,  and,  when  collected  from  the 
different  languages  of  Europe,  the  literature  and  knowledge  of  the 


8  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

most  civilized  portion  of  mankind.  It  is  by  these  parts  of  more 
peculiar  and  original  merit,  that  these  volumes  are  known.  It  is 
these  to  which  every  man  of  matured  talents  and  finished  education 
alone  adverts.  It  is  these  which  he  endeavours  chiefly  to  remember. 
It  is  these  that  make  up  the  treasures,  and  constitute  the  capital,  as 
as  it  were,  of  his  mind.  The  remainder  of  each  volume  is  but  that 
subordinate  portion  which  has  no  value  but  as  connected  with  the 
other,  and  is  often  made  up  of  those  errors  and  imperfections  which 
are,  in  fact,  the  inseparable  attendants  of  every  human  production, 
which  are  observed  and  avoided  by  every  writer  or  reasoner  who  fol- 
lows, and  which  gradually  become  in  one  age  only  the  exploded 
characteristics  of  another.  It  is  thus  that  human  knowledge  be- 
comes progressive,  and  that  the  general  intelligence  of  society  gains 
a  new  station  in  advance,  from  the  reiterated  impulses  of  each  suc- 
ceeding mind. 

It  therefore  by  no  means  follows,  when  books  are  read  in  parts, 
that  they  are  therefore  read  superficially.  "  Some  books,"  says  my 
Lord  Bacon,  "  are  to  be  tasted,  some  few  to  be  chewed  and  digested  : 
that  is,  some  books  are  to  be  read  only  in  parts  ;  others  to  be  read, 
but  not  curiously ;  and  some  few  to  be  read  wholly,  and  with  diligence 
and  attention."  The  same  may  be  pretty  generally  said  of  the  dif- 
ferent portions  of  the  same  work.  Much  care  and  circumspection 
must  undoubtedly  be  used  in  selecting  and  discriminating  the  parts 
to  be  tasted,  to  be  chewed,  and  to  be  digested.  The  more  y(ftithful 
the  mind,  the  less  skilful  will  be  the  choice,  and  the  more  hazardous 
the  privilege,  thus  allowed,  of  reading  pages  by  a  glance  and  chapters 
by  a  table  of  contents.  But  the  mind,  after  some  failures  and  some 
experience,  will  materially  improve  in  this  great  and  necessary  art, — 
the  art  of  reading  much,  while  reading  little.  Now,  if  there  be  any 
department  of  human  inquiry  into  which  this  very  delicate,  difficult, 
and  dangerous  mode  of  reading  may  be  introduced,  it  is  surely  that 
of  history.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  books  of  science  or  of 
knowledge,  in  books  of  history,  at  least,  there  is  every  variety  in  the 
importance  of  different  passages.  Neither  events,  nor  characters, 
nor  periods  of  time  are  at  all  the  same  or  of  equal  consequence. 
Nor  are  the  writers  of  like  merit  with  each  other,  or  of  like  authority ; 
nor  have  they  written  with  the  same  views,  nor  are  they  to  be  consult" 
ed  for  the  same  purposes.  There  is  ample  room,  therefore,  for  the 
exercise  of  judgment  in  the  preference  we  give  to  one  writer  above 
another,  and  in  the  different  degrees  of  attention  which  we  exercise 
upon  one  event,  or  character,  or  era,  rather  than  another ;  and  as 
the  powers  as  well  as  the  opportunities  of  the  human  mind  are 
bounded,  it  behooves  us  well  to  consider  what  is  the  nature  of  the 
burden  we  impose  upon  our  faculties ;  for,  assuredly,  he  who  is  very 
anxious  to  load  his  memory  with  much  will  in  general  have  little 
which  in  the  hour  of  need  lie  can  produce,  and  still  less  of  which  his 
understanding  has  ascertained  the  value. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  9 

Sucli  are  the  considerations  by  which  I  have  been  reconciled  to 
the  modes  I  have  proposed,  of  strugghng  with  the  difficulties  I  have 
described. 

Before  I  proceed,  I  must  turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  say  one 
word,  in  the  way  of  digression,  upon  this  most  important  subject  of 
memory. 

It  cannot  but  be  supposed  that  he  who  reads  and  retains  the  most 
will  always  have  a  superiority  over  those  whose  talents  or  diligence 
are,  in  truth,  inferior.  But  this  only  renders  it  a  point  of  prudence 
the  more  pressing  upon  every  man  to  inform  himself  thoroughly  of 
the  nature  of  his  own  capacity,  particularly  of  his  memory,  and  to 
provide  accordingly.  It  is  peculiarly  so  on  an  historical  student. 
After  having  considered  what  he  may  pass  over  slightly  and  what  he 
must  regularly  read,  he  may  next  consider  what  he  is  to  remember 
minutely,  what  generally,  and  what,  for  the  purpose  of  remembering 
better  things,  he  may  suffer  himself  to  think  of  no  more. 

Now  what  I  would  vdsh  to  suggest  to  my  hearers,  more  especially 
to  those  whose  memories  are  either  of  a  common  or  of  an  inferior 
description,  is  this,  —  that  general  impressions,  that  general  recol- 
lections, are  of  far  greater  importance  than  might  be  at  first  sup- 
posed. General  impressions  will  enable  us  to  treasure  up  in  our 
minds  all  the  great  leading  lessons,  all  the  philosophy,  of  history. 
General  impressions  are  quite  sufficient  to  suggest  the  similarity  of 
cases.  They  will,  therefore,  always  enable  a  reader  of  history  to 
conjecture  with  sufficient  accuracy  whether  the  details,  if  referred  to, 
would,  on  any  given  occasion,  be  of  importance.  General  impressions 
are  sufficient  to  prevent  us  from  making  positive  Inistakes  ourselves, 
and  even  from  suffering  them  to  be  made  by  others.  We  are  aware 
that  there  is  something  which  we  have  read  on  the  point  at  issue, 
though  we  do  not  precisely  recollect  it.  But  the  apprehension  that 
«s  left  on  the  mind,  obscure  and  imperfect  as  it  may  be,  still  suffers 
a  sort  of  violence,  when  any  statement  positively  inaccurate  is  pre- 
sented to  it.  We,  at  least,  suspend  our  judgment.  We  require  that 
the  question  may  not  be  determined  till  after  proper  examination. 

General  impressions,  indeed,  will  not  furnish  a  reasoner  in  conver- 
sation, an  advocate  at  the  bar,  or  a  debater  in  Parliament,  with 
proper  authorities,  at  the  very  moment  of  need,  to  estabhsh  his  state- 
ments and  illustrate  his  arguments,  or  with  all  the  proper  materials 
of  wit  and  eloquence.  A  weak  memory  can  never  afford  to  its  pos- 
sessor the  advantages  which  result  from  a  memory  capacious  and  re- 
tentive ;  yet  may  it  still  be  very  adequate,  by  careful  management, 
to  many  of  the  most  useful  purposes  of  reflection  and  study ;  it  may 
still  enable  a  man  to  benefit  himself  and  to  administer  to  the  instruc- 
tion of  others. 

And  now,  before  I  turn  away  from  this  particular  part  of  my  pref- 
atory address,  I  must  confess  to  you,  that,  after  all  the  expedients 
2 


10  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

I  have  resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  abridging  your  labors,  I  am 
well  aware  that  many  of  you  will  still  be  disheartened  and  repelled 
by  the  number  of  books  which  you  will  hear  me  quote  and  refer  to, 
before  my  lectures  are  brought  to  a  conclusion.  I  must,  therefore, 
enter  still  further  into  detail,  and  call  your  attention  to  the  syllabus 
which  I  have  dra^vn  up,  and  which  you  can  hereafter  consult. 

You  will  there  observe,  in  the  first  place,  a  course  of  reading 
pointed  out,  so  short,  that  it  would  be  quite  improper  to  suppose  that 
the  most  indolent  or  the  most  busy  among  you  cannot  now  or  here- 
after accomplish  it.  This  first  course,  as  you  will  see  by  attending 
to  the  notes,  may  be  enlarged  into  a  second  ;  this  again  into  a  third. 
In  this  manner  I  have  endeavoured  to  provide  for  every  different  case 
that  may  exist  among  you.  You  have  three  different  courses  exhib- 
ited to  you. 

But  with  respect  to  the  remainder  of  the  syllabus  and  the  number 
of  books  mentioned  in  the  lectures,  which  may  be  considered  as  the 
fourth  and  last  course,  you  will  see,  on  a  little  reflection,  that  it  is  fit 
you  should  not  only  read  any  particular  shorter  course,  but  hear  and 
understand  what  may  be  found  in  one  still  larger,  even  if  you  should 
not  be  likely  hereafter  to  attempt  it.  Your  time  will  not  be  entirely 
throAvn  away  while  you  are  listening  to  the  references  I  make  and  the 
descriptions  I  give,  even  though  you  should  not  always  turn  to  the 
particular  books  and  passages  I  thus  recommend.  You  will  at  least 
know,  after  a  certain  indistinct  manner,  what  history  is,  —  and  this  is 
the  great  use  of  all  public  lectures  ;  for  public  lectures  may  give  you 
a  general  idea  of  any  science  or  subject,  but  can  never,  of  themselves, 
do  much  more,  — -they  can  never  put  you  in  possession  of  it.  Add 
to  this,  that  of  the  whole  of  this  last  and  most  extended  course,  thus 
presented  in  these  lectures  to  your  curiosity,  you  may  read  minutely 
any  parts  that  may  more  particularly  interest  you,  and  not  others, — 
the  Reformation,  for  instance,  or  the  great  struggle  in  the  times  o^ 
Charles  the  First.  Do  not,  therefore,  be  alarmed,  any  of  you,  when 
you  see  and  hear  the  number  of  books  I  may  refer  you  to. 

Finally,  I  must  take  upon  myself  to  assure  you,  that,  if  you  show 
the  syllabus  to  any  man  of  letters,  or  any  real  student  of  the  history 
of  this  or  other  countries,  you  will  hear  him  only  expressing  his  sur- 
prise that  such  and  sach  books,  which  he  will  mention,  are  omitted, 
and  that  such  and  such  portions  of  history  (of  India,  for  instance,  or 
Ireland)  are  not  even  so  much  as  alluded  to.  Believe  me,  he  will 
not  blame  your  lecturer  for  having  offered  too  much  to  your  curiosity. 
He  will  rather  suppose  him  not  sufficiently  aware  of  all  the  proper 
objects  of  historical  inquiry.  Men  of  letters  and  real  statesmen 
never  cease  to  read  history,  as  they  never  cease  to  occupy  them- 
selves in  every  different  department  of  elegant  and  useful  literature. 
Reading  and  reflection  become  with  them  a  business  and  a  pleasure, 
ceasing  but  with  their  lives. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  11 

Having  thus  endeavoured  to  give  you  some  idea  of  the  object  of 
these  lectui*es,  and  the  general  manner  in  which  they  are  to  be  con- 
ducted, I  must  now  say  a  word  with  respect  to  their  extent.  It  had 
not  been  my  original  intention  to  bring  them  down  lower  than  the 
breaking  out  of  the  French  Revolution ;  at  that  memorable  period, 
modern  history  appeared  to  begin  anew,  and  I  long  remained  in  the 
persuasion,  that  my  successors,  not  to  speak  of  myself,  would  for 
some  time  scarcely  find  it  within  their  competence  to  undertake  an 
estimate  of  this  tremendous  event,  —  its  origin,  its  progress,  and  its 
consequences.  I  had  therefore  always  bounded  my  plan  by  the 
American  Revolution ;  and,  after  executing  what  I  had  thus  proposed 
to  myself  as  a  proper  object  of  my  labor,  I  remained  for  some  few 
years  without  making  any  further  attempt.  At  last  I  thought  it  my 
duty  to  endeavour  to  go  on.  But,  even  in  executing  my  first  original 
plan,  my  progress  was  slow.  I  had  many  books  to  read  and  exam- 
ine, to  ascertain  whether  they  were  to  be  'recommended  or  not, 
whether  to  a  certain  extent,  whether  at  all.  Much  of  my  labor  can 
never  appear  in  any  positive  shape,  and  will  chiefly  operate  in  saving 
my  hearers  from  that  very  occupation  of  time  which  has  so  inter- 
rupted the  advance  of  my  own  exertions.  I  may  point  out  to  others, 
as  paths  to  be  avoided,  paths  where  I  have  myself  wandered  in  vain, 
and  whence  I  have  returned  fatigued  and  disappointed. 

Thus  much  with  respect  to  the  object,  the  method,  and  the  extent 
of  my  lectures. 

And  now  I  must  call  the  attention  of  my  hearers  to  a  difficulty 
which  belongs  to  all  public  lectures  on  history,  and  which  I  conceive 
to  be  of  considerable  importance.  It  is  this.  A  lecturer  must  refer 
sometimes  to  books  which  have  not  been  read  at  all  by  his  hearers, 
and  perpetually  to  those  that  have  not  been  read  lately  or  with  very 
minute  attention.  He  must  presuppose  a  knowledge  which  has  not 
been  acquired,  or  not  retained.  He  must,  therefore,  often  make 
remarks  which  cannot  be  judged  of, 'deliver  sentiments  and  opinions 
wiiich  must  necessarily  be  unintelligible,  and  make  frequent  allusions 
which  cannot  be  felt  or  comprehended  by  those  whom  he  addresses. 
The  truth  is,  that  a  lecturer  arranges  and  writes  down  what  he  has 
to  deliver  while,  full  of  his  subject,  with  all  the  information  he  can 
collect  fresh  and  present  to  his  mind  ;  and  he  then  approaches  his 
hearers,  who  have  in  the  mean  time  undertaken  no  labor  of  the  kind, 
and  are  furnished  with  no  equal  advantages.  The  lecturer  is  in  one 
situation,  and  the  hearer  in  another.  And  this  is  the  reason  why 
lectures  on  the  subject  of  history  must  always  be  found,  at  the  time 
of  delivery,  more  or  less  inefficient,  and  therefore  unsatisfactory,^  — 
why  they  must  even  be  listened  to  with  difficulty,  certainly  not  with- 
out an  almost  continued  effort  of  gratuitous  attention. 

I  by  no  means  suppose  that  I  have  avoided  this  very  serious  diffi- 
culty ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  one  wliich  must  belong  to  every  system 


12  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

of  lectures,  and  which  I  conceive  both  my  hearers  and  myself  will 
have  constantly  to  struggle  with.  I  have  selected,  for  instance,  dif- 
ferent books,  and  different  parts  of  the  same  book,  for  the  student's 
consideration ;  and  the  reasons  of  my  preference,  though  I  give 
them,  cannot  be  estimated  by  my  hearers,  till  the  references  I  pro- 
pose have  been  made.  Again,  I  have  directed  my  attention  more 
particularly  to  some  portions  of  the  history  of  Europe  than  to  others ; 
but,  while  I  am  dehvering  those  general  remarks  to  which  they 
have  given  occasion  in  my  own  mind,  I  cannot  suppose  that  the 
details  on  which  those  remarks  are  founded  can  be  present  to  mj 
hearers,  or,  therefore,  that  my  remarks  can  be  properly  understood: 
the  details  not  being  known,  the  interest  w^hich  such  details  have 
excited  in  me  can  never  be  conveyed  by  me  to  those  who  hear  me ; 
for  it  is  only  by  the  actual  perusal  of  circumstances  and  facts  that 
interest  can  be  excited :  cui-iosity,  indeed,  may  be  raised  by  a  gen- 
eral description,  but  httle  more.  Add  to  this,  that  when  any  par- 
ticular topic  connected  with  history,  or  any  particular  period  in  the 
history  of  any  country,  has  been  well  considered  by  any  writer  or 
nistorian,  I  have  thought  it  better  to  refer  to  the  author  than  to  in- 
corporate liis  observations  mto  my  own  lectures.  A  blank  will  there- 
fore be  repeatedly  left,  as  I  proceed,  in  the  mind  of  my  hearer, 
though  it  may  have  been  filled  up  in  my  own ;  and  this  interval  in 
the  train  of  events  or  topics  presented  to  him  must  remain  unoccu- 
pied, and  the  whole  chain  be  left  imperfect,  till  all  the  different  links 
have  been  regularly  supplied  by  his  own  subsequent  dihg'ence. 

Inconveniences  like  these  I  have  found  myself  totally  unable  to 
remedy ;  and  as  they  will  operate  as  unfavorably  to  me  as  to  you,  we 
must  each  be  content  to  compound  with  them  in  the  best  manner  we 
can,  and  limit  our  mutual  expectations  to  what  is  practicable :  such 
attention  as  you  can  furnish,  I  must  be  happy  to  receive ;  and  you 
must  on  your  part  endeavour  to  listen  to  me,  on  the  supposition  that 
what  you  hear,  whether  now  entirely  comprehended  or  not,  will  be 
applicable,  if  remembered,  to  your  own  reading  hereafter,  and  there- 
fore possibly  of  benefit. 

There  is  one  point,  however,  which  is  so  material,  that,  though  I 
have  alluded  to  it  before,  I  must  again  recall  it  to  your  attention.  It 
is  this, — that  my  hearers  are  to  resort  to  me,  not  to  receive  historical 
knowledge,  but  to  receive  hints  that  may  be  of  use  to  them  while 
they  are  endeavouring  to  acquire  it  for  themselves.  The  great  use, 
end,  and  triumph  of  all  lectures  is  to  excite  and  teach  the  hearer  to 
become  afterwards  a  lecturer  to  himself,  —  to  facilitate  his  progress, 
perhaps  to  shorten  his  course,  —  to  amplify  his  views, —  to  make 
him  advance  to  a  subject,  if  possible,  in  the  united  character  of  a 
master  and  a  scholar.  A  hearer  is  not  to  sit  passive,  and  to  expect 
to  see  performed  for  him  those  tasks  which  he  only  can  perform  for 
himself.     It  is  from  a  mistake  of  this  nature  that  they  who  attend 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  13 

public  lectures  often  retire  from  them  with  strong  sensations  of  dis- 
appointment. The  J  have  sought  impossibilities.  Thej  who  listen 
to  lectures  must  be  content  to  become  wise,  only  as  men  can  become 
wise,  —  by  the  exercise,  the  discipline,  the  warfare,  and  the  fatigue 
of  their  o^Yn  faculties,  amid  labors  to  be  endured  and  difficulties  to 
be  surmounted.  The  temple  of  wisdom,  like  that  of  virtue,  must  be 
placed  on  an  eminence. 

Having  now  endeavoured  to  explain  the  design,  the  method,  and 
the  extent  of  my  lectures,  and  to  state  the  difficulties  which  my 
hearer  and  myself  will  have  mutually  to  encounter,  it  may  be  neces- 
sary to  make  some  observations  on  the  end  and  use,  not,  indeed,  of 
lectures  in  history,  but  of  history  itself. 

Curiosity  is  natural,  and  therefore  history  will  always  be  read ; 
and  as  he  who  has  any  thing  to  relate  becomes  immediately  of  im 
portance  to  others  and  to  himself,  history  will  always  be  written. 

History  is  a  source  of  pleasure  ;  a  piece  of  history  is  at  least  a 
sort  of  superior  novel ;  it  is  at  least  a  story,  and  often  a  busy  one  ; 
it  has  its  heroes  and  its  catastrophes  ;  it  can  engage  attention,  and, 
though  wanting  in  that  force  and  variety  and  agitation  of  passion 
which  a  work  of  imagination  can  exhibit,  still,  as  it  is  founded  in 
truth,  it  can  in  this  manner  compensate  for  the  calmer  nature  of  its 
materials,  and  has  always  been  found  capable  of  administering 
amusement  even  to  the  most  thoughtless  and  uninformed. 

But  as  others  will  read,  when  even  the  thoughtless  re^d,  and  as 
history  is  generally  read  in  early  life,  it  has  always  been  one  instru- 
ment, among  others,  of  education.  It  is  not  too  much  to  «ay,  that 
the  whole  character  of  the  European  nations  would  have  be^n  totally 
different,  if  the  classic  histories  of  antiquity  had  not  come  down  to 
them ;  and  if  their  youth  had  not  been,  through  every  succeeding 
generation,  animated  and  inspired  by  the  examples  which  are  there 
displayed,  of  integrity  and  patriotism,  of  eloquence  and  valor. 

But  every  nation  has  also  its  particular  annals  and  its  own  models 
of  heroism  and  genius.  The  political  influence  of  history  may, 
therefore,  often  be  of  inestimable  value  ;  it  may  tell  a  people  of  their 
ancestors,  of  their  freedom  and  renown,  their  honorable  struggles, 
sacrifices,  and  success  ;  and  it  may  warn  them  not  to  render  useless, 
by  their  own  degeneracy,  the  elevated  virtues  of  those  who  went 
before  them. 

But  history  may  do  more  than  this ;  it  may  exhibit  to  a  people 
the  rallying  points  of  their  constitution,  the  fortresses  and  strong- 
holds of  their  political  happiness  ;  and  it  may  teach  them  a  sort  of 
wisdom  unbought  by  their  own  dreadful  experience,  a  sort  of  wisdom 
which  shall  operate,  at  the  moment  of  need,  with  all  the  rapidity  and 
force  and  accuracy  of  instinct. 

History  is  of  high  moral  importance  ;  for  the  wise,  the  good,  and 
the  brave  can  thus  anticipate  and  enjoy  the  praise  of  ages  that  are 

B 


14  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

unborn,  and  be  excited  to  the  performance  of  actions  "wliicli  they 
might  not  otherwise  have  even  conceived.  It  is  probable,  too,  that 
men  of  bad  passions,  and  certainly  men  of  doubtful  character,  are 
sometimes  checked  by  the  prospect  of  that  awful  censure  which  they 
must  endure,  that  lasting  reproach  and  detestation  with  which  their 
memories  must  be  hereafter  loaded  by  the  inevitable  judgments  of 
mankind.  Undoubtedly,  too,  the  man  of  injured  innocence,  the  man 
of  insulted  merit,  has  invariably  reposed  himself  with  confidence  on 
the  future  justice  of  the  historian ;  has  often  spoken  peace  to  his 
indignant  and  afflicted  spirit,  by  dwelling  in  imagination  on  the 
refuge  which  was  thus  to  be  afforded  him,  even  on  the  theatre  of 
this  world,  from  the  tyranny  of  fortune  or  the  wrongs  of  the  oppress- 
or. These  are  services  to  mankind  above  all  price ;  and  the  Muse 
of  History  has  ever  been  of  saintly  aspect  and  awful  form,  the  guar- 
dian of  the  virtues  of  humanity. 

There  are  other  important  purposes  to  which  history  may  be  made 
subservient. 

Unless  the  past  be  known,  the  present  cannot  be  understood ; 
records,  therefore,  and  memorials  often  form  a  very  material  part  of 
professional  study. 

To  the  philosopher,  history  is  a  faithful  mirror,  which  reflects  to 
him  the  human  character  under  every  possible  variety  of  situation 
and  color,  and  thus  furnishes  him  with  the  means  of  amplifying  and 
confirming  the  knowledge  of  our  common  nature. 

But  history  also  exhibits  to  the  philosopher  the  conduct  and  for- 
tunes of  mankind  continued  through  many  ages,  and  it  therefore  en- 
ables him  to  trace  the  operation  of  events,  to  see  the  connection  of 
causes  and  effects,  and  to  establish  those  general  principles  which 
may  be  considered  by  the  statesman,  if  not  as  axioms,  as  the  best 
guides,  at  least,  that  can  be  found,  for  his  conduct,  in  his  manage- 
ment of  the  affairs  of  mankind. 

It  is  the  misfortune  in  general  of  the  man  of  reflection,  and 
always  of  the  intelligent  statesman,  that  he  has  to  combat  with  the 
prejudices  of  those  around  him,  and  as  arguments  can  always  be 
produced  on  each  side  of  a  question,  while  he  has  only  reasoning  to 
appose  to  reasoning,  he  is  Httle  likely  to  succeed ;  but  an  example 
properly  made  out  from  history  assumes  the  appearance  of  a  fact, 
and  embarrasses  and  silences  opposition,  till  all  further  resistance  is 
at  length,  in  some  succeeding  generation,  withdrawn.  It  is  thus 
that  a  Montesquieu,  a  Smith,  or  a  Hume,  by  the  application  of 
general  principles,  exemplified  by  facts,  to  systems  of  national  pol- 
icy, may  sometimes  be  enabled,  however  slowly,  to  expand  and  rec- 
tify the  contracted  and  unwilhng  understandings  of  mankind. 

Such  are  the  uses  of  history,  the  uses  which  it  has  always  served. 
There  are  others  to  which  it  might  be  made  subservient. 

It  might  teacli  lessons  of  moderation  to  governments,  and,  when 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  15 

t!ie  lesson  is  somewhat  closely  presented,  it  sometimes  does.  But 
cabinets  are  successive  collections  of  men  whose  personal  experience 
has  not  been  long  continued ;  and  they  therefore  act  too  often  with 
the  blind  passions  of  an  individual,  and  are  so  habituated  to  tem- 
porary expedients,  to  making  provision  for  the  day  which  is  going 
over  them,  and  to  the  rough  management  of  mankind,  that,  when 
they  are  approached  by  the  man  of  refledlion  and  prospective  wis- 
dom, they  are  not  sufficiently  disposed  to  Hsten  to  what  he  has  to 
suggest  or  to  object ;  they  are  too  apt  to  dismiss  with  little  cer- 
emony his  admonitions  and  his  plans ;  and  when  they  speak  of  them, 
it  is,  for  the  most  part,  in  some  language  of  their  own,  under  some 
general  appellation  of  "  theory  and  nonsense,"  or  perhaps  of 
"  metaphysics." 

History,  by  its  general  portraits  of  different  states  and  kingdoms, 
might  teach  any  particular  people  the  infinite  diversity  of  human 
characters  and  opinions,  and  inspire  them  with  sentiments  of  general 
kindness  and  toleration  abroad  and  at  home.  But  history  is,  on  the 
contrary,  generally  converted  by  a  people  to  the  purpose  of  perpet- 
uating religious  or  political  dissensions,  and  of  hardening  those 
antipathies  which  it  should  rather  remove  or  soften ;  its  examples 
are  appealed  to ;  the  characters  of  oifence  and  blood,  that  were  ob- 
literated or  grown  faint  by  age,  are  traced  out  and  colored  anew ; 
and  it  is  forgotten  that  such  unhappy  animosities  have  no  longer  any 
proper  object  or  reasonable  excuse. 

Having  thus  endeavoured  to  give  some  general,  idea  of  the  pur- 
poses and  value  of  history,  it  is  necessary,  before  I  conclude,  to 
observe,  that-  there  is  one  objection  to  history,  too  imposing  and  too 
weighty  not  to  be  alluded  to  and  examined.  It  is  no  other  than 
this,  —  that  history,  after  all,  is  not  truth ;  that  it  neither  is  nor 
ever  can  be ;  that  the  affairs  of  the  world  are  carried  on  by  a  ma- 
chinery known  only  to  the  real  actors  in  the  scene,  the  rulers  of 
kingdoms  and  the  ministers  of  cabinets,  —  a  machinery  which  must 
for  ever  be  concealed  from  the  observation  of  the  public,  partic- 
ularly of  historians,  men  of  study  and  retirement,  who  know  nothing 
of  that  business  of  the  world  which  they  are  so  ready  to  describe 
and  to  explain. 

This  is  not  unfrequently  the  language  of  ministers  themselves,  at 
least  of  those  who  are  somewhat  of  an  ordinary  cast,  —  practical 
men,  as  they  are  called ;  more  distinguished  for  their  talents  in  the 
despatch  of  business  than  for  their  genius.  "  Do  not  read  history 
to  me,"  said  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  one  of  the  best  specimens  of 
them,  —  (his  son,  it  seems,  had  hoped,  in  this  manner,  to  amuse  the 
languor  of  a  man  who,  because  he  was  no  longer  in  office,  knew  not 
how  to  employ  himself,)  — "  Do  not  read  history,  for  that  I  know 
must  be  false." 

Lord  Bolingbroke,  on  the  contrary,  a  statesman  also,  writes  let- 


16  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

ters,  in  his  retirement,  on  the  study  and  use  of  history,  and  even 
discusses  the  very  point  before  us,  and  maintains  the  credibility  of 
history. 

Ministers  like  Sir  Robert  "Walpole  may  on  these  occasions  be  not 
a  little  suspected  of  something  like  affectation,  —  of  being  dupes  to 
their  art.  Our  own  king  James  the  First  was  the  most  egregious 
pedant  of  this  kind  on  ifecord ;  the  mysteries  of  his  state-craft,  as 
he  called  it,  were  deemed  by  him  to  be  so  profound,  that  they  were 
not  to  be  comprehended  even  by  the  houses  of  Parliament  or  men 
of  any  ordinary  nature ;  and  Walpole  himself  might  have  been 
thought  by  this  royal  trifler  as  unfit  as  the  historian  was  thought  by 
Walpole  to  penetrate  into  the  secrets  of  the  world. 

The  short  state  of  the  question  seems  to  be,  that  history  consists 
of  the  narrative  of  facts,  and^  of  explanations  of  those  facts,  —  that 
the  facts  and  events  are  points  which  are  perfectly  ascertainable. 
Nor  will  this,  indeed,  be  denied.  But  with  respect  to  the  explana- 
tions, how  the  events  related  came  actually  to  take  place,  points  of 
this  kind  must  always  be  matters  of  investigation,  to  be  traced  out 
by  the  same  processes  of  reasoning  which  are  applied  on  all  similar 
occasions  through  life,  —  from  a  comparison  of  events  and  of  ap- 
pearances with  the  acknowledged  principles  of  human  actions.  Mis- 
takes may  sometimes  be  made,  as  by  juries  on  a  trial ;  but  this 
is  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  concluding  that  no  judgment  can  be 
formed. 

It  is  impossible,  to  say,  in  general,  that  explanations  always  can  be 
given,  or  never  can  be  given ;  each  particular  point  becomes  a  par- 
ticular question,  to  be  decided  on  by  its  own  merits ;  in  every  in- 
stance, the  proper  inquiry  is,  whether  the  explanation  offered  be  or 
be  not  sufficient. 

Historians  have  always  affected,  and  have  generally  exercised, 
great  circumspection  in  their  decisions.  It  must  be  remembered 
what  the  merits  of  an  historian  are  supposed  to  be ;  not  eloquence, 
not  imagination,  not  science,  —  but  patience,  discrimination,  and 
caution,  —  diligence  in  amassing  his  materials,  strict  impartiality  in 
displaying  them,  sound  judgment  in  deciding  upon  them. 

Mankind  endeavour,  in  the  same  manner,  to  judge,  in  their  turn, 
upon  their  historians ;  their  sources  of  intelligence,  their  industry, 
their  candor,  their  good  sense,  —  all  these  become  the  subjects  of 
the  public  criticism ;  and  at  last  a  decision  is  pronounced,  a  decision 
that  is  not  likely  to  be  ultimately  wrong. 

It  is  not  pretended,  that  history,  if  written  at  the  time,  can  be  in 
all  points  depended  upon ;  or  that  truth  can  become  entirely  visible 
till  some  interval  has  elapsed,  and  the  various  causes  that  are  always 
operating  to  produce  the  discovery  of  it  have  had  full  opportunity 
to  act. 

And  lastly,  there  are  facts  and  events  that  have  occurred  in  the 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  17 

world,  of  which  history  does  not  undertake  to  give  any  solution ;  and 
historical  writers  are  certainly  not  guilty  of  the  folly  of  professing  to 
explain  every  thing. 

Were  any  of  these  ordinary  ministers  to  he  asked  what  means  they 
always  employed  in  the  management  of  mankind,  they  vrould  answer, 
without  hesitation,  Their  leading  interests  and  passions ;  and  they 
would  laugh  at  any  of  their  associates  in  a  cabinet  who  depended 
upon  the  more  delicate  principles  of  individual  character.  Would  it 
not  be  strange,  then,  that  such  leading  interests  and  passions  as  they 
have  made  use  of  should  not  be  afterwards  visible  to  the  eyes  of  an 
historian  ?  Are  they  not  themselves,  though  sitting  in  a  cabinet, 
collections  of  men,  influenced  by  their  o^Yn  leading  interests  and  pas- 
sions, like  their  fellow-mortals  without?  How  are  these,  in  like 
manner,  to  remain  for  ever  impenetrable  and  unintelligible  ? 

Finally,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  writers  of  history  are  by  no 
means  to  be  considered  as  excluded  from  all  knowledge  of  those  petty 
intrigues  on  which  so  much  is  supposed  to  depend.  Private  memoirs 
and  the  letters  of  actors  in  the  scene  are  very  often  referred  to  by 
historians ;  they  are  sought  for  with  diligence,  they  are  always 
thoroughly  sifted  and  examined.  In  the  course  of  half  a  century 
after  the  events,  the  public  are  generally  put  into  possession  of  such 
documents  as  even  the  objectors  to  history  ought  to  think  sufficient  to 
explain  the  mysteries  of  intrigue,  and,  therefore,  even  in  their  view 
of  the  subject,  the  transactions  of  the  world. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  to  call  history  a  romance,  and  to  say  that 
it  must  necessarily  be  false,  is  to  confound  all  distinctions  of  human 
testimony,  criticism,  andj'udgment.  Sweeping  positions  of  this  kind 
.occur  in  other  subjects  as  well  as  this  of  the  study  of  history ;  and, 
after  a  little  examination,  may  be  quietly  dismissed,  as  the  offspring 
of  indolence  or  spleen,  or  that  love  of  paradox,  which  may  sometimes 
assist  the  sagacity,  but  more  often  misleads  the  decisions  of  the 
understanding. 

One  word  more  in  reference  to  this  objection,  and  I  have  done. 
Something  may,  perhaps,  be  conceded  to  it.  It  is  always  difficult  to 
estimate,  with  perfect  accuracy,  the  moral  characters  of  men ;  that 
is,  to  compare  exactly  the  temptation  that  has  been  incurred  with  the 
resistance  that  has  been  made,  —  the  precise  motives  of  the  agent 
with  his  actual  conduct.  And  this,  which  is  so  true  in  private  life, 
may  be  still  more  so  in  public.  It  may  not  always  be  easy  to  deter- 
mine, in  a  minister  or  a  party,  what  there  was  of  mistake,  what  of 
good  intention,  what  of  uncontrollable  necessity,  in  their  apparent 
feults. 

It  may  be  allowed,  therefore,  that  the  moral  characters  of  states- 
men may  not  always  be  exactly  estimated.  But  it  must  be  observed, 
at  the  same  time,  that  in  many  instances  these  moral  characters  are 
appreciated  differently  by  different  historians,  and  are  confessedly  a 
3  B* 


18  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

subject  of  historical  difficulty ;  that  here,  therefore,  no  mistake  is 
made  ;  and  that  mankind,  though  very  likely  to  praise  or  censure  too 
vehemently  at  first,  are  not  likely  to  be  materially  inaccurate  at  last. 
Add  to  this,  that  statesmen,  who  perceive  that  their  conduct  may 
hereafter  be  liable  to  misrepresentation,  have  it  always  in  their  power, 
and  have  in  general  been  induced,  to  leave  documents  to  their  family 
for  the  purpose  of  explaining  their  views  and  justifying  their  meas- 
ures ;  and  as  they  know  beforehand  the  nature  of  that  tribunal  of 
posterity  which  is  to  determine  on  their  merits,  the  conclusion  is,  if 
they  refuse  to  plead,  that  they  foresee  a  verdict  against  which  they 
have  nothing  satisfactory  to  urge,  and  which  is  therefore  right. 

But  I  must  now  conclude.  Many  years  that  preceded,  and  many 
that  followed,  the  first  opening  of  these  lectures,  in  1809,  were  years 
of  such  unexampled,  afflicting,  and  awful  events,  the  progress  of  the 
French  Revolution  and  the  power  of  Bonaparte,  that  the  mind  was 
kept  too  agitated  and  too  anxious  to  be  properly  at  leisure  for  the 
ordinary  sympathies  of  peaceful  study.  This  effect  had  been  more 
particularly  felt  by  those  who  were  to  read  history.  Who  could  be 
interested  about  the  German  constitution,  when  it  was  no  more  ? 
about  the  republics  of  Holland  or  of  Italy,  when  they  had  perished  ? 
Who  could  turn  to  the  Muse  of  History,  when  she  seemed  to  have 
lost  her  proper  character,  —  not  fitted,  as  she  once  had  been,  to 
show  us  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  and  the  glory  of  them,  but  rather, 
like  the  Sibyl,  to  conduct  us  to  the  land  of  shades,  to  a  world  that 
could  no  longer  be  thought  our  own  ?  I  need  no  longer  endeavour  to 
fortify  my  hearers  against  the  languor  and  the  very  distaste  for  his- 
tory which  circumstances  so  melancholy  werp  so  fitted  to  produce. 
But  the  leading  remark  which  I  then  made  I  may  still  retain.  It 
was  this :  —  That,  though  the  more  minute  peculiarities  of  history 
may  cease  to  engage  our  attention,  its  graver  subjects  may  have  now, 
more  than  ever,  a  claim  upon  our  powers  of  reflection  and  inquiry. 
History  may  have  less  of  amusement  for  our  leisure,  but  may  oifer 
much  more  of  instruction  for  our  active  thoughts.  The  mere  relator 
of  events  may  be  now  less  fitted  to  detain  us  with  his  details  ;  but  to 
the  philosophic  historian  we  shall  henceforward  be  compelled  to  listen 
with  a  new  and  deeper  anxiety.  If  history  be  the  school  of  mankind, 
it  must  be  confessed  that  its  lessons  are  at  length  but  too  complete ; 
and  that  states  and  empires  may  now  be  considered  in  all  their  posi- 
tions and  relations,  from  the  commencement  to  the  termination  of 
their  political  existence.  We  may  see  what  have  been  the  causes  of 
their  prosperity ;  we  may  trace  the  steps  by  which  they  have  de- 
scended to  degradation  and  ruin. 

The  truth  is,  that  these  tremendous  years  have  made  such  studies 
as  we  are  now  to  engage  in,  considered  in  this  point  of  view,  of  far 
more  than  ordinary  importance  ;  and,  whether  we  consider  the  situa- 
tion of  the  world,  or  of  our  own  domestic  polity,  it  is  but  too  plain 


BARBARIANS   AND   ROMANS.  19 

that  neither  indolence  nor  ignorance  can  be  any  longer  admitted  in 
our  young  men  of  education  and  property ;  it  is  but  too  plain  that 
political  mistakes,  at  all  times  dangerous,  may  to  us  be  fatal ;  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  say  how  much  may  not  depend  on  the  intelligence 
and  virtue  of  the  rising  generation. 


LECTURE   I. 

1809. 

BARBARIANS   AND   ROMANSr 

Op  the  ancient  world  we  derive  our  knowledge  from  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  and  the  writings  of  Greece  and  Rome.  We  have  no  other 
sources  of  information  on  which  we  can  well  depend ;  but  every  such 
information  must  be  at  all  times  interesting.  There  is  no  nation, 
however  removed  from  us  by  distance  or  by  time,  whose  history  will 
not  be  always  a  subject  of  rational  curiosity  to  a  reflecting  mind  ;  yet 
the  student  of  ancient  history  will  find  his  attention  irresistibly  drawn 
to  three  particular  nations,  —  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  the  Jews. 
These  are  names  for  ever  associated  with  our  best  feelings  and  our 
first  interests.  The  poets  and  the  orators,  the  sages  and  the  heroes, 
of  Greece  and  Rome  still  animate  our  imaginations  and  instruct  our 
minds  ;  and  the  lawgiver  of  Israel  led  his  people  from  Egypt  to  give 
birth  to  the  prophets  of  our  rehgion,  and,  when  the  fulness  of  time 
was  come,  to  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

Ancient  history  is  not  excluded,  a  knowledge  of  it  is  presupposed, 
in  the  study  of  modern  history,  —  a  knowledge,  at  least,  of  those 
events  which  can  now  be  ascertained,  and  of  those  nations  more  par- 
ticularly whose  taste,  philosophy,  and  religion  are  still  visible  in  our 
own.  Ancient  history  at  last  conducts  us  to  the  exclusive  considera- 
tion of  the  Romans.  Rome  is  the  only  figure  left  in  the  foregroimd 
of  the  picture ;  but  in  the  distance  are  seen  the  northern  nations, 
who  are  now  to  come  forward  and  to  share  with  the  Romans  our  curi- 
osity and  attention. 

These  nations  had  already  been  but  too  well  known  to  the  Roman 
people.  They  had  destroyed  five  consular  armies,  —  encountered 
Marius,  —  contended  with  Julius  Caesar,  —  annihilated  Varus  and  his 
three  legions,  and  given  the  title  of  Germanicus  to  the  first  Roman 
of  his  age. 


20  LECTURE   I. 

In  tlie  time  of  Marcus  Antoninus  a  general  union  was  forme  i  by 
the  Barbarians,  and  they  were  not  subdued  till  after  a  long  and 
doubtful  conflict. 

About  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  under  the  reign  of  Valerian 
and  Gallienus,  they  began  everywhere  to  press  forward,  and  were 
seen  fairly  struggling  with  the  Romans  for  the  empire  of  Europe. 

Here,  then,  we  are  to  make  our  first  pause ;  we  are  to  stop  and 
reflect  upon  the  scene  before  us.  We  have  the  civilized  and  unciv- 
ilized portions  of  the  world  contending^  —  w^e  have  the  two  great 
divisions  of  mankind,  which  then  existed,  drawn  up  in  array.  What 
was  the  exact  character  of  each  ?  Which  was  likely  to  prevail  ? 
What  i^as  to  be  the  result  of  this  strange-  and  tremendous  colhsion  ? 
These  are  the  great  questions  that  occur  at  this  remarkable  juncture, 
at  this  critical  interval  between  the  ancient  and  modern  history  of  the 
European  nations.  We  are  not  without  our  means  of  inquiry  into 
this  interesting  subject.  We  will  take  each  of  these  questions  in 
its  order. 

1st.  What  were  the  exact  characters  of  the  Barbarians  and  the 
Romans  at  this  extraordinary  crisis  ?  With  respect  to  the  Barba- 
rians, —  fortunately  for  us,  they  fell  under  the  observation,  first  of 
one  of  the  most  celebrated  men,  and  afterwards  of  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  writers  of  antiquity,  —  of  Csesar  and  of  Tacitus :  to  them 
we  must  refer.     I  will  say  a  word  of  each  in  his  order. 

The  Commentaries  of  Csesar  must  be  consulted,  not  only  in  the 
sixth  book,  but  in  the  first  and  fourth.  And  here  I  must  observe, 
that,  though  the  Celts  or  Gauls  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
Gothic  nations,  who  finally  overran  the  Roman  Empire,  still  there  is 
not  a  part  of  the  work  that  is  not  connected  with  the  general  sub- 
ject ;  the  whole  is  a  picture  of  the  two  great  portions  into  which 
mankind  might  then  be  divided  (the  civilized  and  the  barbarians), 
while  it  professes  to  be  only  an  account  of  the  campaigns  of  Ci^sar 
in  Gaul.  I  will  cite  an  example  or  two ;  and  I  do  this  the  more 
readily,  and  the  more  at  length,  that  I  may,  as  early  as  possible, 
and  as  strongly  as  possible,  enforce  upon  the  minds  of  my  hearers 
the  following  remark:  —  that  there  is  nothing  of  so  much  con- 
sequence to  the  reader  of  history,  as  to  acquire  the  art  of  drawing 
from  an  original  author  such  inferences  as  the  author  himself  never 
expected  would  be  made  by  his  readers,  and  perhaps  never  intended 
they  should  make.  Csesar,  for  instance,  is  not  giving  an  avowed 
description  of  the  Germans,  when  he  gives  us  the  reply  of  Ariovis- 
tus ;  yet  how  could  he  have  described  the  military  force  of  the 
country  more  strongly  ?  "  Fight  us,  if  you  please,"  said  the  bold 
Barbarian ;  "  you  will  learn  to  know  us  ;  we  are  a  nation  that  have 
been  under  no  roof  within  the  last  fourteen  years."  "  Quum  vellet, 
congrederetur ;  intellecturum,  quid  invicti  Germani,  exercitatissimi 
in  armis,  qui  intra  annos  quatuordecim  tectum  non  subissent,  virtute 
possent." 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  21 

Again,  Caesar  does  not  profess  to  illustrate  the  unsettled  nature 
of  these  nations  and  their  frequent  migrations ;  yet  these  facts  ap- 
pear in  every  page  of  his  work.  He  begins  with  the  migration  of 
the  Helvetii.  What  was  the  reason  ?  They  found,  it  seems,  their 
territory  inadequate  to  their  numbers  and  unworthy  of  their  renown. 
From  one  passage  we  may  collect  what  their  territory  was ;  from 
another,  their  numbers  :  and  as  the  population  could  scarcely  have 
been  that  of  nine  to  a  square  mile,  the  fact  must  have  been,  though 
the  country  was  mountainous,  that  they  were  fierce  and  restless,  and 
unskilled  in  agriculture.  They  stated  their  fighting  men  to  be  nine- 
ty-two thousand ;  and  with  this  force  they  were  ready  to  undertake 
an  expedition  of  this  doubtful  nature.  After  a  conflict  with  Csesar, 
little  more  than  a  fourth  of  the  ivhole  nation  returned;  that  is, 
nearly  three  hundred  thousand  people  must  have  perished,  —  a  spe- 
cimen of  the  calamities  by  which  these  migrations  must  have  been 
often  attended. 

Again,  Caesar  is  giving  no  description  of  the  unhappy  state  of 
mankind  at  this  period ;  yet,  after  telling  us  the  story  of  the  Adu- 
atici  (B.  ii.),  and  speaking  of  a  stronghold  into  which  they  had 
thrown  themselves,  as  a  last  resource,  his  words  are  these  :  —  "  Pos- 
tridie  ejus  diei,  refractis  portis,  quum  jam  defenderet  nemo,  atque 
intromissis  militibus  nostris,  sectionem  ejus  oppidi  universam  Cassar 
vendidit :  ab  his,  qui  emerant,  capitum  numerus  ad  eum  relatus  est, 
quinquaginta  trium  millium,"  —  that  is,  in  fact,  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  difficulty  in  selling,  as  slaves,  fifty-three  thousand  people  at 
a  time,  in  the  heart  of  Europe.  No  occurrence  can  be  mentioned 
more  as  a  thing  of  course ;  such  we  know  from  other  sources  was 
the  common  fate  of  the  vanquished,  at  a  time  when  war  seems  to 
have  been  the  great  business  of  human  life.  What,  then,  must  have 
been  the  state  of  mankind  ? 

Caesar  is  not  taking  any  pains  to  illustrate  the  military  character 
of  either  the  Barbarians  or  the  Romans ;  yet  he  tells  us  that  the 
Nervii,  from  the  dead  bodies  of  their  countrymen,  threw  their  darts, 
as  from  an  eminence,  and  seized  and  returned  the  pila  which  had 
been  hurled  at  them  by  the  Romans, —  "  His  dejectis,  et  coacervatis 
cadaveribus,  qui  superessent,  ut  ex  tumulo,  tela  in  nostros  conjice- 
rent,  pilaque  intercepta  remitterent. ''  In  the  next  section,  he  tells 
us,  that,  of  six  hundred  of  their  senators,  three  only  remained ;  and 
of  sixty  thousand  fighting  men,  scarcely  five  hundred.  No  doubt, 
this  was  one  of  the  most  tremendous  conflicts  in  the  course  of  his 
campaigns ;  but  if  such  facts  ever  occurred,  what  must  in  general 
have  been  the  vanquished,  and  what  the  victors  ? 

In  this  manner,  from  indirect  notices  in  the  recital  of  an  original 
author,  a  more  lively  idea  can  often  be  formed,  than  from  the  most 
regular  and  professed  description.  Such  a  description,  however,  of 
i-he  Gauls  and  Germans  is  given  by  Cnesar  in  the  sixth  book.     Of 


22  LECTURE  I. 

tlie  former  the  picture  is  short,  but  striking:  —  "  Plebs  psene  servo- 
rum  habetur  loco,  quae  per  se  nihil  audet,  et  nulli  adhibetur  concilio. 

—  Yiri  in  uxores,  sicuti  in  liberos,  vitse  necisque  habent  potestatem. 

—  Qui  in  proeliis  periculisque  versantur,  aut  pro  victimis  homines 
immolant,  aut  se  immolaturos  vovent,  administrisque  ad  ea  sacrificia 
Druidibus  utuntur."  A  horrible  description  follows  ;  a  wicker  fig- 
ure of  a  man,  immense  in  size,  the  interstices  of  which  were  to  be 
filled  up  with  living  men  and  then  burnt.  "  Alii  immani  magnitu- 
dine  simulacia  habent,  quorum  contexta  viminibus  membra  vivis 
hominibus  complent,  quibus  succensis,  circumventi  flamma  exaniman- 
tur  homines."  So  ingenious  is  the  dullest  superstition  in  contriving 
its  abominable  torments.  The  Druids,  indeed,  settled  the  temporal 
disputes  of  the  community,  and  gave  instructions  in  astronomy,  the 
doctrine  of  immortality,  &c.,  —  "  Non  interire  animas  ;  multa  prse- 
terea  de  sideribus ;  de  rerum  natura,"  &c.  But  what  knowledge 
of  any  value  could  be  taught  by  the  priests  of  so  gloomy  a  super- 
stition ? 

So  much  for  the  Gauls.  With  respect  to  the  Germans,  they  had 
no  Druids.  They  approached  to  the  state  of  a  pastoral  nation ; 
placed  their  glory  in  having  a  solitude  of  terror  around  their  bor- 
ders ;  had,  in  peace,  no  magistrates  but  their  chieftains ;  created 
dictators  in  war ;  and  every  means  was  adopted  to  make  the  nation 
hardy  and  content,  by  constantly  exposing  them  to  the  inclemencies 
of  a  German  chmpte,  and  by  banishing  the  distinctions  of  property 
and  wealth. 

Such  is  a  most  slight  sketch  of  the  assistance  which  we  derive 
from  Caesar,  in  our  wish  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  Barba- 
rians. 

We  will  next  advert  to  Tacitus.  More  than  a  hundred  years 
after  the  Germans  had  attracted  the  notice  of  Caesar,  they  were  de- 
lineated by  the  masterly  pencil  of  Tacitus,  and  that  in  a  professed 
work  on  the  subject,  —  "  De  Moribus  Germanise." 

The  figures  are  still  bold  and  savage,  but  something  of  a  more 
soft  and  agreeable  light  is  diffused,  however  faintly,  over  the  pic- 
ture. In  our  estimation  of  the  whole,  some  allowance  must  be  made 
for  the  great  historian  himself.  We  may  remember,  in  our  owa. 
times,  how  the  eloquent  Rousseau,  amid  the  vices  of  civilized  life, 
could  sigh  for  the  innocence  and  the  virtue  —  "  the  sublime  science 
of  simple  souls"  —  which  he  conceived  could  be  found  only  amid 
the  rocks  and  the  forests  of  uncultivated  man.  The  sensibility  of 
Tacitus,  —  a  man  of  imagination  also,  —  exasperated  by  the  licen- 
tiousness of  Rome,  may  be  suspected,  in  like  manner,  of  having 
surveyed  these  unpolished  Barbarians  with  considerable  indulgence. 
The  manly  virtues  were  undoubtedly  to  be  found  among  them ;  but, 
to  the  perfection  of  the  human  character,  it  is  necessary  that  these 
should  be  softened  by  humanity  and  dignified  by  knowledge. 


BARBARIANS   AND   ROMANS.  23 

I  stop  to  observe,  that  savage  and  civilized  life  may  eacli  exhibit 
the  disgusting  extremes  of  opposite  evil ;  but  the  one  uniformly,  the 
other  only  partially.  It  is  in  vain  to  fly  from  one,  to  be  lost  in  the 
still  more  frightful  degradation  of  the  other  ;  and  the  propensities 
and  capacities  of  our  nature  seem  clearly  to  indicate  that  we  are 
intended,  not  for  solitude  and  torpor,  but  for  society  and  improve- 
ment. 

Whatever  value  we  may  justly  affix  to  the  account  of  Coasar,  the 
treatise  of  Tacitus  is  still  more  distinct,  complete,  and  important. 
There  is  no  work  of  profane  literature  that  has  been  so  studied  and 
discussed.  The  whole  has  such  a  reference  to  the  manners  and  gov- 
ernments of  Europe,  that  every  part  of  it  has  been  examined  by 
antiquarians  and  philosophers  ;  and  there  is  no  labor  which  we  must 
not  willingly  employ,  if  it  be  necessary,  to  familiarize  our  minds  to  a 
treatise  so  celebrated  and  so  important.  I  must  suppose  this  done, 
and  proceed.  When  we  have  thus  formed  a  general  idea  of  the 
Barbarians,  we  must  next  endeavour  to  understand  the  character 
and  situation  of  the  Romans. 

The  original  classic  writers  of  Rome  must  be  consulted ;  but  they 
must  be  meditated^  not  read ;  the  student  has  probably  read  most  of 
them  already.  But  with  respect  to  all  the  classical  writings  of 
antiquity,  I  must  digress  for  a  moment  to  observe,  that  it  is  one 
thing  to  know  their  beauties  and  their  difficult  passages,  and  another^ 
to  turn  to  our  o^vn  advantage  the  information  they  contain.  It  is 
one  thing  to  enrich  our  imagination  and  form  our  taste  ;  it  is  another, 
to  draw  from  them  the  materials  of  our  own  reasonings,  to  enlarge 
our  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  to  give  efficacy  to  our  own 
labors,  by  observing  the  images  of  the  human  mind,  as  reflected  in 
the  mirrors  of  the  past.  He  who  is  already  a  scholar  should  en- 
deavour to  be  more  ;  it  is  possible  that  he  may  be  possessed  of  treas- 
ures which  he  is  without  the  wish  or  the  ability  to  use.  And  here  I 
would  recommend  to  my  hearers  one  of  the  essays  of  Mr.  Hume,— 
that  on  the  Populousness  of  Ancient  Nations  ;  this  essay  will  illus- 
trate my  meaning.  ]\Iy  hearers  may  probably  never  have  heard  of 
Mr.  Hume  as  a  man  of  learning ;  but  this  essay  may  serve  to  show 
the  difference  between  what  a  man  of  learning  often  is,  and  what  he 
sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Hume,  may  become,  —  between 
him  who  merely  reads,  and  him  who  not  only  reads,  but  thinks,  — 
who  can  acquire  not  only  a  knowledge  of  words  and  sentences  (in- 
vestigations in  themselves  of  perfect  importance),  but  can  carry  his 
knowledge  into  investigations  of  a  still  higher  nature,  the  study  of  the 
principles  of  human  nature  and  pohtical  society.  The  same  essay  may 
also  illustrate  the  art  which  I  have  already  announced,  of  drawing 
from  a  work  inferences  which  the  author  never  intended  to  supply. 
Of  this  art  no  master  has  ever  3^et  appeared,  equal  to  Mr.  Hume. 

But  to  return  to  our  more  immediate  subject,  tlie  characters  of  the 


24  LECTURE  1. 

Barbarians  and  Romans.  — After  such  writers  as  I  have  mentionecl 
or  alluded  to,  the  first  three  chapters  of  Mr.  Gibbon's  History,  and 
the  ninth,  must  be  most  diligently  studied.  These  chapters  may 
serve  to  point  out  more  particularly  the  classical  authors  that  should 
be  consulted ;  —  they  are  very  comprehensively  and  powerfully 
written ;  nothing  more  can  be  wanted  to  give  the  most  hvely  and 
complete  idea  of  the  Romans  and  the  Barbarians,  and  to  enable  us 
to  understand  and  sympathize  with  the  great  contest  that  was  to  en- 
sue. I  must  again  suppose  this  done;  and  the  student,  having  thus 
acquainted  himself  with  the  state  of  the  barbarous  and  civilized  na- 
tion^  of  Europe,  at  this  remarkable  epoch,  may  be  next  employed  in 
considering  our  second  question,  —  Which  of  the  two  descriptions  of 
combatants  was  likely  to  prevail?  —  what  were  the  natural. and 
acquired  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  each  ? 

When  we  read  the  account  of  the  hardiness  and  fierce  courage  of 
the  Barbarians,  it  seems  impossible  that  they  should  be,  by  any  other 
human  beings,  resisted ;  and  yet  still  more  impossible  to  suppose  that 
the  Roman  legions  can  be  overcome,  when  we  consider,  on  the  other 
hand,  their  skill,  their  courage,  and  their  discipline,  —  the  long  result 
of  many  ages  of  experience  and  victory.  Arms,  science,  and  union 
are  on  one  side  ;  savage  nature  and  freedom  on  the  other.  The  ulti- 
mate success,  however,  of  the  Barbarians  could  not  well  be  doubted  i. 
every  change,  it  was  clear,  would  be  in  their  favor ;  it  was  Bie  con 
test  of  youth  against  age,  of  hope  against  fear. 

In  the  civilized  state,  the  government  had  degenerated  into  a  mili- 
tary despotism ;  the  vital  principle  was  in  decay ;  the  freedom,  the 
genius,  of  Rome  was  gone  for  ever.  Discipline,  it  was  evident,  would 
hi  the  Barbarians  continually  improve,  —  among  the  Romans  gradu 
ally  disappear.  The  jealousies  and  dissensions  of  the  Barbarians,  on 
one  side,  might  delay  the  event ;  as  might,  on  the  other,  great  ability 
and  virtue  in  the  Roman  emperors.  But  a  succession  of  such  merit 
could  Livt  be  expected.  Under  the  military  government  of  the  army, 
—  a  government  of  anarchy  and  licentiousness, — the  character  of  the 
Roj  :an  people,  and  of  the  army  itself,  would  eventually  sink  and 
perish  ;  and  a  few  Barbarian  chieftains  arising  at  different  periods, 
of  sufficient  ability  to  combine  and  direct  the  energies  of  their  coun- 
trymen, would,  it  was  evident,  at  first  shake  and  at  length  over- 
whelm the  licentious  affluence,  the  relaxed  discipline,  the  broken,  the 
wasted,  the  distracted  powers  of  the  Empire  of  Rome.  Such,  indeed, 
was  the  fact.  The  particular  events  and  steps  of  this  great  reVolu- 
tion  are  to  be  seen  in  the  History  of  Gibbon.  There  is  likewise  a 
history  of  the  Germans,  written  originally  in  German  by  Mascou, 
and  an  Enghsh  translation  by  Lediard,  where  the  facts  are  told  more 
simply  and  intelligibly ;  and  to  the  learning  and  merit  of  this  author 
Mr.  Gibbon  bears  ample  testimony. 

The  fall  of  the  Empire  of  the  West  was  evidently  to  be  expected, 


BARBARIANS   AND  ROMANS.  25 

for  the  reasons  we  have  mentioned ;  but  to  these  might  have  been 
added,  bj  anj  reasoner  at  the  time,  the  possibihtj  that  a  new  torrent 
of  Barbarians  might  rush  into  Europe  from  the  northeast  and  the 
plains  of  Scythia.  The  Empire  had  never  been  undisturbed,  and  had 
often  suffered  very  severe  defeats,  in  that  quarter.  Such  a  calamity 
might  not  prove  fatal,  though  dreadful,  even  to  the  Germans ;  but 
there  was  every  probability  that  it  would  complete  the  destruction  of 
Rome.  Such  an  irruption  did,  in  fact,  take  place  ;  the  nation  of  the 
Huns  suddenly  appeared,  savages  still  more  odious  and  terrific  than 
had  before  been  experienced.  From  the  north  of  China  they  had 
passed  or  retreated  to  the  confines  of  the  Volga, — thence  to  the  Ta* 
nais,  —  and  after  they  had  defeated  the  Alani,  they  pressed  onward 
to  the  conquest  of  Europe.  The  Goths  themselves,  on  whom  they 
first  descended,  considered  them  as  the  offspring  of  witches  and  in- 
fernal spirits  in  the  deserts  of  Scythia ;  an  opinion  that  forcibly  ex- 
pressed how  unsightly  was  their  appearance  and  how  tremendous 
their  hostility. 

An  account  of  this  invasion,  and  of  the  nation  itself,  may  be  read 
in  the  twenty-sixth,  thirty-fourth,  and  thirty-fifth  chapters  of  Mr. 
Gibbon  ;  and  notwithstanding  the  range  of  knowledge  displayed,  and 
the  masterly  compression  of  the  subject,  the  reader  will  often  be  re- 
minded, but  too  painfully,  of  the  simplicity  of  Hume,  and  the  per- 
spicuous, though  somcAvhat  labored,  elegance  of  Robertson. 

This  dreadful  visitation  of  the  Huns  did  not,  after  all,  destroy  the 
Roman  Empire,  or  leave  that  impression  on  the  face  of  Europe 
which  might  have  been  expected.  When  the  fierce  Attila  was  no 
more,  the  force  of  his  nation  gradually  decayed :  Attila  himself  re- 
treated from  Gaul,  which  in  the  progress  of  his  conquests  he  had  at- 
tacked ;  and  this  whole  irruption  of  the  Huns  must  be  considered 
chiefly  as  a  sort  of  temporary  interruption  to  the  great  contest  be- 
tween the  northern  nations  and  Rome.  To  this  contest  our  attention 
must  again  return,  and  we  must  pursue  the  fall  of  the  Western  Em- 
pire, as  shown  in  the  stately  and  briUiant  narrative  of  Gibbon.  The 
northern  nations  we  shall  now  see  everywhere  triumphant ;  distinct 
divisions  of  them  taking  their  station,  —  the  Franks  in  Gaul,  the 
Visigoths  in  Spain,  the  Burgundians  on  the  Rhone,  the  Austro-Goths 
in  Italy ;  and  the  Western  Empire,  at  last,  sinking  under  the  great 
leader  of  his  nation,  Odoacer,  who  was  himself  subdued  by  the  re- 
nowned Theodoric. 

And  now  a  second  epoch  is  presented  to  us,  —  the  fall  of  the 
Western  Empire  of  Rome  and  the  rise  of  the  different  empires  of  the 
Barbarians ;  and,  therefore,  now  comes  the  third  and  the  last  ques- 
tion which  we  have  mentioned,  —  What  was  to  be  the  result  of  this 
tremendous  coUision  between  the  civiHzed  and  uncivilized  portions  of 
mankind,  and  of  this  ultimate  triumph  of  the  Barbarians  ? 

Could  we  suppose  a  philosopher  to  have  lived  at  this  period  of  the 
4  0 


26  LECTURE  1. 

world,  elevated  hj  benevolence  and  enligMened  bj  learning  and  re- 
flection, concerned  for  the  happiness  of  mankind  and  capable  of  com- 
prehending it,  we  can  conceive  nothing  more  interesting  than  would 
to  him  have  appeared  the  situation  and  fortunes  of  the  human  race. 
The  civihzed  world,  he  would  have  said,  is  sinking  in  the  west  before 
these  endless  tribes  of  savages  from  the  north.  The  sister  empire  of 
Constantinople  in  the  east,  the  last  remaining  refuge  of  civilization, 
must  soon  be  overwhelmed  by  similar  irruptions  of  Barbarians  from 
the  northwest,  from  Scythia,  or  the  remoter  east.  What  can  be  the 
consequence  ?  Will  the  world  be  lost  in  the  darkness  of  ignorance 
and  ferocity,  —  sink,  never  to  emerge  ?  Or  will  the  wrecks  of  literar 
ture  and  the  arts,  that  may  survive  the  storm,  be  fitted  to  strike 
the  attention  of  these  rude  conquerors,  or  sufficient  to  enrich  their 
minds  with  the  seeds  of  future  improvement  ?  Or,  lastly,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  may  not  this  extended  and  dreadful  convulsion  of  Europe 
be,  after  all,  favorable  to  the  human  race  ?  Some  change  is  neces- 
sary ;  the  civilized  world  is  no  longer  to  be  respected ;  its  manners 
are  corrupted,  its  literature  has  long  declined,  its  religion  is  lost  in 
controversy  or  debased  by  superstition.  There  is  no  genius,  no 
liberty,  no  virtue.  Surely  the  human  race  will  be  improved  by  the 
renewal  which  it  mil  receive  from  the  influx  of  these  freeborn  war- 
riors. .  Mankind,  fresh  from  the  hand  of  nature,  and  regenerate'd  by 
this  new  infusion  of  youth  and  vigor,  will  no  longer  exhibit  the  vices 
and  the  weakness  of  this  decrepitude  of  humanity ;  their  aspect  will 
be  erect,  their  step  firm,  their  character  manly.  There  are  not 
wanting  the  means  to  advance  them  to  perfection :  the  Roman  law  is 
at  hand  to  connect  them  with  each  other ;  Christianity,  to  unite  them 
to  their  Creator  ;  they  are  already  free.  The  v/orld  will,  indeed,  be- 
gin anew,  but  it  will  start  to  a  race  of  happiness  and  glory. 

Such,  we  may  conceive,  might  have  been  the  opposite  speculations 
of  any  enlightened  reasoner  at  that  critical  period.  But  with  wliat 
eagerness  would  he  have  wished  to  penetrate  into  futurity !  How 
would  he  have  sighed  to  lift  up  that  awful  veil  which  no  hand  can 
remove,  no  eye  can  pierce  !  With  what  intensity  of  curiosity  would 
he  have  longed  to  gaze  upon  the  scenes  that  were  in  reality  to  ap- 
proach !  And  could  such  an  anticipation  of  the  subsequent  history 
of  the  world  have  been  indeed  allowed  him,  with  w^hat  variety  of 
emotions  would  he  have  surveyed  the  strange  and  shifting  drama 
that  was  afterwards  exhibited  by  the  conflicting  reason  and  passions 
qf  mankind,  —  the  licentious  warrior,  the  gloomy  monk,  the  military 
prophet,  the  priestly  despot,  the  shuddering  devotee,  the  iron  baron, 
the  ready  vassal,  the  courteous  knight,  the  princely  merchant,  tho 
fearless  navigator,  the  patient  scholar,  the  munificent  patron,  the  bold 
reformer,  the  relentless  bigot,  the  consuming  martyr,  the  poet,  the 
artist,  and  the  philosopher,  the  legislator,  the  statesman,  and  the 
Bage,  all  that  were  by  their  united  virtues  and  labors  to  assist  the 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  27 

progress  of  the  human  race,  all  that  were  at  last  to  advance  society 
to  the  state  which,  during  the  greater  part  of  the  last  century,  it  so 
happily  had  reached,  the  state  of  balanced  power,  of  diffused  hu- 
manity and  knowledge,  of  political  dignity,  of  private  and  public 
happiness ! 

There  are  periods  in  the  history  of  mankind,  when  wishes  like 
these,  to  look  into  futurity,  —  strange  and  unmeaning  as  to  colder 
minds  they  may  at  first  sight  appear,  vain  as  to  minds  the  most 
ardent  and  enlightened  we  must  confess  them  to  be,  —  are  still  nat- 
ural and  inevitable  ;  and  are  felt,  and  deeply  felt,  by  all  inteUi^'ent 
men,  to  the  very  fatigue  and  sickening  of  curiosity.  Such  a  period 
has  been  our  own ;  it  continued  to  be  so  for  more  than  twenty  years, 
from  the  breaking  out  of  the  French  Revolution  in  1789.  Such  ft 
period  was  found  in  the  days  of  Columbus,  and  of  Luther.  Such, 
lastly,  was  the  period  which  we  are,  in  this  lecture,  more  immedi- 
ately considering,  the  period  when  the  northern  nations  were 
everywhere  prevailing ;  and  the  question  was,  What  were  to  be  the 
future  fortunes  of  the  world  ?  —  to  what  changes  were  to  be  exposed 
the  knowledge  and  civihzation  of  the  human  race  ? 

I  must  recommend  it  to  you  to  take  every  opportunity  to  pause  in 
this  manner,  and  to  indulge  any  effort  of  the  imagination  by  which 
you  can  suppose  yourselves  for  a  time  transported  into  distant  ages, 
taking  part  with  the  actors  in  the  scene,  animated  with  their  hopes, 
alarmed  by  their  fears,  oppressed  by  their  anxieties,  their  apprehen- 
sions for  the  future,  ^eir  regrets  for  ilie  past.  For  it  is  only  by 
this  plastic  power  of  the  mind,  and  these  voluntary  delusions,  that 
either  the  instrugtion  or  the  entertainment  of  history  can  be  real- 
ized, —  that  history  can  be  thoroughly  understood,  or  properly  en- 
joyed. ^  ^     . 

We  return,  then,  to  that  memorable  epoch  in  the  history  of 
Europe  to  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  direct  your  reflections.  The 
Barbarians  have  everywhere  broken  down  the  Roman  empu-e,  and 
have  established  their  own ;  they  have  taken  their  different  stations. 
What,  then,  was  the  result  ?  To  what  degree,  on  t|^e  one  hand,  waa 
the  independent  ferocity  of  the  Barbarians  softened  by  that  Chris- 
tianity and  those  laws  which  were  at  the  time  in  the  possession  of 
the  Romans ;  and  to  what  degreej  on  the  other,  was  the  degeneracy 
of  the  Romans  elevated  ?  What  purity  did  their  controversial  re- 
Hgion,  what  freedom  did  their  courtly  jurisprudence,  derive  from  the 
bold  and  native  virtues  of  the  Barbarians  ?  In  a  word,  what  were 
the  fortunes  of  the  human  race  ?  What  impression,  what  du-ection, 
did  the  happiness  of  mankind  receive  ? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  is  not  at  first  as  favorable  as  might 
be  wished ;  it  is  for  some  time  contained  in  the  history  of  the  Dark 
Ages.  The  Dark  Ages  were  the  more  immediate  result  of  this  mem. 
orable  crisis  of  the  western  worid.     And  it  is  thus  that  the  Dark 


28  LECTURE  I. 

Ages  are  almost  the  first  subject  that  is  to  be  encountered  by  the 
student  of  modern  history.  - 

This  is  unfortunate,  —  unfortunate  more  especially  for  the  youth 
ful  student.  Look  at  the  writers  that  undertake  the  history  of 
these  times.  They  oppress  you  by  their  tediousness  ;  they  repel  you 
by  their  very  appearance,  by  the  antiquarian  nature  of  their  re- 
searches, and  the  very  size  of  their  volumes.  You  recoil,  and  very 
naturally,  from  events  and  names  which  you  have  never  heard  of 
before,  which  you  do  not  expect  to  hear  of  again,  and  which,  above 
all,  it  is  impossible  to  remember. 

Were  you  to  fly  to  the  General  History  of  Yoltaire,  you  might  be 
able  to  read,  indeed,  the  page,  from  the  occasional  sprightliness  of 
*the  remarks ;  but  you  would  not  be  able  to  understand  the  events  and 
characters  which  you  would  there  see  pass  before  your  eyes,  in  a 
succession  far  too  shadowy  and  rapid ;  nor  would  you  be  able,  more 
than  before,  to  remember  what  you  had  read.  The  only  benefit  that 
you  would  appear  to  derive  would  be  this,  —  that  you  would  think 
you  had  learnt  from  the  perusal,  that,  though  you  remembered  noth- 
ing, there  was  nothing  worth  remembering ;  that  savages,  under 
whatever  name,  were  fitted  only  to  disgust  you ;  and  that  you  had 
better  hasten  to  parts  of  history  more  authentic  and  more  instructive. 
The  same  conclusion  you  would  see  drawn  by  Lord  Bolingbroke, 
in  his  Letters  on  History. 

Conclusions,  however,  like  these  are  not  the  proper  conclusions. 
The  history  of  the  Dark  Ages,  for  all  philosoplfic  purposes,  is  neither 
without  its  authenticity  nor  its  value,  and  you  must,  in  some  way  or 
other,  acquire  some  knowledge  of  it,  —  some  knowledge  of  these 
barbarous  times,  and  these  our  barbarous  ancestors ;  because  you 
must,  by  some  means  or  other,  see  the  manner  in  which  the  Eu- 
ropean character  was  formed,  and  from  what  elements  the  difierent 
governments  of  Europe  have  originally  sprung. 

The  European  character,  you  must  be  aware,  is  not  the  Asiatic 
character,  nor  the  native  American  character,  but  one  singularly 
composed,  and  one  that  has  been  able  to  subjugate  every  other  in 
the  world.  Nor  is  the  European  form  of  government  like  the 
Asiatic,  nor  is  that  of  England  l^ke  that  of  France,  nor  either  hke 
that  of  Germany ;  and  it  is  these  differences  and  their  origin  —  these 
difiercnccs,  both  in  the  personal  character  of  the  individual  of  Eu- 
rope, and  in  the  general  character  of  the  constitution  under  which 
he  li\'es  —  that  are  the  first  objects  which  present  themselves  to  your 
■diligence  ;  and  to  trace  them  out  and  to  understand  them  must  con- 
stitute your  entertainment  and  support  your  diligence,  while  you 
are  laboring  through  the  history  of  the  Dark  Ages. 

I  do  not  deny  that  the  study  of  this  particular  part  of  modem 
history  is  difficult  and  tedious.  In  whatever  way  I  can  propose  it  to 
you,  this  must  necessarily  be  the  case.     Those  whose  minds  are  of  a 


BARBARIANS  AND  ROMANS.  29 

philosopWc  cast  may,  indeed,  undertake  it  with  cheerfulness,  and  be 
left  to  pursue  it  with  pleasure  and  success ;  but  it  is  for  me  to  en- 
deavour to  accommodate  myself  to  minds  of  every  description ;  and 
I  shall  therefore  mention,  in  the  first  place,  what  I  think  may  be 
attempted  by  any  one  who  hears  me,  however  indisposed  to  antiqua- 
rian research. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  there  has  been  a  book  pubhshed  by  Mr. 
Butler  that  on  the  present  occasion  I  consider  as  invaluable,  —  But- 
ler on  the  German  Constitution.  Here  will  be  found  all  the  outlines 
of  the  subject.  Let  the  detail  be  studied,  whenever  it  is  thought 
necessary,  in  Gibbon.  'Let  Henault's  Abridgment,  or  Millet's 
Abridgment,  or  rather  Elements,  of  the  French  History,  be  referred 
to.  These  may  be  followed  by  Robertson's  introduction  to  his  His- 
tory of  Charles  the  Fifth.  And  in  this  manner  the  student  will  be 
conducted  through  a  long  and  dreary  tract  (which,  however,  it  is 
entirely  necessary  he  should  travel  through)  with  the  least  possible 
expense,  as  I  conceive,  of  his  time  and  his  patience. 

Li  the  lecture  of  to-morrow,  I  may  allude  to  more  books,  and 
recommend  more,  than  I  have  yet  done ;  but,  in  the  first  place,  I 
have  thought  it  best  to  describe,  in  the  manner  you  have  heard,  the 
least  possible  effort  that  can  be  required  from  any  one  that  is  placed 
within  the  reach  of  a  regular  education  in  an  improved  country,  hke 
this  of  England.  No  good  can  be  purchased  without  some  labor ; 
and  though  the  opening  of  modern  history  may  be  repulsive,  the 
portions  of  it  that  follow  will  be  found  sufficiently  attractive. 

You  will  now,  therefore,  understand  what  I  wish  you  to  bear 
away,  as  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  present  lecture :  —  That  it 
was  a  very  remarkable  crisis  of  the  world,  when  the  Romans  and 
Barbarians  were  contending  for  the  empire  of  it.  That  you  must 
endeavour  to  comprehend  from  the  writers  I  first  mentioned,  Cnesar, 
Tacitus,  and  Gibbon,  what  were  the  characters  of  'the  combatants, 
and  then  ask  yourselves  what  was  likely  to  be  the  result.  That  the 
first  and  ifiore  immediate  result  was  the  Dark  Ages.  That  these  are, 
therefore,  immediately  to  be  studied  ;  not  only  as  being  the  first  re- 
sult of  such  an  extraordinary  colhsion  between  the  civilized  and  un- 
civilized portions  of  mankind  at  the  time,  but  because  in  these  Dark 
Ages  are  to  be  found  the  elements  of  the  European  character  and 
governments,  as  they  now  exist.  Studied,  however,  though  they 
must  be,  that  studied  they  cannot  be  without  great  toil  and  patience. 
That  to  those  who  are  ready  to  undergo  such  intellectual  exertion  I 
shall  address  myself  in  subsequent  lectures,  but  that  in  the  mean 
time  the  readiest  method  I  have  to  propose  of  acquiring  proper  m- 
formation  on  this  indispensable  portion  of  modern  history  is  the  study 
of  Butler,  Gibbon,  Henault,  or  Jilillot,  and  Robertson,— his  preface 
to  the  History  of  Charles  the  Fifth ;  and  that  this  course  of  readmg 
I  think  very  practicable. 


80  LECTURE  1. 

One  word  more,  and  I  conclude.  You  have  just  heard  the  books' 
I  refer  to.  I  have  now  to  add,  that  I  think  there  are  certain  sub- 
jects which  may  be  selected  from  the  immense  general  subject  of  the 
I)ark  Ages,  and  which  may  give  jou  an  idea  of  the  whole  in  the 
shortest  and  best  manner.  I  hope,  by  mentioning  them,  to  save  you 
from  being  somewhat  bewildered  by  the  variety  of  topics  and  the 
multiplicity  of  researches  in  which  you  might  be  engaged,  if  you 
properly  studied  even  such  WTiters,  and  no  more  than  such  w^riters. 
as  I  have  just  recommended,  —  much  more,  if  you  passed  on  from 
them  to  others,  such  as  I  shall  mention  to-morrow. 

These  subjects  are  the  following.  You  will  see  them  enumerated 
in  the  syllabus. 

First,  in  the  French  history,  Clovis,  the  founder  .of  the  French 
monarchy  and  the  Merovingian  or  first  race  of  kings. 

Second,  the  Pepins  and  Charles  Martel,  the  Mayors  of  the  Palace. 
They  administered,  and  the  second  Pepin  at  last  seized,  the  govern- 
ment, and  founded  the  second  or  Carlovingian  race  of  kings.  —  And 
then. 

The  third  object  of  attention  is  Charlemagne. 

Out  of  the  immense  empire  of  Charlemagne  arose  the  two  great 
empires  of  Germany  and  France,  which  become  the  fourth  point  to 
be  considered.  Or  rather,  the  point  to  be  considered  is  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  crown  in  the  one  case  became  hereditary,  in  the 
other  elective. 

Again,  in  consequence  of  the  intercourse  which  took  place  between 
the  French  princes  and  the  Pope,  the  latter  became  a  temporal 
prince  ;  which  makes  the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope  the  fifth  object 
of  consideration. 

During  this  period  the  Feudal  System  had  its  origin,  —  the  sixth. 

Chivalry  is  the  seventh. 

In  the  German  history,  the  great  objects  of  attention  are  the 
struggles  between  the.  Popes  and  the  Emperors,  —  the  eighth. 

The  rise  and  prosperity  of  the  free  and  imperial  cities  and  com- 
mercial communities  in  Italy  and  every  part  of  Europe,  more  particu- 
larly of  the  Hanseatic  league,  —  the  ninth. 

You  will  thus  reach  the  subject  of  the  Crusades,  —  the  tenth. 

These  are,  I  conceive,  the  main  subjects  ;  but  there  is  one  yet  re- 
maining, which  in  point  of  order  I  should  have  mentioned  first,  the 
laws  of  the  Barbarians,  —  the  eleventh. 

You  will  find  this  subject  alluded  to  in  the  books  I  have  mentioned, 
and  you  will  immediately  see  its  importance.  The  laws  of  a  people, 
you  cannot  but  be  aware,  will  always  give  you  the  best  and  readiest 
insight  into  their  political  situation.  The  laws  of  the  Barbarians  will, 
therefore,  best  show  you  what  was  the  more  immediate  result  of  the 
collision  we  have  so  often  alluded  to  between  the  civilized  and  un- 
civilized portions  of  mankind. 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  31 

This  subject,  however,  is  a  large  subject,  and  many  of  you  may  be 
unwilling  to  undertake  it.  I  must  endeavour  to  propose  it  to  you  in 
some  way  or  other  that  may  afford  me  a  proper  chance  of  your  con- 
sidering it,  and  this  I  will  do  to-morrow.  It  may  be  as  well  too,  per- 
haps, if  I  then  enter  a  little  more  into  the  subjects  I  have  jast 
mentioned  ;  and  this,  therefore,  I  will  do,  though  t  must  necessarily 
be  very  brief. 

I  cannot  but  remember  how  I  have  been  affected  myself  by  this 
portion  of  modern  history,  in  my  progress  through  it  as  a  student,  — 
in  other  words,  and  to  confess  the  truth,  how  disheartened  and  over- 
powered I  have  at  times  been ;  and  I  must  now,  therefore,  remind 
you  of  what  I  have  proposed  to  myself  as  the  great  end  and  hope  of 
these  lectures,  —  the  enabling  of  you  to  read  history  -vN-ith  better  ad- 
vantage for  yourselves.  I  shall  be  too  fortunate,  if  it  is  possible  for 
me  so  to  assist  you  in  your  labors ;  and  so  to  furnish  you  with  prefa- 
tory principles  and  information,  that  you  may  hereafter  approach  the 
subject  at  once  as  masters  and  as  scholars,  —  with  the  curiosity  of 
the  one,  ^nd  the  philosophic  views  of  the  other. 


LECTURE   11. 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

In  my  last  lecture  I  endeavoured  to  draw  your  attention,  first,  to 
that  crisis  of  human  affairs  which  took  place  during  the  contest  of  the 
northern  nations  with  the  Romans  for  the  empire  of  Europe  ;^  and, 
secondly,  to  the  dark  ages  which .  immediately  followed.  I  did  so, 
because  in  that  contest,  and  in  those  dark  ages,  not  only  one  of  the 
most  interesting  epochs  may  be  found  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race,  but  also  the  first  outlines  and  the  great  original  sources  and 
elements  of  the  character  of  the  European  mdividual  and  of  the 
European  governments. 

I  mentioned  to  you  the  books  to  which  you  might  refer  for  infor- 
mation; And  those  subjects  which  I  thought  you  might  select  from 
the  rest,  as  the  most  likely  to  give  you,  in  the  shortest  time,  a  conh 
manding  view  of  the  whole. 

I  announced  to  you,  as  I  concluded  my  lecture,  that  I  should  fur- 
nish you  to-day  with  a  few  observations  on  each  of  these  subjects,  the 
better  to  enable  you  to  form  some  general  notion  of  them  at  present, 
aud  to  study  them  hereafter. 


32  LECTURE  n 

This  I  will  now  do ;  and  shall,  therefore,  have  to  mention  more 
books  than  I  have  hitherto  done.  The  fact  is,  that  I  had  originally 
drawn  up,  with  considerable  labor,  such  statements  and  observations 
on  these  subjects,  and  on  the  earlier  parts  of  the  French  and  German 
histories,  as  I  had  conceived  would  give  my  hearer  an  adequate 
view  of  them,  and  save  him  much  fatigue  of  his  spirits  and  occupa- 
tion of  his  time.  But,  after  considering  what  I  had  written,  I  be- 
came satisfied  that  I  had  attempted  too  much  ;  that  all  such  subjects 
and  all  such  periods  of  history  must  be  left  to  the  study,  more  or  less 
laborious,  of  every  man  for  himself;  and  that  they  cannot  be  dis- 
cussed or  described  in  any  such  general  manner  as  can  save  him  from 
the  necessity  of  his  own  exertions.  Allusions  mi^st  be  made  at 'every 
moment  to  characters  and  events  which  have  been  scarcely  heard  of, 
and  which  cannot  therefore  be  understood.  Estimates  must  be  given, 
the  propriety  of  which  cannot  be  judged  of ;  criticisms  entered  upon, 
necessarily  unintelhgible  ;  and  on  the  whole,  that  which  it  would  be 
a  labor  to  consider,  if  offered  in  the  sha|)e  of  a  book  to  a  reader  in  his 
closet,  cannot  be  presented  in  the  shape  of  a  lecture  to  a  hearer. 

I  can  therefore  only  mention  the  exertions  I  have  really  made,  — 
the  most  fatiguing  I  have  had  to  make,  —  the  better  to  justify  myself 
in  requiring  what  I  esteem  but  necessary  exertions  from  others  ;  and 
I  shall  sufficiently  exercise  your  patience,  if,  instead  of  discussing 
these  subjects,  as  I  had  endeavoured  to  do  in  several  lectures  which 
I  have  now  dismissed,  I  make  an  observation  on  each  subject,  as  I 
yesterday  proposed  to  do,  merely  to  assist  you  in  taking  proper  meas- 
ures for  your  own  instruction. 

1st,  then,  an  account  of  Clovis  and  the  earlier  portions  of  the 
French  history  is  to  be  found  in  Gibbon. 

2d.  With  respect  to  the  Mayors  of  the  Palace.  The  observations 
of  Montesquieu  are  here  very  satisfactory.  But  in  all  and  in  every 
part  of  these  subjects,  and  Of  all  this  history,  the  work  of  the  Abbe 
de  Mably  is  inestimable.  The  French  history,  to  one  not  a  native 
of  France,  would  be  a  subject  of  despair,  would  be  totally  unintelli- 
gible, without  his  assistance  ;  and  when  I  recommend  him  to  others, 
I  ought  to  do  it  in  the  language  of  the  most  perfect  gratitude  for  the 
rehef  he  has  so  often,  or  rather,  so  continually,  afforded  me. 

3d.  With  respect  to  Charlemagne,  the  great  conqueror  of  lus  age. 
There  is  a  life  by  Eginhard,  who  lived  in  his  family ;  and  as  it  is  very 
concise  and  intelligible,  more  especially  as  it  is  an  original  document, 
it  is  well  worthy  of  your  perusal.  But  it  is  too  much  in  the  nature 
of  an  eloge^  —  nothing  is  criticized,  nothing  censured.  The  reader 
must  think  for  himself.  Eginhard  never  speculates  or  enters  into  the 
causes  of  events,  or  their  consequences.  Thus,  he  mentions  the  great 
defeat  of  the  Mahometans  in  the  plains  of  France,  by  Charles  Martel, 
and  the  elevation  of  Pepin  to  the  throne,  "  per  auctoritatem  Bomam 
Pontificis,"  without  the  slightest  comment. 


LAWS   OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  83 

^  Eginhard  gives  a  few,  but  too  few,  of  the  particulars  of  the  private 
life  and  manners  of  the  emperor ;  —  that  he  in  vain  endeavoured, 
when  too  late,  to  learn  to  write,  &c.,  kc. 

Montesquieu  is  loud  in  the  praise  of  this  prince.  The  Abbe  de 
Mablj  is  still  more  distinct  in  his  approbation.  Their  approbation  is 
valuable,  and  should  be  weighed  by  the  student ;  for  a  less  favorable, 
but  masterly,  estimate  of  his  merits  is  given  by  Mr.  Gibbon,  in  his 
forty-ninth  chapter.  His  animadversions  seem  but  too  just ;  yet  the 
estimate,  on  the  whole,  is  not  sufficiently  indulgent.  In  judging' of 
Charlemagne,  the  student  will  no  doubt  recollect  the  nature  of  all 
genius  and  all  merit,  that  it  is  relative  to  the  age  in  which  it  appears. 

So  much  for  the  third  subject  I  mentioned, — the  subject  of  Charle- 
magne. 

4th.  After  the  decease  of  Charlemagne,  his  immense  empire  fell 
into  the  great  divisions  of  Italy,  France,  and  Germany. 

And  now  the  point  which  should  attract,  I  think,  your  attention, 
is  the  manner  in  Avhich  the  crown  in  France  became  hereditary,  but 
in  Germany  elective,  and  the  consequences  of  these  two  different 
events.  There  are  some  conclusions  that  may  be  drawn  from  the 
nature  of  man  so  clearly,  that  they  may  be  extended  to  politics,  and 
even  formed  into  maxims,  —  for  example,  that  hereditary  is  prefera- 
ble to  elective  monarchy.  The  objections  to  elective  monarchy  have 
always  been  verified  in  the  history  of  mankind.  A  thousand  years 
ago,  it  might  have  been  foretold,  that,  if  in  France  the  cro^vn  became 
hereditary,  and  in  Germany  elective,  the  one  kingdom  would  be  com- 
pact and  powerful,  the  other  comparatively  divided  and  weak ;  that, 
from  their  vicinity,  these  empires  would  subsist  in  a  state  of  mutual 
jealousy ;  and  that,  in  all  contests  with  its  great  neighbour,  Germany 
would,  from  its  constitution,  lose  all  its  natural  strength ;  that,  as  the 
crown  was  elective,  and  as  the  great  lords  had  fallen  into  a  few  ex 
elusive  combinations,  the  event  must  be,  either  that  one  of  these 
dynasties  would  gain  the  ascendant  and  reduce  the  whole  into  some- 
thing like  an  hereditary  empire,  or,  if  not  strong  enough  to  seize  the 
whole  power,  then  that  some  secondary  potentate  might  always  be 
able  to  unite  itself  with  France,  and  embroil  and  weaken,  if  not  ulti- 
mately destroy,  the  whole.  It  might  also  have  been  stated  as  a  gen- 
eral maxim,  that  the  evils  attendant  on  an  elective  monarchy  woidd 
be  lessened,  the  more  completely  the  election  was  transferred  from 
the  general  assemblies  of  the  kingdom  to  a  few  electors,  as  represent- 
atives of  the  whole  kingdom.  All  these  points  might  have  been  stated 
.ong  before  the  different  fortunes  of  Germany  and  Poland  had  become 
examples  in  history ;  and  though  it  be  very  difficult,  as  I  must  repeat, 
to  reduce  politics  to  a  science,  yet  there  seem  some  principles  in 
human  nature  so  steady,  that  a  few  maxims  may  be  formed  univer- 
sally applicable. 

The  origin  of  this  important  difference  in  the  constitutions  of  France 
6 


34  LECTURE  II. 

and  Germany  should  be  considered.  You  will  therefore,  do  well  to 
observe,  in  the  work  of  Pfeffel,  at  the  end  of  each  reign  and  of  each 
dynasty,  how  the  custom  of  election  was  preserved  in  the  German 
Empire,  till  the  right  received  its  formal  establishment  in  the  elec- 
toral college,  by  the  golden  bull  of  Charles  the  Fourth  ;  how  chance 
and  circumstances  contributed  to  this  remarkable  difference  between 
the  two  kingdoms.  This  latter  part  of  the  subject  may  be  still  more 
completely  seen  in  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  particularly  in  the  sixth 
chapter  of  the  fourth  book.  The  French  history,  too,  must  be  read 
with  this  particular  point  present  to  your  remembrance,  —  liow^  for 
instance,  in  France  the  crown  became  hereditary. 

5th,  With  respect  to  the  fifth  point,  the  rise  of  the  temporal  power 
of  the  Pope,  there  is  a  very  clear  and  concise  account  given  by  Mr. 
Butler,  to  which  I  refer.  Koch,  too,  is  very  satisfactory,  though 
concise.  The  Church  of  Rome  seems  originally  to  have  derived  its 
property  and  its  magistracy  from  Constantino.  Pepin  successfully 
applied  to  the  Pope  to  sanction  his  unjust  seizure  of  the  crown,  and 
the  see  of  Rome  was,  in  return,  complimented  afterwards  with  the 
grant  of  the  exarchate  of  Ravenna  and  the  Pentapolis.  The  inter- 
course between  Charlemagne  and  Pope  Adrian  w^as  of  a  similar  na- 
ture, and  very  beneficial  to  the  see.  Pepin  might  little  conceive; 
when  he  applied  to  the  Pope  for  the  sanction  of  his  opinion  and  au- 
thority, to  what  extent  the  sort  of  interference  he  requested  would 
be  afterwards  carried ;  and  it  is  by  these  transactions  between  the 
kings  of  France  and  the  Popes  that  this  period  of  history  is  for  ever 
rendered  memorable  to  the  nations  of  Europe.  What  immediately 
gave  rise  to  this  power  of  the  Pope,  for  which  the  world  was  so  pre- 
pared, was  the  controversy  about  the  worship  of  images ;  a  masterly 
account  of  the  whole  subject,  including  the  commencement  of  this 
temporal  authority,  will  be  found  in  ^ir.  Gibbon's  forty-ninth  chapter. 
The  reflection  of  the  reader  may  justly  be  drawn,  not  only  to  the  ori- 
gin of  the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope,  but  to  the  controversy  itself, 
—  the  controversy  about  images,  so  illustrative  of  the  character  of 
mankind,  ever  ready  to  lose  the  practice  of  rehgion  in  contests  about 
its  speculative  points  or  ceremonial  observapces. 

6th.  The  next  subject,  the  Feudal  System,  is  one  on  which  the 
student  may  exhaust  his  time  and  exercise  his  diligence  to  any  extent 
he  pleases  ;  it  has  employed  the  penetration  and  industry  cf  innu- 
merable antiquarians,  philosophers,  and  lawyers,  in  whose  inquiries 
and  dissertations  he  may,  if  he  pleases,  for  ever  wander.  With 
respect,  however,  to  the  origin  and  leading  features  of  this  memora- 
ble institution,  Ms  attention  may,  perhaps,  be  confined  to  the  observa- 
tions of  Montesquieu,  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  Robertson,  Stuart  in  his 
View  of  Society  in  Europe,  and  Millar.  In  Montesquieu  he  may, 
perhaps,  be  somewhat  disappointed.  Great  learning  and  great  power 
of  remark  are  displayed,  but  the  whole  is  perplexing  and  unsatisfac 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  35 

tory,  and  therefore  very  fatiguing :  the  inquiry  does  not  proceed  from 
step  to  step,  and  then  arrive  at  a  conclusion ;  remark  follows  remark, 
and  one  dissertation  is  succeeded  by  another,  of  which  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  the  connection ;  the  parts  are  not  combined  into  a  whole  by 
the  author  himself,  nor  can  they  be  by  his  reader.  It  is  not  so  with 
Millar,  Robertson,  or  Stuart,  or  the  Abbe  de  Mably  ;  these  authors 
are  at  once  concise,  unaffected,  and  intelligible. 

The  institution  of  the  feudal  system  must  be  traced,  if  possible, 
through  such  ancient  records  as  have  come  down  to  us  ;  and  the  stu- 
dent, by  reading  the  authors  just  mentioned,  and  looking  at  the  ref 
erences  they  make  to  the  Capitularies  and  state  papers  which  appear 
in  Baluze,  if  he  has  not  the  greater  work  of  the  Benedictines  near 
him,  "  Recueil  des  Historiens  des  Gaules  et  de  la  France,"  may  suf- 
ficiently understand  the  nature  of  this  important  subject.  The  insti- 
tution itself,  though  destined  so  materially  to  affect  the  fonn  and 
happiness  of  society,  grew  up  insensibly,  and  its  steps  and  gradations 
cannot  now  be  marked.  IJpon  consulting  the  books  I  have  recom- 
mended, it  will  appear,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  notion  of  the  feudal 
system  which  is  generally  formed  is  not  accurate.  It  does  not  seem 
to  have  been,  as  is  supposed,  a  system  adopted  by  the  northern  na- 
tions merely  for  the  sake  of  preserving  their  conquests ;  even  Dr. 
Robertson  himself,  in  his  earher  consideration  of  this  subject,  seems 
to  have  too  nearly  approached  tp  some  such  mistake  as  this.  It  will 
be  found  that  lands  w^ere  held  originally  by  each  soldier  as  his  own, 
allodial, — his  share  of  the  spoil,  on  the  first  conquest  of  a  country.  In 
the  next  place,  lands  were  held  as  heneficia,  —  lands  given  by  the  king 
or  leader.  But  a  fief  is  more  than  all  this  ;  it  is  lands  held  on  a  con- 
dition of  mihtary  or  other  service,  on  a  condition  of  vassalage  to  some 
superior  lord.  The  Abbe  de  Mably  makes  it  sufficiently  probable 
that  beneficia  of  this  kind  —  that  is,  that  fiefs  —  were  first  introduced 
by  Charles  Martel. 

The  authors  I  have  referred  to  explain  sufficiently  the  progress  of 
this  system :  how  the  fiefs  became  at  last  hereditary ;  how  the  system 
of  rear  fief  and  rear  vassal,  of  fief  within  fief,  at  last  obtained  ;  how 
the  same  general  system,  with  various  distinctions,  was  extended  to 
ecclesiastical  property  ;  how,  at  last,  all  the  property  was  converted 
(allodial  as  w§ll  as  beneficial),  upon  the  regular  piinciples  of  human 
nature,  into  feudal  property ;  how  kingdoms  fell  into  a  few  gi-eat 
fiefs,  of  which  the  monarch'  himself  became  at  last  the  great  holder, 
and  therefore  the  great  feudal  lord,  with  more  or  less  influence  and 
authority,  according  to  the  fortune  or  talents  of  his  ancestors  and 
himself.  Thus,  in  the  course  of  two  centuries,  the  fiefs,  for  instance, 
in  France,  had  become  hereditary,  the  whole  kingdom  had  fallen  mto 
eight  or  nine  great  feudal  baronies  ;  of  these  Hugh  Capet  held  the 
strongest,  and  being  the  first  in  abiUty,  amongst  these  feudal  chiefs, 
as  well  as  in  possessions,  he  usurped  the  crown,  and  transmitted  it  to 
bis  posterity. 


86  LECTURE  II. 

Stuart  produces  his  reasons  for  insisting  upon  his  great  distinction 
in  the  history  of  the  feudal  association,  —  namely,  that  it  was  origi- 
nally a  bond  of  love,  amity,  and  friendship,  —  not  of  oppression,  its 
second  and  degraded  period.  This  must  be  considered.  But  how 
soon  and  how  completely  it  degenerated  may  be  seen  from  turning  to 
what  were  called  the  feudal  incidents,  which  may  be  found  m  Black- 
stone,  in  the  notes  to  Stuart,  and  in  the  second  of  the  appendixes  of 
Hume's  History.  The  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  this  system 
may  be  collected,  not  only  from  the  writers  I  have  mentioned,  but 
from  Dr.  Millar,  who  considers  it  as  a  system  necessarily  arising  from 
the  nature  and  manners  of  these  northern  nations,  —  tribes  of  inde- 
pendent warriors,  put  into  possession,  by  their  conquests,  of  extensive 
tracts  of  country,  inhabited  by  a  more  civilized  people.  And,  on  the 
whole,  however  natural  might  be  the  rise  and  subsequent  establish- 
ment of  the  system,  and  whatever  might  have  been  the  benefits  which 
it  might  have  afforded  to  society  during  some  of-  its  earher  periods,  a 
consideration  of  the  incidents  which  I  have  mentioned  vrill  show 
clearly  that  it  must  soon  have  become  one  of  the  greatest  political 
evils  that  a  community  could  have  to  struggle  with.  No  doubt,  the 
state  of  anarchy  from  which  the  feudal  system  saved  society  must 
be  duly  considered.  Whatever  was  fitted,  as  was  the  feudal  system, 
to  bind  men  together  by  any  sense  of  protection,  of  gratitude,  of 
fidelity,  of  reciprocal  obligation,  —  whatever  was  likely  to  create  or 
uphold  any  generous  feelings  or  milder  virtues  among  them,  —  what- 
ever had  a  tendency  to  protect  Europe  from  any  one  great  conquer- 
or, —  whatever  introduced  or  maintained  among  men  any  notion  of 
legal  or  political  right,  was  during  a  long  interval  (such  was  then 
the  unhappy  state  of  the  world)  of  the  greatest  consequence  to  the 
world.  But  when  this  office  had  been  rendered  to  mankind,  the 
feudal  system  became  in  its  turn  a  source  of  the  most  incessant,  vex- 
atious, unfeeling,  and  atrocious  oppression,  and  a  great  impediment 
to  all  prosperity  and  improvement.  These  two  different  situations 
of  the  system  and  of  the  world  must  be  kept  distinctly  in  remem- 
brance. 

7th.  The  subject  of  Chivalry  may  be  found  in  the  work  of  Stuart, 
and  there  is  a  short  notice  of  it  in  the  fifty-eighth  chapter  of  Gibbon. 
The  Memoirs  of  Ancient  Chivalry,  by  Monsieur  de  St.  Palaye,  is 
the  book  generally  referred  to,  and  it  must  by  all  means  be  consid- 
ered; but  it  is  a  work  very  defective.  It  contains,  indeed,  a  sufficient 
discussion  of  the  education,  character,  and  exercises  of  the  knights, 
but  there  is  not  united  with  these,  as  there  should  have  been,  any 
philosophic  account  of  the  rise,  influence,  and  decline  of  chivalry. 
These  important  topics  are,  indeed,  taken  up  and  laid  down  several 
times  In  different  parts  of  the  work,  but  never  pursued  or  discussed 
m  any  steady  and  effective  manner.  I  am  not  aware  that  this  has 
been  properly  done  or  regularly  attempted  by  any  writer ;  which, 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  37 

considering  the  present  advanced  state  of  literature,  is  gomewhat 
remarkable.  The  work  of  Palaye  may  be  found,  where  it  first  ap- 
peared, in  the  "  Memoires  de  TAcadi'mie,"  twentieth  volume. 

8th.  In  the  German  history,  to  which  we  next  aHude,  and  ii\deed 
in  the  history  of  every  part  of  Europe  at  this  period,  the  striking 
object  of  attention  is  the  growth  and  immense  strength  of  ecclesia^ 
tical  power.  The  annals  of  England,  France,  and  more  espec'ially 
of  Germany,  are  abundantly  crowded  with  instances  of  the  kind. 
We  must  recollect  that  the  different  prerogatives  of  the  Emoeror 
and  Pope  were  left  in  a  state  very  vague  and  unsettled.  The  events 
of  the  contest  are  seen  in  Pfeffel,  in  that  part  of  his  Historv  which 
we  now  approach,  the  dynasties  of  the  different  houses  of  Saxon v, 
Franconia,  and  Suabia.  It  is  the  earlier  part  of  a  struggle  of  this 
kind  that  is  most  interesting  to  a  philosophic  observer.  It  is  then 
that  the  lessons  of  instruction  are  given ;  it  is  then  that  are  seen  the 
slow  and  successive  encroachments  by  which  tyranny  is  at  last  estab- 
lished, —  the  gradual  accessions  of  shade  by  which  a  picture  is  at 
last  lost  in  darkness,  —  the  awful  example  which  proves  that  what  is 
experiment  to-day  is  precedent  to-morrow,  and  right  and  law,  how- 
ever unju&t  and  abominable,  for  succeeding  generations.  The  steps 
by  which  the  power  of  the  Pope  became  a  despotism  so  complete  are 
marked  with  sufficient  minuteness  by  Giannone,  in  his  ecclesiastical 
chapters,  particularly  in  his  fifth  chapter  of  his  nineteenth  book  ;  and 
this  will  be  sufficient  for  the  information  of  the  student.  Mr.  Gib- 
bon has  made  several  valuable  observations  on  the  different  emperors 
of  the  different  dynasties  during  this  period,  and  on  their  contests  in 
Italy.  The  remarks  of  Pfeffel  are  particularly  to  be  noted  in  the 
■  Great  Interregnum.  This  is  the  period  during  which  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  states  and  the  great  public  law  of  Germany  gained  a 
strength  and  assumed  a  form  which  they  never  afterwards  lost. 

9th.  In  Pfeffel,  too,  may  be  examined  the  next  great  object  of 
remark  which  I  have  mentioned :  that  change,  of  all  one  of  the  most 
important,  the  improvement  which  took  place  in  the  condition  of  the 
imperial  cities  and  the  free  and  imperial  cities  about  this  time.  As 
it  is  instructive  to  investigate  the  progress  of  the  abuse  of  power,  so 
is  it,  to  note  the  progress  of  human  prosperity,  often  from  begin- 
nings the  most  unpromising.  The  important  step  in  this  progress 
was  the  enfranchisement  that  had  been  obtained  by  the  inhabitants 
of  these  cities  from  the  German  emperor  Henry  the  Fifth,  about  a 
century  and  a  half  before  this  period.  They  had  not,  however,  been 
admitted  into  the  offices  of  the  magistracy ;  this,  after  the  death  of 
Frederic  the  Second,  in  some  way  or  other  they  effected,  and  at 
last  became  a  part  of  the  general  constitution  of  Germany  itself. 
However  distant  were  these  towns  or  little  repubUcs  from  each  <)ther, 
the  sjanpathy  of  a  common  interest  was  everywhere  felt.  Theb 
councils  always  harmonized,  their  enterprises  were  the  same ;  and 


38  LECTURE  li: 

the  league  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Hanseatic  league  taught  a  world  of 
barbarous  priests  and  warriors  to  enjoy  the  industry  and  respect  the 
courage  of  these  new  princes  and  potentates,  the  offspring,  indeed, 
of  serfs  and  peddlers,  but  the  civiUzers  and  benefactors  of  mankind. 
In  1241,  Liibeck  united  itself  with  a  few  neighbouring  towns  against 
some  pirates  of  the  Baltic.  Their  success  gave  rise  to  a  union  of 
all  the  commercial  cities  from  the  "Vistula  to  the  Rhine.  Among 
these,  the  cities  of  Lubeck,  Cologne,  Brunswick,  and  Dantzic,  par- 
ticularly Liibeck,  had  the  direction  of  the  general  interests.  London, 
Bergen,  Novgorod,  and  Bruges  were  the  great  depots  :  these  con- 
nected the  north  to  the  rest  of  Europe ;  Augsburg  and  Nuremberg, 
in  the  heart  of  Germany,  connected  the  north  to  Italy ;  and  the 
Italian  republics  maintained  the  intercourse  between  the  western 
and  eastern  divisions  of  mankind.  Thus  extensively  did  the  Hanse- 
atic league  circulate  the  gifts  of  nature  and  the  labors  of  art  for 
nearly  three  centuries,  and  it  at  length  declined,  only  because  it  had 
discharged  its  salutary  office  in  the  progress  of  society,  and  because 
it  was  superseded,  on  the  discovery  of  the  Indies,  by  that  more  nat- 
ural and  more  complete,  though  still  but  too  imperfect,  system  of 
commercial  intercourse,  which,  in  defiance  of  all  the  jealousies  ot 
ignorance  and  aU  the  interruptions  and  destruction  of  war,  has  so 
long  continued  to  soften,  to  animate,  and  to  improve  the  condition 
of  humanity. 

10th.  The  memorable  Crusades  are  amongst  the  objects  that  wiU 
in  the  next  place  present  themselves  to  the  student.  They  have 
been  fully  explained  by  Hume  and  other  writers ;  but,  as'  they  have 
called  forth  all  the  powers  of  the  historian  of  the  Decline  and  Fall, 
the  student  may  have  the  advantage  of  his  animated  and  comprehen- 
sive narrative,  and,  more  particularly,  may  observe,  in  one  of  his 
notes,  the  original  authorities  on  which  his  relation  and  remarks  are 
founded.  He  is  not  only  the  last  writer  on  these  subjects,  but  one 
who  is  not  likely  to  leave  much  to  be  gleaned  by  those  who  come 
after  him. 

In  this  slight  manner  I  have  endeavoured  to  mention,  not  to  dis- 
cuss, the  great  points  of  attention  during  these  Middle  Ages.  I  can- 
not deny  that  the  perusal  of  this  part  of  history  is  very  fatiguing, 
but  there  is  no  part  more  important ;  it  must  at  all  events  be  consid- 
ered. I  hope  that  I  have  presented  it  in  a  form  in  which  it  may  bo 
considered.  It  is  only  from  a  due  meditation  on  these  melancholy 
scenes  and  on  human  nature  in  this  unfortunate  situation,  that  the 
student  can  ever  be  taught  properly  to  feel  those  blessings  of  civil, 
religious,  and  commercial  liberty  by  which  the  later  periods  of  the 
world  have  been  in  comparison  so  happily  distinguished. 

I  must  now  refer  to  the  last  remaining  subject  among  those  which 
I  enumerated,  as  connected  with  tliis  period  of  the  history  of  the 
world. 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  89 

You  may  remember  that  in  yesterday's  lecture  I  mentioned  the 
Karbaric  Codes.  The  institutions  and  laws  to  which  these  northern 
nations  conformed  existed  long  before  they  were  reduced  into  form 
and  writing  ;  but  this  was  at  last  done.  They  were  enlarged,  amend- 
ed, and  altered  by  different  princes.  Some  general  knowledge  of 
them  must  be  obtained. 

There  are  observations  by  Mr.  Gibbon  on  these  laws ;  there  are 
some  chapters  in  Montesquieu.  It  might  be  thought  sufficient  to 
refer  to  the  remarks  of  these  great  writers ;  but  on  this,  as  on  all 
other  occasions,  some  labor  must  be  endured ;  the  reader  would  re- 
ceive from  them  a  very  general  and  imperfect  impression,  and  that 
impression  would  soon  pass  away.  The  Codes  themselves  must  be, 
at  least  in  part,  perused ;  but,  before  this  is  attempted,  we  should 
refer  to  the  History  of  Gibbon,  and  afterwards  to  Renault's  Abridg- 
ment of  the  History  of  France,  so  as  to  become  somewhat  acquaint- 
ed with  the  names  and  characters  of  the  princes  mentioned  in  these 
codes,  in  the  prefaces  to  them,  and  in  the  Capitularies  that  follow 
them  ;  and  should  then,  and  not  before,  begin  our  survey  of  the  vol- 
umes in  which  these  Barbaric  laws  and  institutions  are  contained. 
They  are  published  by  Lindenbrogius ;  his  work  is  easily  met  with. 
The  work  of  Baluze  contains  the  Capitularies ;  this  work,  too,  can 
be  everywhere  found. 

The  Capitularies  were  the  laws  or  proclamations  of  different 
princes  in  succession,  from  Clovis  to  Hugh  Capet ;  and  these,  with 
the  Codes,  indicate  the  character  of  the  nations  and  governments  to 
which  they  belong,  from  the  earliest  time.  Now  it  is  impossible  for 
me  to  attempt  any  examination  of  these  systems  of  law  in  this  course 
of  lectures,  or  for  any  one  in  any  course  of  lectures,  unless  they 
were  given  for  that  precise  purpose ;  but  I  had  hoped,  I  must  con- 
fess, that  some  of  the  leading  laws  of  each  code  might  be  exhibited 
by  me,  so  as  to  give  some  general  idea  of  the  whole.  After  spend- 
.ing,  however,  many  hours  on  the  work  of  Lindenbruch,  and  drawing 
up^a  detail,  with  such  observations  as  I  had  conceived  would  enable 
my  hearer  to  carry  away  the  leading  points  of  each  code,  and  the 
differences  by  which  they  were  distinguished  from  one  another,  I 
found,  upon  a  revisal  of  what  I  had  done,  that  the  whole  was  a  mass 
too  unwieldy  to  be  here  produced,  even  though  drawn  up  in  the  most 
summary  way,  and  that,  at  all  events,  the  subject  must  be  treated  m 
some  other  manner.  Upon  looking,  too,  at  these  immense  volumes, 
it  was  but  too  evident  that  a  very  small  portion  of  them  could  ever 
be  read  by  the  historical  student ;  yet  it  is  perfectly  necessary  that 
some  idea  should  be  formed  of  them,  or  the  history  of  Europe  and 
the  character  of  its  inhabitants  cannot  be  properly  understood. 

What  I  propose,  therefore,  to  the  student  is  this :  to  select  trom 
the  rest  the  Salique  Code,  and,  as  it  is  short,  I  recommend  it  to  be 
read  through  entirely.     It  is  impossible,  from  the  perusal  ot  it,  that  a 


iO  LECTURE   XL 

strong  impression  sliould  not  be  left  on  the  mind  of  the  nature  and  char- 
acter of  our  Barbaric  ancestors.  And  with  respect  to  the  other  codes, 
it  appears  to  me  that  a  very  sufficient  idea  of  these  may  be  formed,  if 
the  student  will  turn  over  the  leaves  of  these  codes  and  examine  them 
with  respect  to  the  following  points :  —  Ist,  By  whom  the  laws  were 
made  ;  2d,  What  w^ere  their  criminal  punishments  ;  3d,  What  w^ere  the 
laws  respecting  the  recovery  of  debts ;  4-th,  What  respecting  the 
transmission  of  property  ;  5th,  What  with  respect  to  the  female  sex  ; 
6th,  What  with  respect  to  the  liberty  of  the  subject,  —  the  laws  of 
treason,  for  instance  ;  7th,  By  whom  the  laws  were  administered. 

I  consider  an  inquiry  into  the  Barbaric  codes  so  tedious,  and  yet 
so  important,  that,  to  illustrate  my  meaning,  and  to  make  some  at- 
tempt at  least  of  my  own  with  respect  to  them,  I  will  venture  to  tres- 
pass a  little  upon  my  hearers'  patience,  and  take  a  survey  of  the  Sa- 
lique  code,  for  instance,  in  the  manner  which  I  conceive  the  student 
may  himself  a,dopt  with  respect  to  the  remaining  codes.     Thus,  — 

1st.  By  whom  was  this  Sahque  code  drawn  up  and  enacted  ?  — The 
answer  to  this  inquiry  may  be  found  in  the  prefaces,  which  are  on  the 
whole  curious  and  striking.  The  nation,  in  this  preface  to  the  Salique 
code,  seems  to  speak  for  itself,  and  to  be  animated,  like  other  nations, 
with  a  very  sincere  opinion  of  its  own  merits.  It  is  renowned,  it  seems, 
founded  by  the  Deity,  profound  in  counsel,  with  every  other  noble  and 
excellent  quality ;  and  it  is  added,  in  a  manner  that  must  be  considered 
as  characteristic  of  the  times,  that  "  it  is  entirely  free  from  heresy." 
For  this  nation,  then,  the  Salique  code  seems  to  have  been  drawn  up  at 
an  early  period,  and  before  the  existence  of  royalty  among  them,  "  per 
procel-es  illius  gentis,  qui  tunc  temporis  ejusdem  aderant  rectores." 
Four  chiefs,  and  four  villages,*  their  residence,  are  mentioned.  The 
law  seems  afterwards  to  have  been  improved  by  Clovis,  Childebert,  and 
Clotaire.  This  is  stated ;  and  then  follows  a  state-prayer  which  is  more 
than  usually  modest :  —  "  Vivat  qui  Francos  diligit,  Christus  eorum 
regnitm  custodiat,"  &c. ;  and  the  whole  concludes  with  a  statement  of  _ 
the  merits,  civil  and  theological,  of  the  nation :  they  appear,  indeed,  to 
have  been  considerable  :  —  "  Hnec  est  enim  gens,  quae  parva  dum  esset 
numero,  fortis  robore  et  valida,  durissimum  Romanorum  jugum  de  suis 
cervicibus  excussit  pugnando,"  &c.  The  whole  must  be  considerei  as 
breathing  a,  very  bold  spirit  of  national  liberty,  and  the  authority  on 
which  the  whole  was  rested  seems  to  have  been  that  of  the  nation  and 
its  rulers,  mutually  cooperating  for  the  common  good.  The  legislature 
seems  after^7ards  to  have  been  the  monarchs  and  their  free  assemblies. 
—  So  much  for  the  first  question,  By  whom  the  laws  were  made. 

*  In  t]ie  Preface  io  the  Sali(|uc  Code,  here  quoted,  four  chief'^,  but  only  three  villages, 
are  mentioned :  —  "  Wisop:astus,  Bodoijastus,  Salor^astus,  ct  Widojii^astus.  in  loeis  co,2r- 
nominatis  Salchaim,  Bodohaim,  Widohaim."  It  mij^ht  be  conjectured  tliat  in  this 
enumeration  of  Aillagcs  there  was  nn  accidental  omission  of  one  name,  were  it  not  that 
the  same  enumeration  is  found  also  in  the  Pro/ofjne :  and  airain,  with  sli<2:ht  variations  in 
the  form  of  the  names,  in  the  J^rohf/omeiia  of  Lindenbrogius.  So  also  in  the  other 
editions  of  tliis  Code  which  have  been  consulted.  —  N. 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  Jtt 

2d.  _  What  were  the  criminal  punishments  of  the  Salique  code  ?  — 
Homicide  was  not  capital ;  a  striking  fact  to  begin  with,  indicating  a 
very  different  state  of  society  from  our  own.  The  words  of  the  law 
are  these  (p.  333):  —  ''Si  quis  ingenuus  Francum  aut  hominem 
barbariim  occiderit,  qui  lege  Salica  vivit,  octo  denariis,  qui  faciunt 
solidos  ducentos,  culpabilis  judicetur."  But  in  the  next  law  the  pen- 
alty is  tripled  in  case  of  concealment.  These  Barbarians,  therefore, 
could  distinguish  the  nature  of  different  crimes ;  and  the  first  law  is 
only  made  more  worthy  of  consideration  by  the  second.  The  con- 
clusion from  the  whole  is,  that  each  individual  of  the  nation  was  still 
an  independent  being,  who  would  not  suffer  his  life  to  be  affected  by 
any  crime  which  he  committed ;  who  would  not  submit  to  restraint ; 
who  neither  saw,  nor  would  have  regarded,  the  benefit  that  is  de- 
rived to  all  by  the  submission  of  each  man  to  rules  calculated  to 
maintain  the  security  of  life  and  to  protect  the  weak.  And  this  sin- 
gle feature  gives  at  once  an  idea  of  the  bold  character  of  our  early 
ancestors,  of  the  fierceness  of  these  independent  warriors.  Other 
crimes  —  those  of  theft,  for  instance  —  are  in  hke  manner  punished 
by  fines.  But  the  cases  are  all  mentioned,  —  different  animals,  for 
instance,  hogs,  sheep,  goats,  &c.  There  is  commonly  no  general 
description.  Now  when  legislators  make  laws  against  particular 
thefts  by  name,  the  intercourse  of  mankind  must  still  be  very  simple. 
The  distinctions  of  crimes  were  everywhere  observed.  To  steal  from 
a  cottage,  to  the  value  of  a  denarius,  was  punished  by  a  fine  of  fif- 
teen solidi ;  and  thirty,  if  the  cottage  was  broken  open.  —  So  much 
for  the  law  with  respect  to  criminal  punishments. 

3d.  Next  with  respect  to  the  third  point,  —  the  pro\isions  con- 
cerning debts  and  breach  of  covenant.  —  Fine  was  still  in  the  first 
place  the  punishment ;  and  in  the  fifty-second  title  (p.  337),  a  pro- 
cess is  pointed  out  for  the  forcible  recovery  of  what  is  due :  it  is,  in 
the  last  result,  to  be  levied  and  distrained  by  pubUc  officers.  There 
is  no  mention  of  imprisonment  at  the  mercy  and  call  of  the  creditor, 
the  indolent  resource  of  more  civihzed  nations. 

4th.  With  respect  to  the  transmission  of  property.  —  The  power 
of  bequeathing  it  by  testament  seems  not  yet  to  have  been  thought 
of.  The  law  says  concerning  the  allodial  land  (p.  341),  that  the 
children  of  the  deceased  were  to  succeed ;  next,  the  father  and 
mother;  next,  the  brothers  and  sisters;  lastly,  .the  sisters  of  the 
father,  the  aunts:*— "Si  quis  homo  mortuus  fuerit,  et  filios  non 
dimiserit,  si  pater  aut  mater  superfuerint,"  &c.,  &c.  Then  follows 
the  famous  restriction  of  the  Sal,  or  homestead  and  the  laud  mimedi- 
ately  around  it,  to  the  male,  &c. :  —"  Be  terra  vero   Sahca  nuUa 

*  This  abstract  is  imperfect.  The  hiw  comprises  six  sections  of  which  onlr  Ae 
first  three,  and  the  last,  containing  "  the  flxmous  restriction,'  cited  below,  are  here  ^en. 
By  the  fourth  and  fifth  sections,  after  the  sisters  of  the  father  the  sister^  ^^^^'^  ^''^t' 
were  to  succeed;  and  finally,  in  default  of  these,  the  nearest  of  km  on  the  fathers  siOO. 
See  Lindenbrogius,  loc.  cit.  — N.  ^ 

6  ^ 


42  LECTURE  n. 

portio  hereditatis  mulieri  veniat,  sed  ad  virilem  sexum  tota  terrse 
hereditas  perveniat."  The  institution,  therefore,  of  property  in  land 
seems  now  to  have  been  established,  though  not  in  the  time  of  Taci- 
tus, — ■  an  important  step  in  the  civilization  of  mankind.  But  there 
seems  nothing  said  of  a  power  to  bequeathe  it  bj  testament,  at  the 
will  of  the  possessor. 

5th.  Next,  with  respect  to  the  laws  concerning  the  female  sex.  — 
Under  the  14th  head  (p.  320),  adultery  seems  to  have  been  punished 
by  a  fine,  but  there  is  nothing  said  of  divorce.  Marriages  within 
certain  limits  of  consanguinity  are  forbidden.  The  conclusion  from 
these  provisions  is,  that  attention  was  paid  to  the  intercourse  between 
the  sexes.  But  from  another  part  of  the  code  the  deference  that 
was  paid  to  the  female  sex  is  made  very  striking.  Under  the  32d 
head,  by  the  6th  clause,  he  who  accused  another  of  coAvardice  was  to 
be  fined  three  solidi ;  but,  by  the  clause  preceding,  they  who  accused 
a  woman  of  want  of  chastity,  and  could  not  prove  their  allegation, 
w^ere  to  be  fined  forty-five  solidi.  A  false  imputation,  therefore,  on 
the  chastity  of  a  woman  was  made  a  crime  of  far  greater  importance 
than  even  an  imputation  on  the  courage  of  a  man,»  and  that  man  a 
Frank.  The  respectability  of  the  female  character,  therefore,  is 
clear.  And  there  is  no  point  of  more  importance  to  any  nation  than 
this ;  domestic  happiness,  and  private  virtue,  which  is  so  connected 
with  public  virtue,  all  follow  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  re- 
spectability of  the  female  character,  and  cannot  indeed  otherwise  exist. 

6th.  With  respect  to  the  sixth  head,  the  laws  of  treason,  it  may  be 
observed,  that  of  treason,  or  offences  against  the  state,  there  seems  no 
notice  taken.  Every  duty  of  the  sort  was  comprehended  in  the  general 
duty  of  resisting  or  opposing  the  enemies  of  the  state  by  personal  ser- 
vice. What  is  meant  by  civil  hberty  —  the  modification  of  natural 
liberty,  and  the  relative  duties  and  apprehensions  of  the  ruler  and  the 
subject  —  seems  scarcely  to  have  appeared  in  a  society  like  that  of 
the  early  Franks. 

7th.  Lastly, "with  respect  to  the  administration  of  these  laws.  —  In 
the  Salique  and  other  codes  there  are  various  officers  mentioned ;  su- 
perior and  inferior  judges  ;  witnesses  are  also  mentioned  ;  and  markets 
and  public  meetings,  where  justice  seems  to  have  been  administered. 

But  it  must  be  observed  that  the  Barbarian  codes  had  always  re- 
course to  a  system  of  fines ;  it  seems,  therefore,  reasonable  to  ask, 
What  Avas  done,  when  the  offender  had  no  means  of  paying  them  ? 
In  a  simple  state  of  society,  a  fine  must  have  been  a  serious  punish- 
ment ;  neither  capital  nor  the  precious  metals  could  have  existed  in 
any  abundance.  To  this  question  the  laws  themselves  do  not  supply 
any  answer. 

In  any  particular  case  of  Jiomicide,  when  the  offender  could  not 
pay,  a  process  is  pointed  out  for  satisfaction.  In  the  61st  head,  his 
relations  and  friends  were  to  answer  out  of  their  own  possessions ; 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  48 

and,  in  tlie  last  resource,  if  there  were  none  of  them  willing,  he  was 
to  compound  with  a  fine  for  his  life.  Nothing  is  said  of  imprison- 
ment  or  corporal  punishment,  which  last  was  confined  to  the  case  of 
slaves  ;  and  the  conclusion  perhaps  is,  (for  I  am  left  to  my  own  con- 
jecture,) that  the  strong  distinctions  of  the  poor  and  the  rich  had  not 
yet  made  their  appearance,  and  that  the  fines  were  proportioned  to 
the  general  wealth  of  the  individuals  of  the  community,  —  that  land 
was  still  easily  procured,  and  society  still  in  a  very  imperfect  state. 
Charlemagne,  for  instance,  many  years  after,  transplanted  at  once 
ten  thousand  Saxons  and  fixed  them  in  his  own  territories.  Much 
land  was,  therefore,  still  waste  or  loosely  occupied.  These  Barbaric 
laws  were,  therefore,  I  conclude,  at  first  intended  to  exhibit  to  con- 
tending individuals  what  might  be  considered  as  a  reasonable  means 
of  terminating  their  quarrels,  —  what  the  one  ought  to  offer,  and  the 
other  to  accept.  The  words  of  the  prologue  to  the  laws  are  these  :  — 
"  Placuit  atque  convenit  inter  Francos  et  eorum  proceres,  ut  propter 
servandum  inter  se  pacis  studium,  omnia  incrementa  veterum  rixarum 
resecare  deberent."  In  a  rude  state  of  society,  individuate  involved 
in  their  quarrel  their  relations  and  friends.  These  would  become,  in 
a  certain  respect,  umpires  of  the  quarrel.  These  laws  afforded  them 
a  sort  of  rule  by  which  they  were  to  judge,  and  they  would  be  them- 
selves disposed  to  enforce  the  observance  of  these  rules  and  in  some 
respects  to  do  the  office  of  the  state.  Afterwards,  as  the  kings 
gained  authority,  they  and  their  officers  would  be  more  able  them- 
selves to  enforce  their  own  regulations.  Efforts  to  do  this,  and  the 
power  of  doing  it,  are  apparent  in  the  subsequent  codes.  But  the 
disposition  to  revenge  their  own  affronts  and  injuries  is  so  natural  to 
men  who  comprehend  every  merit  in  the  virtue  of  personal  courage, 
that  centuries  elapsed  before  our  rude  forefathers  could  be  brought 
to  accept  any  decision  in  their  quarrels  but  that  of  their  own  swords. 

I  must  observe  of  this  Safique  code  and  of  all  the  other  Barbarian 
codes,  that  with  respect  to  our  first  question,  the  great  question  in 
legislation.  By  whom  are  the  laws  made  ?  great  dispute  exists  among 
antiquarians  and  philosophers.  The  power  of  the  kings,  and  the 
nature  and  power  of  these  first  assemblies,  are  subjects  of  great  de- 
bate. In  this  SaHque  law  the  form  and  spirit  and  authority  of  the 
whole  seem  to  have  been  of  a  very  democratic  nature. 

In  reading  all  these  codes,  reference  must  continually  be  had  to 
Tacitus.  The  codes  and  his  account  of  the  Germans  mutually  con- 
firm and  illustrate  each  other.  His  description  of  their  assembfies 
may  be  compared  with  this  preface  to  the  SaUque  law,  and  with  the 
accounts  given  of  the  other  codes ;  and  on  the  whole,  the  system  of 
leirislation  amono;  these  northern  nations  must  be  considered  aa 
originally  of  a  very  popular  nature. 

I  have  taken  this  slight  view  of  the  Salique  code  in  the  leading 
points  which  I  mentioned,  for  the  purpose  of  exemphfying  the  man- 


44  LECTURE  11. 

ner  in  wMch  T  conceive  any  system  of  laws  may  be  generally  con 
side  red  5  more  particularly  those  of  the  Barbarian  codes  which  yet 
remain,  and  which  it  is  not  possible  to  examine  but  in  some  such 
general  way.  But  I  must  not  omit  to  observe,  that,  whenever  the 
laws  of  a  nation  can  be  perused,  a  variety  of  conclusions  can  be 
drawn  from  them  which  the  laws  themselves  never  were  intended  to 
convey,  —  conclusions  that  relate  to  the  manners  and  situation  of  a 
nation,  more  certain  and  important  than  can  in  any  other  way  be  ob- 
tained. I  will  give  a  specimen  of  this  sort  of  reasoning,  and  my 
hearer  must  hereafter  employ  the  same  sort  of  reasoning  on  these 
codes,  and  on  every  system  of  laws  which  he  ever  ha^  an  opportunity 
of  considerino;. 

For  instance,  there  is  one  head  that  respects  petty  thefts  of  differ- 
ent kinds.  He  who  stole  a  knife  was  to  be  fined  fifteen  solidi ;  but 
though  he  stole  as  much  flax  as  he  could  carry,  he  was  fined  only 
three.  Iron  was,  therefore,  difficult  to  procure,  or  its  manufacture 
not  easy.  The  fertility  of  the  land  had  done  more  for  these  Franks 
than  theinown  patience  or  ingenuity;  that  is,  they  were  barbarians. 

Again,  he  who  killed  another  was  only  fined ;  but  we  are  not  to 
suppose  that  this  arose  from  any  superior  tenderness  of  disposition. 
There  is  a  distinct  head  in  these  laws  (the  31st)  on  the  subject  of 
mutilations  ;  the  very  first  clause  runs  thus  :  —  "  Si  quis  alteri  manum 
aut  pedem  truncaverit,  vel  oculum  effoderit,  aut  auriculam  vel  nasum 
amputaverit,"  &c.,  &c.  The  most  horrible  excesses  evidently  took 
place.  Nothing  more  need  be  said  of  the  manners  or  disposition 
of  a  people  in  whose  laws  such  outrages  are  particularized.  That 
union  of  tenderness  and  courage,  of  sympathy  and  fortitude,  of  the 
softer  and  severer  virtues,  which  forms  the  perfection  of  the  human 
character,  is  not  to  be  found  among  savage  nations ;  it  is  only  the 
occasional  and  inestimable  production  of  civihzed  life. 

Again,  there  is  mention  made  of  hedges  and  inclosures ;  agri- 
culture had,  therefore,  made  some  progress. 

But  among  the  petty  felonies  there  is  one  mentioned,  —  that  of 
ploughing  and  sowing  another  man's  land,  &c. :  —  "Si  quis  campum 
alienum  araveiit  et  seminaverit,"  &c. :  —  a  strange  offence.  Where 
was  the  owner  ?  Was  he  too  negligent,  at  too  great  a  distance,  or 
too  feeble  to  take  care  of  his  property  ?  Every  supposition  is  un- 
favorable ;  and  the  progress  of  agriculture  and  of  society  must  have 
been  still  very  incomplete.  I  conceive  that  there  existed  among 
these  nations  and  in  these  times  wandering  savages  or  settlers,  as 
now  in  the  back  settlements  of  America,  that  are  called  by  the  amus- 
ing name  of  "  squatters,"  —  a  species  of  human  locusts,  that  take 
possession  of  a  piece  of  land  Avithout  asking  leave  of  any  one,  and  re- 
main there  till  they  rove  away  in  search  of  better,  or  are  driven  off 
by  the  owner. 

But  to  return  to  the  Salique  law.  —  Cars  and  cart-horses,  mills, 


LAWS  OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  45 

and  sojae  of  the  more  common  occupations  of  life,  as  smiths  and 
bakers,  are  enumerated ;  some  progress  must,  therefore,  have  been 
made.  He  who  killed  a  Frank  was  fined  two  hundred  solidi ;  he  who 
killed  a  Roman,  only  one  hundred ;  the  Roman  was,  therefore,  in  a 
state  of  depression.  This  is  the  sort  of  reasoning  which  my  hearers 
may  extend  to  a  variety  of  particulars,  and  must  already  perfectly 
understand. 

In  the  Salique  and  other  codes,  slaves  are  mentioned,  male  and 
female,  househ4)ld  servants,  freedmen  and  those  who  were  free 'from 
birth,  and  more  descriptions  of  persons  and  places  and  things  than 
can  now  be  well  understood.  Here  lies  the  province  of  the  anti- 
quarian, who  has  at  least  the  merit  of  clearing  the  way  and  providing 
materials  for  the  philosopher,  and  is  thus,  mediately  or  immediately, 
if  possessed  of  any  philosophic  discrimination  himself,  an  instrtictor 
of  mankind. 

Such  is,  I  conceive,  the  manner  in  which  the  Salique  and  the  other 
remaining  codes  may  be  examined,  and  this  I  must  now  leave  tho 
student  to  do  for  himself. 

All  the  other  codes  will  be  found  very  similar  in  their  general 
nature,  but  all  indicating  a  more  advanced  state  of  society  than  can 
be  found  in  the  Salique  code.  The  Burgundians,  the  Lombards,  and 
the  Visigoths  had  been  more  connected  with  the  Romans,  and  their 
laws  are,  therefore,  favorably  distinguished  from  the  codes  of  the 
more  simple  and  rude  Barbarians.  To  the  law  of  the  Burgimdians 
there  is  a  preface  worth  reading.  The  preface  of  Lindenbrogius, 
which  must  by  all  means  be  read,  gives  some  account  of  the  time 
and  manner  in  which  these  codes  were  promulgated,  and  to  them  I 
refer.  In  many  parts  of  these  codes  the  reader  will  perceive  the 
origin  of  many  of  the  forms  and  maxims  that  exist  to  this  moment  in 
the  systems  of  European  law.  j    i     n 

These  Barbarian  codes  were  followed  by  what  are  called  the  Ca- 
pitularies, a  word  signifying  any  composition  divided  into  chapters. 
These  were  promulgated  by  the  subsequent  monarchs,  —  by  Childe- 
bert,  Clotaire,  Carioman,  and  Pepin,  but  above  all  by  Chariema^e; 
succeeding  princes  added  others.  They  are  to  be  found  m  Lmden- 
bron-ius  ;  but  the  best  edition  of  them  is  by  Baluze,  m  two  volumes, 
folio.  To  the  Codes  and  to  the  Capitularies  in  Lindenbrogius  and 
in  Baluze  are  added  the  Formularia  of  Marculphus.  These  Formu 
laria  are  the  forms  of  forensic  proceedings  and  f>f  legal  instruments. 
Marculphus  was  a  monk  that  seems  to  have  hved  so  eariy  as  bbU ;  so 
naturally  is  law  connected  with  precision  and  form ;  and  so  soon, 
even  before  660,  was  it  found  necessary  to  reduce  the  institutions 
and  legal,  proceedings  of  rude  barbarians  into  that  sort  of  technical 
precision  which  is  so  fully  exhibited  in  our  modem  practice,  and 
which  is  found  so  necessary  by  lawyers,  and  considered  (somewnat 
thoughtlessly)  so  unmeaning  by  others. 


46  LECTURE  11. 

All  these  capitularies  and  formularies  it  is  not  very  possible  —  it 
may  not,  indeed,  be  very  useful  —  for  the  general  student  to  read; 
but  he  may  look  over  the  heads  and  select  some  few  for  his  perusal. 
Many  of  them  seem  to  be  of  an  ecclesiastical  nature,  and  they  are 
interspersed  with  various  state  papers ;  and  the  influence  which  re- 
ligion, and  still  more  the  Church,  had  obtained  over  these  northern 
conquerors  is  evident  in  every  page.  It  appears  that  extreme  unc- 
tion, confession,  and  the  distinguishing  rites  of  the  Romish  Church 
were  early  established  among  them  ;  solemn,  and,  indeed,  very 
affecting  church  services,  for  the  different  trials  by  ordeal,  and  for 
the  ceremonies  of  excommunication.  Everywhere  there  are  passages 
which,  when  found  in  legal  instruments  and  public  state  papers, 
strongly  mark  the  temper  and  character  of  the  times.  And  it  is  on 
this  ?iccount  that  a  philosopher  like  Montesquieu,  from  the  perusal  of 
musty  records  Hke  these,  can  exhibit  the  manners  and  opinions  of 
distant  ages. 

I  have  thus  endeavoured  to  introduce  to  your  curiosity  these  Bar- 
baric codes. 

It  might  be  natural  to  ask.  What,  in  the  mean  time,  became  of  the 
conquered  nation  of  the  Romans  ?  It  may  be  answered,  in  a  general 
manner,  that  they  seem  to  have  been  allowed  to  live  under  their  OAvn 
laws,  if  they  did  not  prefer  the  laws  of  the  Barbarian  state  to  which 
they  belonged ;  that  their  situation  seems  to  have  been  marked  by 
depression,  but  not  to  the  extent  that  might  have  been  expected. 
But  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  enter  further  into  subjects  of  this  nature. 

There  is  a  concise  work  by  Mr.  Butler,  —  "  Horse  Juridicse  " :  to 
this  I  must  refer ;  it  will  be  of  great  use  in  giving  you  information 
about  the  different  codes  and  systems  of  law  that  obtained  in  Europe 
during  these  earlier  ages,  —  such  information,  indeed,  as  few  will  be 
able  to  collect  for  themselves,  and  yet  such  as  every  man  of  educa- 
tion should  be  furnished  with.  Gibbon  and  Montesquieu,  through  all 
this  period  of  history,  you  will  refer  to.  But  the  Abbe  de  Mably  is 
the  writer  who  will  afford  you  the  best  assistance,  given  neither  in 
the  distant,  obscure  manner  of  Gibbon,  nor  with  the  affectation  and 
paradox  of  Montesquieu. 

More  than  I  have  now  done  on  the  subject  of  this  lecture  I  cannot 
venture  to  attempt.  I  have  already  sufficiently  trespassed  upon  your 
patience  in  calling  here  your  attention  to  topics  which  are  fit  only  for 
the  student  in  the  -closet,  and  which  can  be  comprehended  only  by 
the  steady  perusal  of  the  very  books  I  am  recommending,  books 
which  I  am  to  suppose  at  present  unknown  to  you ;  and  on  the  whole, 
therefore,  I  must  content  myself,  if  you  bear  away  from  the  lecture 
these  following  general  impressions :  — 

1st,  then  (proceeding  in  a  reverse  order).  That  some  knowledge 
should  be  obtained  of  the  Barbaric  codes,  and  that  the  Salique  law 
may  be  taken  as  a  specimen  ;  some  knowledge,  likewise,  of  the  sys- 


LAWS   OF  THE  BARBARIANS.  '47 

terns  of  law  under  which  the  Romans  then  lived ;  and  that  Butler  may 
be  referred  to,  —  his  "  Horae  Juridicse." 

2dly.  That  the  different  subjects  I  have  mentioned,  the  reigns  of 
Clo\ds,  Pepin,  Charlemagne,  of  chivalry,  &c.,  &c.,  are  those  to  which 
you  had  best  direct  your  attention  in  the  study  of  the  Dark  Ages : 
select  them,  I  mean,  and  study  them  in  preference  to  others. 

3dly.  That  these  Dark  Ages  must  be  studied,  because  you  ought 
to  know  what  has  been  the  original  formation  of  the  character  of  tho 
European  individual,  and  of  the  European  governments ;  how  they 
came  to  exist,  as  you  everywhere  see  them. 

4thly.  That  I  conceive  Butler  for  the  outlines,  and  Gibbon  for  the 
detail,  with  Henault  or  Millot,  and,  lastly,  with  the  preface  to  Rob- 
ertson's Charles  the  Fifth,  will  be  sufficient  for  those  who  wish  only 
to  find  the  shortest  possible  course. 

5thly.  That  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  and  those  books  I  have  mentioned 
to-day,  will  supply  ample  information,  and  all  that  I  can  think  neces- 
sary, to  any  historical  student  who  is  not  also  ambitious  of  the  merit 
of  an  antiquarian. 

It  is  many  years  since  I  drew  up  this  lecture  wliich  you  have  just 
heard.  There  has  now  appeared  a  History  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by 
Mr.  Hallam.  You  will  there  see  all  the  subjects  that  occupy  all  the 
early  part  of  my  present  course  of  lectures  regularly  discussed,  and 
very  ably ;  I  may  add,  too,  wherever  the  subject  admitted  of  it,  very 
beautifully.  I  have'  been  obliged,  from  the  kno\7n  learning  and  tal- 
ents of  the  author,  to  look  the  work  over,  not  merely  for  my  o\vn 
instruction  in  general,  but  to  ascertain  whether  I  had  been  misled 
myself  by  any  of  the  books  on  which  I  had  depended.  You,  in  Hke 
manner,  must  refer  to  the  work,  and  compare  it  with  others  ;  for  the 
author  is  not  only  very  able  and  well  informed,  but  a  sufficiently 
scrupulous  critic  of  the  labors  of  his  predecessors.  This  work  may 
also  be  recommended  to  you,  as  exhibiting  for  your  perusal,  in  a  con- 
venient form,  many  subjects  of  great  importance,  and  most  of  those 
we  have  referred  to ;  and  you  may  see  by  his  references,  and  may 
judge  by  the  nature  of  the  subjects  themselves,  how  little  you  are 
likely  to  study  them  yourselves  (I  mean  you  no  disrespect,  I  allude 
to  those  of  you  who  are  to  engage  in  the  business  of  the  world), ^ — 
to  study  them,  I  should  say,  with  that  patience  and  activity  which 
an  antiquarian  and  philosopher,  like  Mr.  Hallam,  though  himself  hving 
in  the  world  and  an  ornament  to  society,  has  so  meritoriously  and  so 
remarkably  displayed. 


48  LECTURE  III. 


LECTURE   III. 


MAHOMET.  — PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  —  GIBBON. 

I  HAVE  hitherto  directed  your  attention  to  the  Romans  and  Barba- 
rians, their  collision,  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  the  settlement 
of  the  Barbarians  in  the  different  provinces  of  Europe,  and  the  dark 
ages  that  ensued.  On  these  dark  ages  the  light  gradually  dawned, 
till  at  length  appeared  the  Revival  of  Learning  and  the  Reformation. 
It  is  in  this  manner,  therefore,  that  you  have  presented  to  you,  by 
the  addition  of  this  last  circumstance,  a  subject  that  is  a  sort  of  whole. 
You  begin  with  marking  the  decline  and  depression  of  society,  and 
you  then  watch  its  progress  to  a  state  of  great  comparative  elevation. 
"But,  instead  of  conducting  your  thoughts  onward  from  the  one  to 
the  other,  in  this  natural  succession,  I  must  now  interrupt  them, 
because  the  great  concerns  of  Europe  were  in  fact  thus  broken  in 
upon  and  interrupted  ;  and  though  the  whole  of  this  interruption  may 
be  almost  considered  as  a  sort  of  episode  to  the  main  subject,  I  have 
no  alternative  but  to  produce  it  now,  in  its  real  place,  and  you  must 
join  the  chain  hereafter  yourselves,  the  links  of  which  must  be  con- 
sidered as  thus  for  a  certain  interval  separated  from  each  other.  For 
the  truth  is,  that  you  will  scarcely  have  begun  to  read  the  books  that 
I  have  recommended,  when  you  will  be  called  upon  to  observe  a  most 
extraordinary  revolution  that  had  taken  place  in  the  East. 

An  individual  had  started  up  amidst  the  sands  of  Arabia,  had  per- 
suaded his  countrymen  that  he  was  the  prophet  of  God,  had  contrived 
to  combine  in  his  service  two  of  the  most  powerful  passions  of  the 
human  heart,  —  the  love  of  glory  here,  and  the  desire  of  happiness 
hereafter  ;  and,  triumphant  in  himself  and  seconded  by  his  followers, 
had  transmitted  a  faith  and  an  empire  that  at  length  extended  through 
Asia,  Africa,  Spain,  and  nearly  through  Europe  itself;  and  had  left 
in  history  a  more  memorable  name,  and  on  his  fellow-creatures  a  more 
wide  and  lasting  impression,  than  had  ever  before  been  produced  by 
the  energies  of  a  single  mind.     This  individual  was  Mahomet. 

We  are  invited  to  examine  and  estimate  a  revolution  like  this  by 
many  considerations.  I  will  mention  some  of  them.  The  learning  of 
the  disciples  of  Mahomet  is  at  one  particular  period  connected  with 
the  history  of  literature.  The  Saracens  (for  this  is  their  general, 
but  not  very  intelligible,  appellation)  contended  with  the  Franks  and 
Greeks  for  Europe,  with  the  Latins  for  the  Holy  Land,  with  the  Visi- 
goths for  Spain.  The  Caliphs,  or  successors  of  the  Arabian  Prophet, 
were  possessed  of  Syria,  Persia,  and  Egypt,  and  through  different 
eras  of  their  power  exhibited  the  most  opposite  prodigies  of  simplicity 


MAHOMET.  49 

And  magnificence.  These  are  powerful  claims  on  our  attention.  The 
Turks,  who  became  converts  to  the  religion  of  !iIahomet,  gradually 
swelled  into  a  great  nation,  obtained  a  portion  of  Europe,  and  have 
materially  influenced  its  history. 

If  we  turn  from  the  descendants  of  Mahomet  to  Mahomet  himself, 
we  must  observe,  that  his  religion  professed  to  be  derived  from  divine 
inspn'ation,  and  is,  from  its  very  pretensions,  entitled  to  the  examina- 
tion of  every  rational  being.  To  be  unacquainted  with  this  religion 
is  to  be  ignorant  of  the  faith  of  a  large  division  of  mankind.  An 
inquiry  into  the  rise  and  propagation  of  it  will  amphfy  our  knowledge 
of  human  nature ;  and  an  attention  to  the  life  of  the  Prophet  may 
enlarge  our  comprehension  of  the  many  particular  varieties  of  the 
human  character.  The  religion  of  Mahomet  has,  in  the  last  place, 
often  been  compared  with  the  rehgion  of  Christ ;  and  the  success  of 
the  Koran  has  been  adduced  to  weaken  the  argument  that  is  drawn 
from  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel. 

If  such,  therefore,  be  the  subject  before  us,  it  is  evidently  sufficient 
to  awaken  our  curiosity,  and  we  may  be  grateful  to  those  meritorious 
scholars  who  have  saved  us  from  the  necessity  of  pursuing  our  in- 
quiries through  the  volumes  of  the  original  authors.  The  Arabic 
writers  have  been  translated  ;  and  the  interesting  occupation  of  a  few 
weeks,  or  even  days,  may  now  be  sufficient  to  satisfy  our  mind  on 
topics  that  might  otherwise  have  justly  demanded  the  labor  of  years. 

With  respect,  then,  to  the  books  that  are  to  be  read,  I  would  pro- 
pose to  you,  in  the  first  place,  to  turn  to  the  work  of  Sale,  —  Sale's 
Koran  ;  —  read  the  preface  and  his  preliminary  dissertation,  con- 
sulting, at  the  same  time,  his  references  to  the  Koran.  Of  the  Koran 
you  may  afterwards  read  a  few  chapters,  to  form  an  idea  of  the  whole. 
And  tis  it  is  a  code  of  jurisprudence  to  the  Mussulman,  as  well  as  a 
theological  creed,  you  may  easily,  by  referrmg  to  the  index,  collect 
the  opinions  and  precepts  of  Mahomet  on  all  important  pomts.  You 
may  then  turn  to  the  Life  of  Mahomet  by  Prideaux,  and,  on  the  same 
subject,  to  the  Modern  Universal  History ;  you  may  then  read  the 
fiftieth  chapter  of  Mr.  (jibbon,  and  close  with  the  Bampton  Lectures 
of  Professor  White. 

Prideaux,  and  the  authors  of  the  Modem  History,  you  will  proba- 
bly think  unreasonably  eager  to  expose  the  faults  of  the  Prophet,  and 
you  will  surely  be  attracted  to  a  second  consideration  of  the  work 
of  Sale  by,  the  candor,  the  reasonableness,  and  the  great  knowledge 
of  the  subject,  which  that  excellent  author  appears  everywhere  to  dis- 
play. 

These  works,  however,  will  but  the  better  prepare  you  to  discern 
the  merit  of  the  splendid  and  complete  account  which  Mr.  Gibbon 
has  given  of  the  Arabian  legislator  and  prophet.  The  historian  has 
descended  on  this  magnificent  subject  in  all  the  fulness  of  his  strength. 
His  fiftieth  chapter  is  not  without  his  characteiistic  faults,  but  it  has 
7  B 


S&  LECTURE  III. 

all  his  merits ;  and  to  approach  the  account  of  Mahomet  and  the 
Caliphs  in  Gibbon,  after  travelling  through  the  same  subject  in  the 
volumes  of  the  Modern  History,  is  to  pass  through  the  different  re- 
gions of  the  country  whose  heroes  these  authors  have  described ;  it 
is  to  turn  from  the  one  Arabia  to  the  other,  —  from  the  sands  and 
rocks  of  the  wilderness  to  the  happy  land  of  fertility  and  freshness, 
where  every  landscape  is  luxuriance,  and  every  gale  is  odor. 

The  Bampton  Lectures  have  received  very  unqualified  approbation 
from  the  public,  and  have  won  the  more  cold  and  limited,  and  there- 
fore more  decisive,  praise  of  Mr.  Gibbon.  The  estimate  of  the 
student  will  probably  be  found  between  the  two,  —  much  beyond  the 
latter,  and  much  within  the  former.  There  is  not  all  the  infonaiation 
given  which  the  knowledge  of  Professor  White  might  and  ought  to 
have  afforded.  The  references  to  the  Arabic  authors  should  have 
been  translated  and  produced.  The  whole  is  written,  not  in  the 
spirit  of  a  critic  and, a  judge,  but  of  an  eloquent  advocate  rejoicing 
to  run  his  course,  from  a  confidence  in  the  arguments  which  he  dis- 
plays. The  style  is  always  too  full  and  sounding,  and  the  argument 
itself  is  often  robbed  of  its  due  effect  from  a  want  of  that  simplicity 
of  statement,  so  natural,  so  favorable  to  the  cause  ^^f  truth.  Yet 
these  celebrated  discourses  cannot  fail  of  accomplishing  their  end, 
of  enforcing  upon  the  reader  the  general  evidence  of  his  own  faith, 
and  of  animating  his  mind  with  the  contrast  between  the  rehgion  of 
the  Koran  and  that  of  the  Gospel,  between  Mahomet  and  Jesus,  —  the 
contrast  between  falsehood  and  truth,  between  the  fierce  and  polluted 
passions  of  the  earth  and  the  pure  and  perfect  holiness  of  heaven. 

I  had  intended  briefly  to  state  the  leading  points  of  the  life 
and  religion  of  Mahomet ;  but  I  would  rather  that  the  guides  I  have 
mentioned  should  conduct  you  through  the  whole  of  a  subject 
which  is,  in  fact,  too  interesting  and  important  to  be  touched  upon  in 
a  general  or  summary  manner.  The  effect  of  inquiry  will  be  materi- 
ally to  diminish  the  general  impression  of  wonder  with  which  every 
reflecting  mind  must  have  originally  surveyed  a  triumph  of  imposture 
so  extensive  as  that  of  Mahomet.  The  causes  of  his  success  have 
been  well  explained  by  the  authors  I  have  mentioned.  Yet,  gifted 
as  he  was  with  every  mental  and  personal  qualification,  and  highly 
assisted  in  his  enterprise  by  the  moral  and  political  situation  of  his 
countrymen,  the  student  cannot  fail  to  observe  how  slow  and  painful 
was  the  progress  of  his  empire  and  religion.  After  becoming  afflu- 
ent at  an  early  period  of  life,  he  continued  fifteen  years  in  habits  of 
occasional  solitude  and  meditation.  He  was  three  years  in  effecting 
the  conversion  of  his  wife,  his  slave,  his  cousin,  and  eleven  others ; 
he  was  ten  years  employed  in  extending  the  number  of  his  disciples 
within  the  walls  of  Mecca.  This  long  interval  (twenty-eight  years) 
had  elapsed,  before  the  guardians  of  the  established  idolatry  were 
duly  alarmed,  and  proceeded,  from  opposition,  at  last  to  attempt  his 


MAHOMET.  51 

life.  After  flying  from  Mecca,  and  being  received  and  protected  ftt 
Medina,  it  was  six  years  before  he  could  again  approach  his  native 
city ;  two  more,  before  he  could  establish  there  his  sovereignty  and 
his  worship ;  and  two  more,  before  the  various  tribes  of  Arabia  could 
be  brought  to  acknowledge  him  for  their  prophet.  On  several  occar 
sions,  the  fate  of  himself  and  of  his  religion  hung  on  the  most  waver- 
ing and  doubtful  balance.  "  It  was  not  Mahomet  who  conquered  the 
East,  but  his  successors ;  and  had  he  not  attached  to  his  fortunes 
and  faith  a  few  men  of  singular  virtues  and  extraordinary  military 
talents,  his  name  and  his  religion  might  have  perished  with  him,  and 
the  Arabians,  at  his  death,  might  have  relapsed  into  their  former 
habits  of  loose  political  association,  and  of  blind,  unthinking  idol- 
atij. 

To  Mahomet,  indeed,  his  success  must  have  appeared  complete. 
Arabia  must  havef  been  the  natural  boundary  of  his  thoughts  ;  and 
every  thing  in  Arabia  he  had  conquered,  and  it  was  his  own :  he  was 
become  the  great  chief  of  his  nation,  and  he  held  a  still  dearer 
empire  over  their  feelings  and  their  faith :  he  was  the  leader  of  an 
invincible  army,  but  he  was  more  than  an  earthly  conqueror ;  he  was 
considered  as  the  prophet  of  God ;  mere  humanity  was  below  him. 
It  was  at  this  moment  of  his  elevation,  when  he  was  preparing  to 
extend  his  temporal  and  spiritual  dominion  to  Syria,  that  the  angel 
of  death  was  at  hand  to  close  his  eyes  for  ever  on  the  prospects  of 
human  greatness,  and  to  remove  him  to  the  presence  of  that  awful 
Being  whose  laws  he  had  violated,  whose  name  he  had  abused,  and 
whose  creatures  he  had  deceived. 

That  an  enthusiast  like  Mahomet  should  arise  in  Arabia  can  be  no 
matter  of  surprise.  The  nation  itself  was  of  a  temperament  highly 
impetuous  and  ardent,  unaccustomed  to  the  severer  exercises  of  the 
understanding,  the  inquiries  of  science,  and  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge, devoted  only  to  eloquence  and  poetry,  the  impulses  of  the 
passions,  and  the  visions  of  the  imagination.  An  enthusiast,  like 
himself,  had  arisen  and  been  destroyed  a  little  before  his  death ; 
another,  soon  after.  In  the  time  of  the  Caliphs,  after  an  interval  of 
two  hundred  and  sixty  years,  appeared  the  Arabian  preacher  Car 
math.  He  too,  like  Mahomet,  made  his  converts,  dispersed  his 
apostles  amongst  the  tribes  of  the  desert,  and  they  were  everywhere 
successful.  The  Carmathians  were  sublimed  into  the  same  fanatical 
contempt  of  death  and  devotion  to  their  chiefs  as  had  been  before 
the  followers  of  Mahomet.  They  overran  Arabia,  trampled  upon 
Mecca,  and  were  one  of  the  effective  causes  of  the  decline  and  fall 
of  the  Caliphs.  ^ 

More  temperate  climates,  more  civilized  countries,  than  those^  of 
the  East,  even  times  improved  like  our  own,  have  witnessed  the  nse, 
and,  to  a  certain  degcee,  success,  of  enthusiasts  who  have  made  con- 
Biderable  approaches  to  the  pretensions  of  Mahomet.     The  (jerman 


fiel  LECTURE  III. 

Swedenborg*  entirely  equalled  Mm  in  his  claims  on  the  credulity  of 
mankind ;  he  affirmed  distinctly,  that  he  had  a  regular  communica- 
tion with  heaven.  Like  other  enthusiasts,  he  was  unable  to  prove 
his  mission ;  but  he  convinced  himself,  and  had  his  converts  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  Europe. 

Of  Mahomet,  as  of  others,  it  is  often  asked  whether  he  was  an 
enthusiast  or  an  impostor.  He  was  both.  In  men  like  him  the 
characters  are  never  long  separated.  It  is  the  essence  of  enthusiasm 
to  overrate  its  end,  to  overvalue  its  authority ;  all  means  are  there- 
fore easily  sanctified  that  can  accomplish  its  purposes.  Imposture 
is  only  one  amongst  others ;  and  as  it  is  the  nature  of  enthusiasm  at 
the  same  time  to  overlook  the  distinctions  of  reason  and  propriety, 
what  is  or  what  is  not  imposture  is  not  always  discerned,  nor  would 
be  long  regarded,  if  it  were. 

The  designs  of  Mahomet  are  often  supposed  to  have  originated 
early  in  life,  and  to  have  been  formed  from  a  long,  comprehensive, 
and  profound  meditation  on  the  situation  of  his  countrymen  and  the 
nations  of  the  East.  It  is  not  thus  that  great  changes  in  the  affairs 
of  men  are  produced ;  it  is  not  thus  that  the  founders  of  dynasties, 
the  authors  of  revolutions,  and  the  conquerors  of  the  world  proceed. 
Men  like  these  are  formed,  not  only  by  original  temperament  and 
genius,  but  by  situation  and  by  the  occasion ;  their  ideas  open  with 
their  circumstances,  their  ambition  expands  with  their  fortune  ;  they 
are  gifted  with  the  prophetic  eye  that  can  see  the  moment  that  is 
pregnant  with  the  future ;  they  are  distinguishable  by  the  faculty 
that  discerns  what  is  really  impossible  from  what  only  appears  to  be 
so ;  they  can  avail  themselves  of  the  powers  and  capacities  of  every 
thing  around  them ;  the  time,  the  place,  the  circumstances,  the  soci- 
ety, the  nation,  all  are  at  the  proper  instant  understood,  and  wielded 
to  their  purpose.  They  are  the  rapid,  decisive,  fearless,  and  often 
desperate  rulers  of  inferior  minds  ;  not  the  calm  reasoners  or  pro- 
found contrivers  of  distant  schemes  of  aggrandizement,  seen  through 
a  long  series  of  concatenated  events,  —  events  which,  as  they  well 
know,  are  ever  liable  to  be  disturbed  by  the  ceaseless  agitations  and 
business  of  human  life,  and  the  unexpected  interference  of  occurren- 
ces, which  it  may  be  their  fortune,  indeed,  and  their  wisdom,  to  seize 
and  employ,  but  which  they  cannot  possibly  produce  or  foresee. 

The  propagation  of  the  faith  of  Mahomet  by  his  generals  and 
friends,  the  conquest  of  Syria,  Persia,  Africa,  and  Spain,  the  differ- 
ent empires  of  the  Caliphs,  and  all  that  is  important  in  the  learning 
of  their  subjects,  or  in  their  own  magnificence  and  decline,  may  be 
collected  from  Gibbon.  To  the  same  masterly  author  we  may  refer 
for  the  impression  made  on  Hindostan  by  Mahomet  of  Gazna,  and 
the  fluctuating  history  and  final  success  of  the  Turks.     These  sub- 

*  The  epithet  "  German  "  is  misapplied  here.  Swedenborg  was  a  native  and  subject 
of  Sweden.  — N. 


MAHOMET.  53 

jects,  striking  and  important  in  their  main  events,  cannot  well  h(* 
endured  in  all  the  tame  and  minute  detail  of  the  writers  of  the 
Modern  History.  The  very  curious  history  of  the  Saracens  given  by 
Ocldey  should  be  consulted,  and  is  somewhat  necessary  to  enable  the 
student  more  exactly  to  comprehend  the  character  of  the  Arabians, 
which  is  there  displayed,  by  their  own  writers,  in  all  its  singulari- 
ties. The  siege  of  Damascus,  for  instance,  may  be  selected ;  it  is 
related  by  Ockley,  illuminated  by  Gibbon,  dramatized  by  Hughes, 
and  it  may,  therefore,  exercise  the  philosophy,  the  taste,  and  the 
imagination  of  a  discerning  reader. 

The  empires  of  the  East  bowed  before  the  concentrated  tribes  of 
Arabia,  who  passed  over  them  with  all  the  force  and  rapidity  of  a 
whirhrind  ;  these  new  centaurs  it  was  equally  impossible  to  face,  as 
they  advanced,  or  pursue,  as  they  retreated.  It  is  tnie,  that  these 
eastern  empires  were  at  the  time  particularly  unfitted  to  sustain  any 
powerful  attack ;  but  what  could  have  been  opposed  to  the  natives 
of  the  desert,  educated  in  the  most  tremendous  habits  of  privation  and 
activity,  and  in  habits,  still  more  tremendous,  of  fanaticism  and  fury? 

To  give  one  instance  out  of  a  thousand  that  must  have  existed.  — 
"  Repose  yourself,"  said  Derar ;  "  you  are  fatigued  by  fighting  with 
this  dog."  —  "  He  that  labors  to-day,"  replied  Caled,  ", shall  rest  in 
the  world  to  come,  shall  rest  to-morrow."  — "  Great  God ! "  said 
Akbah,  as  he  spurred  his  horse  into  the  Atlantic,  "  if  I  were  not 
stopped  by  this  sea,  I  would  still  go  on  and  put  to  the  sword  the  re- 
bellious nations  that  worship  any  other  gods  than  thee." . —  "  God  is 
victorious,"  said  Ali  four  hundred  times  in  a  nocturnal  combat,  as 
each  time  he  cut  down  an  infidel.  Such  were  the  generals.  —  "I 
see  the  Houries  looking  upon  me,"  said  an  Arabian  youth ;  "  and 
there  is  one  that  beckons  me,  and 'calls,  'Come  hither!'"  —  and, 
with  these  words,  he  charged  the  Christians  everywhere,  making 
havoc  till  he  was  struck  do^\Ti  and  expired.  —  "  Fight ! "  "  Parar 
dise  ! "  "  God  is  victorious  ! "  —  these  were  the  shouts  of  war.  Such 
were  the  soldiers.  —  And  while  such  was  the  army,  the  battle  might 
be  bloody,  but  the  victory  was  certain. 

The  transmission  of  the  faith  of  Mahomet  pure  and  unadulterated, 
the  same  faith  which  he  originally  delivered,  is,  no  doubt,  remark- 
able ;  and  the  absence  of  any  clerical  order  among  the  Moslems,  and 
the  union  of  the  regal  and  sacerdotal  characters  in  the  commanders 
of  the  faithful,  may  perhaps  explain  this  striking  phenomenon.  But 
the  continuance  of  the  religion  at  all,  as  it  is  not  founded  in  tnith,  is 
deserving  of  regard.  It  must  be  remembered,  that  it  gained  pos- 
session of  the  eastern  nations,  and  subsisted  several  centuries  under 
the  Caliphs,  with  whose  power  it  was  identified.  It  was  easily  propar 
gated  among  the  wandering  conquerors  of  the  East,  —  men  without 
knowledge  and  without  reflection,  whose  rehgious  creeds  were  readily 
formed,  sUghtly  considered,  and  loosely  held,  and  whose  mihtary  and 

E  * 


M  LECTURE  III. 

arbitrary  government  indisposed  and  disabled  them  from  all  exercise 
of  their  reason  in  the  search  of  truth.  The  Koran  must  also  be  con- 
sidered as  not  only  a  religious,  but  a  civil  code.  To  alter,  therefore, 
the  religion  of  a  Mahometan  is  to  alter  his  opinions,  habits,  and  feel- 
ings, —  to  give  him  a  new  character,  a  new  nature.  Add  to  this, 
that  the  intolerant  expressions  and  precepts  of  the  Koran  have  been 
so  improved  upon  by  the  followers  of  Mahomet,  that  the  great  char- 
acteristic of  their  religion  is,  and  has  been  long,  a  deadly  hostility 
and  fixed  contempt  for  the  professors  of  every  other  belief.  The 
Koran,  therefore,  when  once  established,  was,  humanly  speaking, 
established  for  ever ;  and  it  has  now  for  eleven  centuries  occupied  the 
faith  of  a  large,  but  unenlightened,  portion  of  mankind. 

But  this  permanency  of  the  rehgion  and  institutions  of  Mahomet 
has  been  in  every  respect  a  misery  to  his  disciples  and  a  misfortune 
to  the  human  race.  It  might  have  been  possible  for  Mahomet  to 
mould  the  simplicity  and  independence  of  the  Arabians  into  some 
form  of  government  favorable  to  'the  civil  liberty  of  his  followers 
and  to  the  improvement  of  their  character  and  happiness ;  but  no 
speculations  of  this  kind  seem  ever  to  have  approached  his  mind ;  all 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  power  was  united  in  his  own  person,  and  he 
left  it,  without  further  reflection,  to  be  the  portion  of  his  succes- 
sors. The  result  has  been  fatal  to  his  disciples ;  their  caliphs  and 
sultans  have  been  the  leaders  of  fanatics,  or  the  now  arbitrary,  now 
trembling,  rulers  of  soldiers  and  janizaries ;  but  they  have  never 
enjoyed  the  far  more  elevated  distinction  of  the  hmited  monarchs  of 
a  free  people.  The  East  has,  therefore,  made  no  advance  ;  it  is  still 
left  in  a  state  of  inferiority  to  Europe,  and  it  has  derived  from  Mar 
homet  no  accession  of  wisdom  or  vigor  to  regenerate  its  inhabitants, 
or  save  them  from  the  enterprise  and  plunder  of  the  West.  In  vain 
did  he  destroy  the  idols  of  his  countrymen  and  sublime  their  faith  to 
the  worship  of  the  one  true  God  ;  in  vain  did  he  inculcate  compassion 
to  the  distressed,  alms  to  the  needy,  protection  and  tenderness  to  the 
widow  and  the  orphan.  He  neither  abolished  nor  discountenanced 
polygamy  ;  and  the  professors  of  his  faith  have  thus  been  left  the  do- 
mestic tyrants  of  one  half  of  their  own  race.  He  taught  predestina 
tion ;  and  they  have  thus  become,  by  their  crude  application  of  his 
doctrine,  the  victims  of  every  natural  disease  and  calamity.  He 
practised  intolerance ;  and  they  are  thus  made  the  enemies  of  the 
civihzed  world.  He  permitted  the  union  of  the  regal  and  sacerdotal 
offices,  and  he  made  the  book  of  his  religion  and  legislation  the  same. 
All  alteration,  therefore,  among  the  Mahometans  must  have  been 
thought  impiety ;  lost  in  the  scale  of  thinking  beings,  they  have  ex- 
hibited families  without  society,  subjects  without  freedom,  govern- 
ments without  security,  and  nations  without  improvement.  For 
centuries  they  have  continued  the  destroyers  of  others,  and  been 
destroyed  themselves,  —  the  ministers  and  the  victims  of  cruelty  and 


PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  65 

death ;  and  even  when  appearing  in  their  most  promising  form  of  an 
established  European  empire,  such  has  been  their  bigoted  attachment 
to  their  Koran,  that  they  have  been  contented  to  decline  and  fall 
with  the  progress  of  improvement  in  surrounding  nations,  to  see  then; 
military  science  become  contemptible,  their  strength  unwieldy,  thel 
courage  stagnate  without  hope  or  effort,  and  even  their  virtues  Ian 
guish,  if  possible,  without  respect  or  use. 

The  student  may  now  once  more  make  a  pause,  and  return  to  con 
sider  the  state  of  Europe  at  this  particular  period.  The  nations  of 
the  West  have  been  the  objects  of  his  attention,  and  he  has  been 
called  aside  to  observe  the  appearance  of  a  great  revolution  that  had 
taken  place  in  the  East ;  and  supposing  him  now  to  renew  his  specu- 
lations, with  respect  to  the  happiness  of  mankind,  there  seems  little  to 
aiford  him  any  pleasure  for  the  present,  or  any  hope  for  the  future. 
This  interference  of  the  followers  of  Mahomet  from  the  East  in  the 
affairs  of  Europe  can  only  give  the  prospect  a  new  and  additional 
gloom ;  their  reUgion  is  not  true,  their  civil  polity  is  destructive  to 
liberty.  Most  fortunately,  they  have,  indeed,  been  driven  back  by 
Charles  Martel  and  the  Franks ;  but  they  may  ultimately  make  some 
permanent  and  considerable  settlement  in  the  western  world,  which 
can  in  no  case  be  favorable  to  its  interests. 

But  what,  in  the  mean  time,  has  been  the  fate  of  Europe  itself? 
The  student  will  recollect  the  hopes  with  which  we  entered  on  its 
history  at  the  accession  of  Clovis.  The  Christian  rehgion,  the 
Roman  arts,  Hterature,  and  law,  might  have  tempered  and  improved, 
it  had  been  fondly  supposed,  the  bold  independence  and  simple  vir- 
tues of  the  Barbarian  character ;  and  the  result  might  have  been  that 
mixture  of  freedom  and  restraint,  of  natural  reason  and  divine  illumi- 
nation, which  gives  the  last  finish  and  perfection  to  the  dignity  and 
happiness  of  human  nature.  How  different,  «how  melancholy,  has 
been  the  event !  We  are  now  supposed  to  have  travelled  through 
five  centuries,  and  there  is  no  liberty,  no  knowledge,  and  no  religion. 
Instead  of  liberty,  there  has  grown  up  the  feudal  system ;  instead  of 
knowledge,  darkness  has  overspread  the  land,  and  thick  darkness  the 
people  ;  and  instead  of  rehgion,  there  has  arisen  a  long  train  of  cere- 
monies and  observances,  and  the  empire  of  the  priest,  in  the  odious 
sense  of  the  word,  has  been  established  over  the  conscience  and  the 
happiness  of  his  blind  and  unresisting  votaries. 

All  this  is  surely  mournful  to  behold,  yet  it  is  all  in  the  natural 
order,  of  things  ;  the  speculation  that  hoped  otherwise  was  inattentive 
to  the  great  taws  of  human  nature.  A  state  of  natural  liberty,  for 
example,  implies  a  state  of  ignorance  ;  and  the  result  of  both  cannot, 
in  the  first  instance,  be  civil  liberty.  Of  the  same  ignorance,  in  like 
manner,  the  result  cannot  be  religion ;  the  result  can  be  only  super- 
stition. Religion,  even  if,  by  peculiar  interposition,  it  had  been  re- 
ceived pure,  would  soon  be  disfigm-ed  and  corrupted,  and  become  a 


66  LECTURE  III. 

gross  and  comfortless  system  of  blind  devotion.  It  must  be  ever 
thus  They  who  would  indispose  men  to  all  restraint  prepare  them, 
not  for  civil  liberty,  but  for  mutual  violence,  to  end,  at  length,  in 
submission  to  some  military  leader,  or  in  the  tyranny  of  a  few. 
They,  in  like  manner,  who  would  keep  men  in  ignorance,  the  better 
to  incline  them  to  the  observances  of  religion,  prepare  them  for  super- 
stition, and  not  for  the  reasonable  sacrifice  of  the  heart ;  and  as  igno- 
raiice  in  the  hearer  must  be  followed  by  ignorance  and  usurpation 
in  the  teacher,  the  priest  and  the  people  will  each  in  their  turn  con- 
tribute to  the  debasement  of  the  other. 

Abandoning,  therefore,  all  our  former  expectations  of  the  happy 
effects  that  were  on  a  sudden  to  arise  from  that  new  mixture  of  civil- 
ized and  uncivilized  life  which  took  place  in  Europe  on  the  conquest 
and  settlement  of  the  northern  nations,  we  must  now  be  (mly  anxious 
to  observe  how  the  evils  that  had  been  established  gradually  softened, 
or  were  at  length  counteracted,  by  attendant  causes  of  good ;  how 
the  clouds  cleared  away  that  overhung  these  Middle  Ages  ;  how  the 
interests  of  society  became  at  last  progressive,  lost  and  hopeless  as 
at  this  melancholy  period  they  certainly  appeared. 

The  great  evils  that  existed,  the  great  objects  of  attention,  are  the 
Feudal  System  and  the  Papal  Power.  As  we  read  the  facts  of  his- 
tory, we  may  be  enabled  to  observe  the  more  obvious  effects  of  these 
two  great  calamities  by  which  mankind  were  oppressed ;  but  we  must 
carefully  recollect  that  far  more  was  suffered  than  history  can  possibly 
express.  History  can  exhibit  an  emperor,  like  Henry  the  Fourth  of 
Germany,  barefooted  and  in  penance  for  three  winter  days  before  the 
palace  of  the  Pope  ;  or  a  feudal  lord,  like  Earl  Warren,  producing 
his  sword  as  the  title-deeds  of  his  estate ;  but  history  cannot  enter 
into  the  recesses  of  private  life,  and  can  by  no  means  delineate  what 
was  daily  and  hourly  suffered  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  towns  or 
country  from  the  unrestrained  and  unciviHzed  usurpation  of  the  feudal 
lords,  from  "  the  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely." 
Still  less  can  history  describe  the  more  obscure  and  silent,  but  not 
less  dreadful,  effects  of  ecclesiastical  despotism  ;  the  hopeless,'yet  pro- 
tracted, languor  of  some  mistaken  victim  of  creduhty  in  the  odious 
cell  of  a  monastery ;  or  all  that  was  suffered  by  the  terrified  imagina- 
tion of  him  who  had  incurred  the  censures  of  the  Church  or  the  over- 
whelming evils  of  excommunication.  Even  if  we  suppose  the  slave 
QO  longer  to  complain,  and  the  monk  no  longer  to  feel,  still,  that  de- 
■struction  of  the  faculties,  that  debasement  of  the  nature,  which  is  so 
complete  as  to  be  unperceived  by  the  individual  himself,  is  on  that 
very  account  but  a  more  deserving  object  of  our  compassion :  the 
maniac  who  dances  heedless  in  his  chains  but  awakens  our  pity  the 
more.  , 

We  must  now,  therefore,  observe,  as  we  proceed  in  history,  that 
whatever  advanced  the  authority  of  either  the  feudal  system  or  the 


PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  67 

Papal  power  was,  on  the  whole,  unfavorable  to  the  inteiesks  of  man 
kmd ;  whatever  has  a  contrary  tendency  should  be  watched  and  ex- 
ammed  with  the  greatest  anxiety,  for  it  is  the  only  hope  of  future 
improvement. 

Now  it  often  happens  in  human  affairs,  that  the  evil  and  the  rem- 
edy grow  up  at  the  same  time ;  the  remedy  unnoticed,  and,  at  a 
distance,  scarce  visible,  perhaps,  above  the  earth ;  while  the  evil 
may  shoot  rapidly  into  strength,  and  alone  catch  the  eye  of  the  ob- 
server by  the  immensity  of  its  shadow  and  the  fulness  of  its  luxun- 
ance.  The  eternal  law,  however,  which  imposes  change  upon  all 
things,  insensibly  produces  its  effect,  and  a  subsequent  age  may  l>e 
enabled  to  mark  how  the  one  declined  and  the  other  advanced ;  how 
the  life  and  the  vigor  were  gradually  transferred ;  and  how  return- 
ing spring  seemed  no  longer  to  renew  the  honors  of  the  one,  while  it 
summoned  into  progress  and  maturity  the  promise  and  perfection  of 
the  otl>er.  No  more  useful  exercise  can  be  offered  to  us  than  to 
trace,  if  possible,  the  opposite  successions  of  alterations  like  these. 
As  we  read  modern  history,  for  a  few  centuries  from  the  success  of 
the  northern  nations,  we  shall  be  doomed  to  observe  the  shades  of 
tyranny,  temporal  and  spiritual,  deepening  as  we  advance ;  but  the 
light  will  at  last  begin  to  glimmer,  then  to  be  faintly  discernible,  at 
length  be  found  distinctly  to  approach  us,  and  in  a  few  centuries 
more  to  break  forth  from  the  clouds,  and  the  day  appear. 

Witnessing,  as  Ave  ourselves  have  done,  what  the  mind  of  man  is 
capable  of  performing  in  literature  and  science,  seeing  what  enjoy- 
ment his  nature  is  fitted  to  receive  from  the  intercourse  of  polished 
and  social  hfe,  it  is  with  the  most  comfortless  sensations  that  we 
survey  the  situation  of  mankind  at  this  dark  period  of  their  history, 
and  with  the  most  intolerable  impatience  that  we  travel  through  the 
long  and  at  last  but  too  imperfect  struggle  which  literature  and 
science,  freedom  and  religion,  had  to  maintain  with  ignorance, 
slavery,  and  superstition.  This  interesting  subject  has  been,  in  part, 
investigated  by  Dr.  Robertson,— one  of  those  few  writers  who  can 
furnish  himself  with  the  learning  of  an  antiquarian,  and  then  exhibit 
it  in  a  form  and  in  a  compass  that  admits  of  a  perusal  even  amid 
the  business  and  amusements  of  modern  life.  Never  advancing  in 
his  text  more  than  is  necessary,  his  proofs  and  illustrations  are  not 
doubtful  and  imperfect,  such  as  the  reader  understands  with  diffi 
culty  and  assents  to  with  hesitation,  but  concise  and  satisfactory;  all 
appears  reasonable,  unembarrassed,  and  complete,— the  diligence  of 
a  scholar,  with  the  good  sense  of  a  man  of  business  and  ot  the 
world.  The  dissertation  prefixed  to  his  Charles  the  Fifth  deserves 
the  study  of,  and  is  accessible  to,  almost  every  reader. 

If  there  be  any  (and  some  there  may)  who  are  repulsed  by  wnat 
is  called,  in  familiar  language,  the  dryness  of  the  subject,  they  may 
suspend  this  inquiry  for  a  season,  and  repeat  the  expenment  uere 
8 


58  LECTURE  III. 

after.  The  studies  of  men  alter  as  they  advance  in  life, — alter 
rapidly ;  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  not  those  of  a  maturer  period ; 
time,  that  improves  us  not  in  many  respects,  improves  us  materially 
in  some ;  by  mitigating  the  rage  for  the  more  selfish  and  violent 
pleasures,  it  renders  the  mind  accessible  to  more  calm  and  dignified 
anxieties ;  and  many  a  man,  who,  in  all  the  insolence  of  youthful 
hope  and  health  and  gayety,  had  thought  of  little  but  himself,  may, 
in  a  few  years,  think  of  others  and  of  mankind,  and  pursue  with  due 
interest  the  fortunes  of  his  species  through  the  pages  of  Robertson 
or  of  Stuart,  of  Smith,  of  Montesquieu,  or  of  Hume. 

From  Robertson  a  very  full  and  distinct  idea  may  be  formed  of 
the  unhappy  effects  which  the  feudal  system  produced  on  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  town  and  the  country,  and  particularly  of  the  extent 
and  violence  to  which  the  practice  of  private  war  was  carried  by  the 
greater  and  lesser  barons,  the  unhappy  influence  of  so  disordered  a 
state  of  society  on  science  and  the  arts,  on  knowledge  and  religion, 
on  the  characters  and  virtues  of  the  human  mind.  He  will  then  see 
delineated  the  salutary  effect  which  the  Crusades  had  on  the  man- 
ners, and  the  state  of  property ;  and  he  will  see  noticed,  also,  their 
commercial  effect.  The  next  cause  of  improvement  which  the  his- 
torian points  out  is  the  rise  and  establishment  of  free  cities,  commu- 
nities, and  corporations ;  and  he  shows  the  happy  alteration  which 
they  effected  in  the  condition  of  the  people,  in  the  power  of  the  no- 
bility, in  the  power  of  the  crown,  and  in  the  general  industry  of  the 
community ;  how  this  effect  Avas  still  increased,  as  the  inhabitants  of 
cities  became  gradually  possessed  of  political  authority ;  how  it  was 
still  more  widely  extended  with  the  extension  of  commerce,  and  with 
the  science  which  was  caught  from  the  Greeks  and  Arabians ;  how 
men  were  softened  and  refined  by  chivalry ;  and  how  the  administrar 
tion  of  justice  was  made  m'ore  regular,  and  society  rendered  capable 
of  still  further  improvement,  by  the  gradual  abolition  of  private  war 
and  the  judicial  combat,  by  the  introduction  of  appeals  from  the 
courts  of  the  barons,  and  by  the  introduction  of  the  canon  and  Ro- 
man law. 

After  Robertson,  the  work  of  Gilbert  Stuart  should  be  diligently 
searched.  And  here,  for  the  first  time,  the  reader  will  meet  with 
observations  injurious  to  the  fame  and  authority  of  Dr.  Robertson. 
Yet  that  fame  and  authority  are,  on  the  whole,  rather  confirmed  than 
weakened  by  the  animadversions  of  Stuart ;  for,  with  great  ability 
and  learning,  and  with  great  eagerness  to  find  fault,  his  objections 
are,  after  all,  but  few,  and  of  no  decisive  importance.  He  detracts 
not,  he  says,  from  the  diligence  of  Dr.  Robertson,  whose  laborlous- 
ness  is  acknowledged ;  and  his  remark,  or  accusation  rather,  is, 
that  the  Doctor's  "  total  abstinence  from  all  ideas  and  inventions  of 
his  own  permitted  him  to  carry  an  undivided  attention  to  other 
men's  thoughts  and  speculations."     Dr.  Stuart  forgets,  that  to  takf* 


PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  60 

an  extensive  view,  and  to  form  a  rational  estimate  of  the  facts  and 
opinions  before  him,  is  a  considerable  part,  if  not  the  whole,  of  the 
merit  that  can  be  required  in  an  historian  ;  that  an  historian,  though 
he  may  be  more,  should  in  the  first  place  be  a  guide,  and  that  men 
of  invention  and  speculation  are  of  all  guides  the  least  to  be  trastcd. 

Two  thirds  of  Stuart's  work  consists  of  notes ;  and  this,  I  must 
observe,  is  the  only  way  in  which  any  estimate  can  be  given  of  the 
situation  of  society  at  any  particular  period.  Nothing  should  be 
laid  down  in  a  text  that  cannot  be  directly  proved  or  fairly  implied 
from  some  original  'document  referred  to  or  quoted  in  the  notes. 
Views  of  society  are,  otherwise,  views  only  of  an  author's  own  io- 
genuity  and  sentiments;  and  whoever  consults  the  authorities  to 
which  our  most  established  writers  appeal  will  not  always  find  their 
representations  justified,  especially  when  these  historians  have,  what 
Dr.  Stuart  so  much  admires,  ideas  and  notions  of  their  own.  His- 
torians, also,  are  far  too  apt  to  copy  each  other.  The  student  should 
therefore  consult,  in  several  instances,  the  references  of  a  writer ; 
and  he  can  then  form  an  opinion  to  what  confidence  he  is  entitled. 
It  is  scarcely  possible  that  the  vigilance  of  an  author  should  not 
sometimes  relax,  or  his  discernment  be  sometimes  clouded. 

From  the  work  of  Dr.  Stuart  the  student  will  derive  information 
respecting  the  rise  of  chivalry  and  of  the  feudal  system ;  the  differ- 
ent characters  which  belonged  to  these  institutions  at  two  different 
periods ;  what  he  esteems  their  original  grandeur  and  virtue,  and 
what  every  one  must  esteem  their  subsequent  debasement  and  cor- 
ruption; and  he  concludes  with  remarking  upon  the  alterations 
that  followed  in  the  military  system  and  in  the  manners  of  society. 
The  mind  of  the  autli5r  is,  no  doubt,  vigorous,  and  his  learning 
great ;  we  see,  too,  in  his  representation  of  the  favorable  periods  of 
chivalry  and  the  feudal  system,  strong  marks  of  that  eloquence 
which  was  displayed  in  the  defence  of  the  unfortunate  Mary. 

The  view  which  Dr.  Robertson  has  taken  of  the  progress  of  soci 
ety  is  marked,  according  to  Stuart,  by  a  variety  of  omissions.  1 
shall  venture,  however,  to  propose  once  m.ore  to  the  consideration  of 
my  hearers  the  still  more  contracted  estimate  of  this  great  subject 
which  I  have  already  mentioned.  The  leading  and  important  evils 
of  mankind,  I  must  still  contend,  became  at  last  the  feudal  system 
and  the  Papal  power ;  the  attention,  therefore,  may  be  fixed,  as  I 
conceive,  chiefly  on  these.  Whatever  had  a  tendency  to  break  up 
and  dissipate  the  poKver  so  collected  was  favorable  to  the  interests  of 
mankind,  and  the  contrary.  All  healthful  motion  and  activity  Avere, 
by  these  two  great  causes  of  evil,  excluded  from  society ;  military 
exercises  and  chur-ch  ceremonies  were  the  only  result ;  and  whatever 
withdrew  the  human  mind  into  any  new  direction  could  not  fail  to 
assist  the  progress  of  general  improvement.  I  will  say  a  word,  and 
but  a  word,  on  each. 


60  LECTURE  III. 

With  respect,  then,  first,  to  the  feudal  power.  This  feudal  powei 
lay  in  the  great  lords,  and  in  the  king,  as  the  greatest  of  those  lords. 
In  England  the  situation  of  things  was  not  exactly  the  same  as  in 
the  rest  of  Europe,  from  the  greater  influence  of  the  crown :  but  in 
general  it  may  be  said,  that  whatever  shook  and  scattered  the  power 
of  the  great  barons  was  favorable  to  civil  liberty,  even  if  the  power 
was,  in  the  event,  to  be  transferred  entirely  to  the  king ;  it  was  less 
mjurious,  thus  single,  than  when  multiplied  among  the  lords ;  and 
there  was  always  a  probability,  that,  in  the  course  of  the  struggle, 
the  commons  might  come  in  for  a  part,  if  not  the  whole,  of  the  share 
that  belonged  to  them. 

The  great  cause,  then,  of  the  improvement  of  society  during  these 
centuries  was  the  rise  and  progress  of  Commerce ;  for  the  great 
point  to  be  attained  was  the  elevation  of  the  lower  orders.  Both 
the  crown  and  the  barons  were  sufficiently  ready,  each  of  them,  to 
employ  the  lower  orders  against  the  other.  Consequence  was  there- 
fore given  to  this  oppressed  race  of  men,  and  immunities  and  privi- 
leges were  •  afforded  to  them,  more  particularly  in  the  towns  and 
cities.  Tike  result  was  commerce,  which  again  added  to  the  conse- 
quence they  had  before  acquired. 

As  the  towns  and  cities  were  on  various  accounts  materially 
leagued  with  the  crown,  the  power  of  the  barons  was  thus,  on  the 
whole,  assaulted  from  without.  But  it  was  also  attacked  and  wasted 
from  within.  A  taste  was  gradually  introduced  for  the  more  elegant 
and  expensive  enjoyments  of  life,  and  the  barons  could  not  spend 
their  revenues  on  themselves,  and  at  the  same  time  on  their  retain- 
ers,—  at  once  on  articles  of  luxury,  and  in  rude  hospitahty.  The 
number  of  their  retainers  was  therefore  dimtnished,  —  that  is,  their 
power  and  political  importance.  The  whole  subject  has  been  admira- 
bly explained  by  Smith  in  his  third  book  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations, 
and  I  depend  on  your  reading  it ;  leaving  here  a  blank  in  my  lec- 
tures, which  you  must  yourselves  fill  up.  It  would  be  an  improper 
use  of  your  time  to  offer  you  here,  in  an  imperfect  manner,  what 
can  be  afforded  you,  and  far  better  afforded  you,  by  the  study  of 
this  very  masterly  part  of  his  celebrated  work.  A  great  part  of 
Smith's  reasonings  had  appeared  in  the  History  of  Hume.  These 
two  eminent  philosophers — for  on  the  subjects  of  political  economy 
and  morals  they  deserve  the  name — had,  no  doubt,  in  their  mutual 
intercourse,  enlightened  and  confirmed  the  inquiries  and  conclusions 
of  each  other. 

The  Crusades  are  considered  by  authors  in  general,  and  by  Dr. 
Kobertson,  as  a  powerful  cause  of  the  improvement  of  society.  You 
will  see  his  reasons.  And  you  will  observe  that  Smith  conceives, 
that,  from  the  great  waste  and  destruction  of  people  and  of  capital, 
they  must  rather  have  retarded  the  progress  of  the  greater  part  of 
Europe,  though  favorable  to  some  Italian  cities.     You  will  perceive, 


PROGRESS  OF  SOCIETY.  61 

also,  that  Gibbon  agrees  with  Smith.  But  the  question  is,  whether 
the  stock  and  population  thus  transported  to  Palestine  would  have 
been  turned  to  any  proper  purposes  of  accumulation  or  improve- 
ment, if  left  to  remain  at  home.  At  the  close  of  his  remarks  on 
this  subject,  Mr.  Gibbon  appears  to  me  to  have  determined  this 
question  not  a  little^  against  himself,  bj  a  very  beautiful  illustration 
which  he  offers  to  his  reader,  after  the  manner  of  the  great  orator 
of  antiquity,  —  an  illustration  which  at  once  conveys  an  image  to  the 
fancy  and  an  argument  to  the  understanding.  "  The  conflagration," 
says  he,  "  which  destroyed  the  tall  and  barren  trees  of  the  forest 
gave  air  and  scope  to  the  vegetation  of  the  smaller  and  nutritive 
plants  of  the  soil";  that  is,  the  Crusades  destroyed  the  feudal 
lords,  and  brought  forward  the  middle  and  lower  orders. 

Another  cause  of  the  improvement  of  society  was  the  fortune, 
whatever  it  might  be,  by  which  the  crown  became,  in  the  great  king- 
doms of  Europe,  hereditary.  The  royal  power  was  thus  rendered 
always  ready  to  gain  whatever  could  be  lost,  to  proceed  from  one 
accession  to  another,  and  to  be  the  great  and  permanent  reservoir 
into  which  the  feudal  authority  had  constantly  a  tendency  to  flow. 
I  have  before  observed,  that  the  power  was  less  injurious,  thus  col- 
lected, than  when  indefinitely  multiplied  and  exhibited  in  the  person 
of  any  baron ;  and  that  there  was  a  probability  that  the  commons 
would  receive  their  share,  in  the  course  of  the  transfer. 

With  respect  to  the  causes  which  shook  the  ecclesiastical  power 
of  Rom«?,  the  second  great  evil  of  society,  they  may  be  comprised  in 
two  words,  that  at  this  period  of  the  world  were  of  kindred  nature, 
—  Heresy  and  Knowledge.  The  gradual  progress  of  these  causes, 
and  their  final  success,  may  be  hereafter  considered.  The  student 
may,  however,  look  upon  either  of  them,  whenever  it  appears  in  the 
history  of  these  times,  as  the  symptom  and  harbinger  of  the  subse- 
quent Reformation.  Ignorance  and  superstition  are  naturally  aUied ; 
their  cause  is  common,  their  friends  and  enemies  the  same.  The 
opposers  of  a  barbarous  philosophy  are  soon  entangled  in  the  mis- 
apprehensions and  corruptions  of  an  abused  rehgion ;  the  spirit  of 
inquiry  which  struggles  witl^  the  one  is  immediately  suspected  of  a 
secret*^  hostility  to  the  other.  The  student,  as  he  proceeds  in  his 
historical  course,  will  soon  be  called  on  to  observe  the  Albigenses, 
the  Lollards,  and  the  Hussites,  with  our  earlier  sages  and  philoso- 
phers, exhibiting,  amid  the  chains  and  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition 
or  of  the  civil  power,  the  melancholy  grandeur  of  persecuted^  truth 
and  insulted  genius.  These  first,  but  unfortunate,  luminaries  of 
Europe  were,  however,  not  lost  to  the  world :  the  Reformation  and 
the  revival  of  learning  at  last  took  place  ;  the  pillar  of  light  contin- 
ued to  march  before  mankind  in  their  journey  through  the  darkness 
of  the  desert,  and  it  was  in  vain  that  the  oppressor  would  have 
prevented  their  escape  from  their  houses  of  bondage,  or  deniei 

p 


62  LECTURE  m, 

them  the  possession  of  the  promise(3  land  of  religion,  liberty,  and 
knowledge. 

I  conclude  this  general  subject  with  observing,  that  the  Crusades, 
while  they  so  happily  dispersed  the  possessions  and  influence  of  the 
great  lords,  and  therefore  so  materially  assisted  the  progress  of 
society,  contributed  to  the  influence  of  the  clergy,  and  that  in  the 
most  unfavorable  manner,  by  furnishing  them  with  relics  and  mirar 
cles,  and  with  new  and  multiplied  modes  of  extending  and  confirming 
the  superstition  of  the  age.  But  I  must  at  the  same  time  remark, 
once  for  all,  that  the  power  which  the  clergy  enjoyed  was  not  always 
exercised  to  the  injury  of  society ;  in  many  most  important  respects 
materially  otherwise.  They  shook  the  power  of  the  barons,  by  con 
triving  to  draw  within  their  o"wn  jurisdiction  the  disputes  and  caus- 
es which  had  belonged  to  the  feudal  courts ;  they  had  always  kept 
alive  in  society  whatever  knowledge,  amidst  such  rapine  and  disorder, 
could  be  suflered  to  exist ;  they  were  the  instructors  of  youth ;  they 
were  the  historians  of  the  times ;  they  maintained  in  existence  the 
Latin  language ;  they  were  the  only  preservers  of  the  remains  of 
Grreek  and  Roman  literature  ;  they  everywhere  endeavoured  to  miti- 
gate and  abolish  slavery ;  they  were  the  most  favorable  landlords  to 
the  peasantry,  to  the  lower  orders  the  mildest  masters ;  they  labored 
most  anxiously  and  constantly  to  soften  and  abolish  the  system  of 
private  war,  by  establishing  truces  and  intermissions,  and  by  assist- 
ing the  civil  magistrate  on  every  possible  occasion ;  they  were  every- 
where, in  those  times  of  violence,  a  description  of  men  whose  habits 
and  manners  were  those  of  peace  and  order ;  they  could  not  profess 
such  a  religion  as  Christianity  without  dispensing,  amidst  all  their 
misrepresentations,  the  general  doctrines  of  purity  and  benevolence, 
and  without  being,  in  a  word,  the  representatives  of  what  learning 
and  civilization,  moderation  and  mercy,  were  yet  to  be  found.  These 
were  great  and  transcendent  merits.  That  their  power  was  inordi- 
nate, and  that  they  abused  it  most  grossly,  is  but  too  true :  a  strong 
proof,  if  any  were  wanting,  that  power  should  always  be  suspected, 
and  should  be  checked  and  divided  by  every  possible  contrivance. 
In  this  instance  it  was  capable  of  conYorting  into  the  rulers,  and 
often  into  the  tyrants,  of  the  earth,  men  who  breathed  the  precepts 
of  meekness  and  lowUness  of  heart,  and  who  continually  affirmed  that 
their  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world. 

Such  are  the  general  views  which  I  have  been  enabled  to  form  of 
the  situation  and  prospects  of- society  during  these  Middle  Ages,  and 
such  are  the  writers  on  whom  I  have  depended  for  instruction,  and  to 
whose  labors  I  must  now  finally  refer  you. 

But  before  I  conclude  my  lecture,  I  must  make  a  particular  re- 
mark. It  cannot  have  escaped  your  observation  how  often  I  have 
mentioned  the  historian  Gibbon ;  how  much  I  leave  entirely  to  de- 
fend upon  liim ;  the  manner  in  which  I  refer  to  him,  as  the  fittest 


GIBBON.  63 

writer  fco  supply  you  with  information  in  all  the  earlier  stages  of 
modern  history,  and,  indeed,  as  the  only  writer  that  you  are  likely 
to  undertake  to  read ;  add  to  this,  that  I  have  already  had  occasion, 
and  shall  often  hereafter  have  occasion,  to  mention  his  History  in 
terms  either  of  admiration  or  respect.  Yet  I  cannot  be  supposed 
ignorant  of  the  very  material  objections  which  exist  to  this  History ; 
and  I  am  certainly  not  at  ease  in  recommending  those  parts  of  the 
work  which  I  do  approve,  while  I  know  there  is  so  much,  both  in  the 
matter  and  manner  of  the  whole,  and  of  every  part  of  it,  which  I 
cannot  approve.  I  am  therefore  necessitated  to  make  some  obser- 
vations on  this  celebrated  writer,  unfavorable  as  well  as  favorable, 
and  this  I  must  do  with  a  minuteness  disproportionate  to  all  unity 
and  keeping  in  the  composition  of  general  lectures  like  these.  I  am 
compelled  to  do  so  by  the  nature  of  the  audience  I  am  addressing, 
and  by  the  fame  of  the  author. 

In  the  chapters  which  I  in  the  first  lecture  referred  to  the  faults 
of  this  great  historian  do  not  appear.  In  the  earher  part  of  his  work 
he  respected  the  public  and  Avas  more  diffident  of  himself.  Success 
produced  its  usual  effects ;  his  peculiar  faults  were  more  and  more 
visible  as  his  work  advanced,  and  in  his  later  volumes  he  seems  to 
take  a  pride,  as  is  too  commonly  the  case  among  men  of  genius,  in 
indulging  himself  in  liberties  which  he  would  certainly  have  denied 
to  others.  And  as  the  powers  of  the  writer  strengthened  as  he 
went  on,  and  kept  pace  with  his  disposition  to  abuse  them,  the 
History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  became,  at  last,  a  work  so  sin- 
gularly constituted,  that  the  objections  to  it  are  too  ob\ious  to 
escape  the  most  ordinary  observer,  while  its  merits  are  too  exten- 
sive and  profound  to  be  fully  ascertained  by  the  most  learned  of  its 
admirers. 

These  faults  will  only  be  the  more  deeply  lamented  by  those  who 
can  best  appreciate  such  extraordinary  merits.  Men  of  genius  are 
fitted  by  their  nature,  not  only  to  instruct  the  understanding,  but  to 
fill  the  imagination  and  interest  the  heart.  It  is  mournful  to  see  the 
defects  of  their  greatness  ;  it  is  painful  to  he  checked  in  the  generous 
career  of  our  applause.  With  what  surprise  and  disgust  are  we  to 
see  in  such  a  writer  as  Gibbon  the  most  vulgar  relish  for  obscenity ! 
With  what  pain  are  we  to  find  him  exercising  his  raillery  and  sar- 
casm on  such  a  subject  as  Christianity !  How  dearly  shall  we  pu^ 
chase  the  pleasure  and  instruction  to  be  derived  from  his  work,  it 
modesty  is  to  be  sneered  away  from  our  minds,  and  piety  from  our 
feelings !  There  seems  no  excuse  for  this  celebrated  writer  on  these 
two  important  points  ;  he  must  have  knoTVTi  that  some  of  the  best  in- 
terests of  society  are  connected  with  the  respectability  of  the  temaie 
character ;  and  with  regard  to  his  chapters  on  the  progi-ess  ot  ^.hns- 
tianity,  and  the  various  passages  of  attack  with  which  his  worK 
abounds,  it  is  in  vain  to  say,  that,  as  a  lover  of  truth,  he  was  called 


64  LECTURE  ni. 

• 

upon  to  oppose  those  opinions  which  he  deemed  erroneous ;  for  he 
was  concerned,  as  an  historian,  only  with  the  effects  of  this  religion, 
and  not  with  its  evidences,  —  with  its  influence  on  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  not  with  its  truth  or  falsehood. 

It  would  be  to  imitate  the  fault  to  which  I  object,  were  I  now  to 
travel  out  of  mj  appointed  path,  and  attempt  to  comment  upon  these 
parts  of  his  work.  But  as  they  who  hear  me  are  at  a  season  of  life 
when  liveliness  and  sarcasm  have  but  too  powerful  a  charm,  more 
particularly  if  employed  upon  subjects  that  are  serious,  it  may  not  be 
improper  to  remind  them  how  often  it  has  been  stated,  and  justly 
stated,  that  questions  of  this  nature  are  to  be  approached  neither  by 
liveliness  nor  by  sarcasm,  but  by  calm  reasoning  and  regular  investi- 
gation ;  and  that  to  subject  them  to  any  other  criterion,  to  expose 
them  to  any  other  influence,  is  to  depart  from  the  only  mode  we  pos- 
sess of  discovering  truth  on  any  occasion,  but  more  especially  on 
those  points  which  youth,  as  well  as  age,  will  soon  discover  to  be  of 
the  most  immeasurable  importance. 

If  we  pass  from  the  matter  to  the  manner  of  this  celebrated  work, 
how  are  we  not  to  be  surprised,  when  we  find  a  writer,  who  has  medi- 
tated the  finest  specimens  of  ancient  and  modern  literature,  forgetting 
the  first  and  most  obvious  requisite  of  the  composition  he  is  engaged 
in,  —  simplicity  of  narrative  !  In  the  History  of  Mr.  Gibbon,  facts 
are  often  insinuated,  rather  than  detailed ;  the  story  is  alluded  t>;i, 
rather  than  told  ;  a  commentary  on  the  history  is  given,  rather  than 
the  history  itself;  many  paragraphs,  and  some  portions  of  the  work, 
are  scarcely  intelhgible  without  that  previous  knowledge  which  it 
was  the  proper  business  of  the  historian  himself  to  have  furnished. 
The  information  which  is  afforded  is  generally  conveyed  by  abstract 
estimates,  —  a  mode  of  writing  which  is  never  comprehended  without 
an  effort  of  the  mind  more  or  less  painful ;  and  when  tliis  exertion  is 
so  continually  to  be  renewed,  it  soon  ceases  to  be  made.  The  reader 
sees,  without  instruction,  sentence  succeed  to  sentence,  in  appearance 
little  connected  with  each  other ;  cloud  rolls  on  after  cloud  in  majesty 
and  darkness ;  a,nd  at  last  i^tires  from  the  work,  to  seek  relief  in  ihe 
chaster  composition  of  Robertson,  or  the  unambitious  beauties  of 
Hume. 

On  this  account,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  apprise  the  student  of 
what  it  might,  at  firstj  seem  somewhat  strange  to  mention,  —  that  he 
will  not  receive  all  the  benefit  which  he  might  otherwise  derive  from 
the  labors  of  this  great  writer,  unless  he  reads  but  little  of  his  work 
at  the  same  time.  It  is  not  that  his  paragraphs,  though  full  and 
sounding,  signify  nothing,  but  that  they  comprehend  too  much  ;  and 
the  reader  must  have  his  faculties,  at  every  instant,  fresh  and  effec- 
tive, or  he  v/ill  not  possess  himself  of  the  treasures,  which  are  con- 
cealed, rather  than  displayed,  in  a  style  so  sententious  and  elaborate. 
The  perversity  of  genius  is  proverbial ;  but  surely  it  has  been  seldom 


GIBBON.  66 

more  unfortunately  exercised  than  in  corrupting  and  disfigurmg  so 

magnificent  a  work. 

For,  the  moment  we  reverse  the  picture,  the  merits  of  the  historian 
are  as  striking  as  his  faults.  If  his  work  be  not  always  history,  it  ig 
often  something  more  than  history,  and  above  it :  it  is  philosophy,  it 
is  theology,  it  is  wit  and  eloquence,  it  is  criticism  the  most  masterly 
upon  every  subject  with  which  literature  can  be  connected.  If  the 
style  be  so  constantly  elevated  as  to  be  often  obscure,  to  be  often 
monotonous,  to  be  sometimes  even  ludicrously  disproportioned  to  the 
subject,  it  must  at  the  same  time  be  allowed,  that,  whenever  an 
opportunity  presents  itself,  it  is  the  striking  and  adequate  representa- 
tive of  comprehensive  thought  and  weighty  remark. 

It  may  be  necessary,  no  doubt,  to  warn  the  student  against  the 
imitation  of  a  mode  of  writing  so  little  easy  and  natural.  But  the 
very  necessity  of  the  caution  imphes  the  attraction  that  is  to  be  re- 
sisted ;  and  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  chapters  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall  are  replete  with  paragraphs  of  such  melody  and  grandeur  as 
would  be  the  fittest  to  convey  to  a  youth  of  genius  the  full  chaim  of 
literary  composition,  and  such  as,  when  once  heard,  however  unat- 
tainable to  the  immaturity  of  his  own  mind,  he  would  alone  consent 
to  admire  or  sigh  to  emulate. 

History  is  always  a  work  of  difficulty ;  but  the  difficulties  with 
which  Mr.  Gibbon  had  to  struggle  were  of  more  than  ordinary  magni- 
tude. Truth  was  to  be  discovered  and  reason  was  to  be  exercised 
upon  times  where  truth  was  little  valued  and  reason  but  little  con- 
cerned. The  materials  of  history  were  often  to  be  collected  from  the 
sjmods  of  prelates,  the  debates  of  polemics,  the  relations  of  monks, 
and  the  panegyrics  of  poets.  Hints  were  to  be  caught,  a  narrative 
was  to  be  gathered  up,  from  documents  broken  and  suspicious,  from 
every  barbarous  rehc  of  a  barbarous  age ;  and,  on  the  whole,  the 
historian  was  to  be  left  to  the  most  unceasing  and  unexampled  exer- 
cise of  criticism,  comparison,  and  conjecture.  Yet  all  this,  and  more 
than  all  this,  has  been  accomplished.  The  public  have  been  made 
acquainted  with  periods  of  history  which  were  before  scarcely  ac- 
cessible to  the  most  patient  scholars.  Order  and  mterest  and  im- 
portance have  been  given  to  what  appeared  to  defy  every  power  of 
perspicacity  and  genius.  Even  the  fleeting  shadows  of  polemical 
divinity  have  been  arrested,  embodied,  and  adorned ;  and  the  same 
pages  which  instruct  the  theologian  might  add  a  polish  to  the  Hveli- 
ness  of  the  man  of  wit,  and  imagery  to  the  fancy  of  the  poet.  The 
vast  and  obscure  regions  of  the  Middle  Ages  have  been  penetrated 
and  disclosed ;  and  the  narrative  of  the  historian,  while  it  descends, 
Hke  the  Nile,  through  lengthened  tracts  of  present  steriHty  and 
ancient  renown,  pours,  like  the  Nile,  the  exuberance  of  its  affluence 
on  every  object  which  it  can  touch,  and  gives  fertility  to  the  rock 
and  verdure  to  the  desert. 

9  F' 


QQ  LECTURE  IV. 

Wlien  such  is  the  work,  it  is  placed  beyond  the  justice  or  the  in- 
justice of  criticism ;  the  Christian  may  have  but  too  often  very  just 
reason  to  complain,  the  moralist  to  reprove,  the  man  of  taste  to  cen- 
sure, —  even  the  historical  inquirer  may  be  fatigued  and  irritated  by 
the  unseasonable  and  obscure  splendor  through  which  he  is  to  dis- 
cover the  objects  of  his  research.  But  the  whole  is,  notwithstanding, 
such  an  assemblage  of  merits  so  various,  so  interesting,  and  so  rare, 
that  the  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  must  always  be  considered 
as  one 'of  the  most  extraordinary  monuments  that  have  appeared  of 
the  literary  powers  of  a  single  mind,  and  its  fame  can  perish  only 
with  the  civihzation  of  the  world. 


LECTURE   lY. 


THE  DARK  AGES. 


I  HAVE  made  a  certain  progress  in  the  consideration  of  the  earlier 
and  more  perplexing  portions  of  modern  history.  I  have,  as  I  hope, 
introduced  to  your  curiosity  the  general  subjects  that  belong  to  it ; 
and  I  have  mentioned  to  you  the  writers  who  have  so  successfully 
displayed  the  philosophy  of  history,  while  considering  these  particular 
times,  —  Hume,  Robertson,  and  Smith,  Stuart,  Gibbon,  and  the 
Abbe  de  Mably. 

But  while  you  are  forming  general  views  and  studying  these 
writers,  you  must  acquire,  by  some  means  or  other,  a  proper  knowl- 
edge of  those  very  facts  and  those  very  details  of  history  which  have 
been  present  to  the  minds  of  these  distinguished  reasoners  while 
they  were  deducing  their  conclusions  and  forming  their  statements. 
In  other  words,  you  must  acquire  some  proper  knowledge  of  the 
French  and  German  histories ;  and  these  histories  are,  for  a  long 
time,  very  tedious  and  repulsive. 

The  original  documents  from  which  the  facts  of  the  early  part  of 
the  French  history  are  to  be  collected  will  be  found  in  a  great 
work  of  the  Benedictines,  in  eleven  volumes,  folio,  —  *'  Becueil  des 
Ilistoriens  des  Gaules  et  de  la  France."  This  great  work  is  seldom 
to  be  met  with  in  England ;  it  is  in  Albemarle  Street,  at  the  Royal 
Institution.  But  there  is  a  work  of  a  similar  nature,  by  Duchesne, 
which  you  will  find  in  all  great  libraries,  —  in  our  own,  —  and  m 
which  the  original  historians  of  France  are  collected.  Gregory  of 
Tours  is  the  author  most  referred  to,  and  parts  of  his  work  may  be 


THE  DARK  AGES.  67 

consulted  to  acquire  an  idea  of  the  whole :  his  defects  and  faults  are 
obvious. 

There  has  been  lately  published,  by  Dr.  Ranken,  a  work  contafn- 
ing  a  history  of  France  through  these  earlier  ages.  It  is  not  executed 
with  any  very  particular  judgment  or  any  constant  accuracy  ;  yet,  as 
the  author's  reading  is  very  extensive,  and  as  the  work  is  neveV  tedi- 
ous, and  particularly  as  it  contains  a  variety  of  information  not  to  be 
acquired  without  intolerable  labor,  the  student  may  consult  it  with 
material  advantage  and  with  considerable  amusement.  It  is  to  this 
work,  therefore,  I  refer  those  who  would  study  these  early  facts  of 
the  French  history.  At  the  same  time,  I  must  finally  refer  you  to 
the  Abridgment  of  Henault,  where  the  facts  are  well  selected  and 
arranged,  and  accompanied  with  valuable  observations.  There  is  a 
still  better  work,  by  Millot,  on  the  French  history,  which  might  be 
consulted  for  the  same  purpose.  And,  lastly,  there  has  been  lately 
published  a  work  by  D'Anquetil,  on  the  French  history,  in  fourteen, 
or  rather  thirteen,  octavo  volumes.  D'Anquetil  is  a  writer  of  great 
reputation,  and  undertook  the  work  at  the  recommendation  of  Bona- 
parte, who  very  sensibly  desired  him  to  draw  up  a  history  of  France 
which  could  be  read,  disencumbered  of  those  details  which  make 
the  volumes  of  the  French  historians  so  repulsive  and  fatiguing. 

Along  with  the  French  history,  the  work  of  Pfeffel  must  be  looked 
at  for  the  German  history.  Though  every  possible  effort  is  made  by 
this  celebrated  writer  to  render  the  early  parts  of  his  work  as  concise 
as  possible,  it  is  still  a  very  disagreeable  task  to  read  through  the 
particular  history  of  those  times ;  and  readers  will,  in  general,  be 
content  to  catch  up  some  of  the  particulars  that  are  descriptive  of  the 
scene  in  a  passing  manner,  and*  to  confine  their  regular  reading  to 
the  author's  remarks  on  each  particular  period,  which  are  given 
in  a  collected  and  summary  way  at  the  end  of  each  period,  and 
are  drawn  up  with  great  skill  and  perspicuity.  I  would  recom- 
mend to  the  reader  to  proceed  beyond  the  period  of  the  Saxon 
dynasty,  which  answers  to  the  accession  of  Hugh  Capet  in  the 
French  history,  and  to  labor,  in  some  way  or  other,  through  the 
other  two  dynasties,  and  the  Interregnum,  until  he  reaches  the  acces- 
sion of  Rodolph,  the  founder  of  the  celebrated  house  of  Austria  ; 
afterwards  he  may  take  Coxe's  History  of  Austria. 

In  overcoming  this  early  part  of  the  French  and  German  history, 
much  assistance°will  be  derived,  not  only  from  Mr.  Gibbon's  History 
of  the  Decline  and  Fall,  but  also  from  a  Sketch  of  Universal  His- 
tory, printed  in  his  posthumous  works,  which  will  be  found,  m  every 
word  of  it,  deserving  of  attention.  I  must  once  more  remind  you, 
that  the  work  of  Mr.  Butler  on  the  German  Empire  is  also  mdispen- 
sably  necessary ;  that  the  Abbe  de  Mably  is  invaluable. 

These  will,  I  conceive,  be  sufficient ;  but  it  is  desirable  that  to 
these  should  be  added  the  work  of  Koch  on  the  Revolutions  of  the 


68  LECTURE  IV. 

Middle  Ages.  The  first  edition,  of  1790,  may  be  easily  procured, 
and  might  be  sufficient ;  but  the  whole  work  has  been  new  cast  and 
amplified,  and  it  is  the  last  edition,  of  1807,  that  should  rather  be 
purchased. 

But  I  must  enter  a  little  further  into  particulars  ;  for  I  must  con- 
fess that  this  subject  of  French  history  is  from  the  first,  and  always 
continues  to  be,  one  most  perplexing  to  me  ;  that  is,  it  is  perplexing 
to  me  to  know  what  to  recommend  with  any  chance  of  its  being 
read.  For  the  German  history,  indeed,  you  must  look  at  the  gen- 
eral statements  of  Pfeffel  in  some  general  way,  and  then  proceed 
with  Coxe's  House  of  Austria.  But  with  respect  to  the  history  of 
France,  the  regular  historians,  Yelly,  Le  Pere  Daniel,  &c.,  are  S5 
voluminous,  and  it  is  so  impossible  to  read  them,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
know  what  course  to  recommend. 

AYhat  I  propose,  however,  to  the  student,  is  this :  that  he  should 
read  the  short  history  of  D'Anquetil,  which  he  may  readily  do,  — 
there  is  very  little  reading  in  each  volume,  and  the  first  volume  and 
most  of  the  second  and  third  he  may  read  slightly,  —  or  that  he 
should  meditate  well  the  History  of  Henault,  or  the  History  of  Mil- 
lot  ;  and  that,  in  reading  any  of  these  histories,  he  should  consider, 
in  the  first  place,  whether  there  may  not  be  incidents  mentioned 
which  give  him  as  clear  an  idea  of  the  times  as  the  most  detailed 
representation :  let  these  first  be  noted,  and  let  these  be  all  that  he 
endeavours  to  remember.  And  next,  let  him  consider  whether  some 
of  the  topics  mentioned  are  not  of  such  importance,  that  it  may  be 
advisable  to  look  for  them  in  the  more  detailed  histories  of  Vell^ 
and  Pere  Daniel,  or  Mezeray ;  or  perhaps,  indeed,  pursue  them 
through  the  original  authors  to  which  these  writers  refer. 

I  will  endeavour  to  exemplify  what  I  propose  in  both  these  partic- 
ulars, and  each  in  its  order. 

And,  first,  with  respect  to  incidents  characteristic  of  the  state  of 
the  French  constitution  and  of  the  times,  such  as  I  think  it  will,  on 
the  whole,  be  sufficient  to  remember. 

In  the  reign  of  Hugh  Capet,  it  is  observed  by  Henault  that  he 
took  an  early  opportunity  of  ha\dng  his  son  cro^nied  at  Orleans, — 
an  example  which  was  followed  by  his  successors;  and  this  is  an 
indication  that  the  hereditary  nature  of  the  crown  Avas  not  yet  estab- 
lished. It  is  observed  that  Louis  the  Eighth  ascended  the  throne 
without  any  such  previous  ceremony ;  this  was  two  centuries  and  a 
half  afterwards,  and  afibrds  an  opposite  conclusion ;  which  is  again 
confirmed  by  observing  that  Louis  the  Seventh,  a  century  before, 
though  crowned  when  prince,  omitted  to  renew  the  ceremony  when 
Jdng. 

Again,  a  message  of  expostulation  or  command  was  sent  from 
Hugh  Capet  to  the  Count  de  Perigord,  which  ended  with  asking  him 
who  made  him  a  count.     The  reply  was,  "  Those  who  made  you  a 


IHE  DARK  AGES.  69 

king."  A  striking  specimen  of  the  independent  sovereignty  of  the 
barons,  and  of  the  original  elective  and  baronial  nature  of  the  power 
of  Hugh  Capet. 

His  son  Robert  was  excommunicated  on  account  of  his  marriage, 
and  therefore  every  thing  that  he  touched  was  purified  before  it 
could  be  touched  by  others :  such  was  the  reasoning  of  the  king*s 
friends  and  attendants.  Robert,  to  save  his  subjects  from  the  guilt 
of  perjury,  made  them  swear  upon  a  shrine  from  which  he  had  with- 
drawn the  relics  :  such  was  the  reasoning  of  the  king  himself. 

In  the  ensuing  reign  of  Henry  the  First  was  established  "  The 
Truce  of  the  Lord,"  a  law  which  prohibited  private  combats  from 
Wednesday  night  to  Monday  morning,  because  the  intermediate 
days  had  been  consecrated  by  particular  passages  in  the  life  and 
sufferings  of  our  Saviour.  That  men  should  be  resolved  to  destroy 
each  other  in  private  war,  or  that  they  should  t^  considerations  of 
this  kind  be  checked  and  moderated,  is  descriptive  of  the  age ;  but 
that  they  should  consent  to  be  thus  far  bound,  and  no  farther, — 
that  they  should  reason  and  act  in  this  mixed,  inconsistent,  and 
shuffling  manner  between  their  passions  and  their  duty, — this  is  de- 
scriptive, not  of  these  men  and  of  this  age,  but  of  every  man  and 
of  every  age. 

The  next  king,  Phihp  the  First,  in  1102,  buys  his  lands  and  does 
homage  for  them  to  the  Count  de  Sancerre,  —  the  king  to  his  sub- 
ject :  a  striking  specimen  of  the  feudal  system.  And  it  wa^  two 
hundred  years  before  so  strange  a  submission  could  be  altered  into  a 
less  offensive  acknowledgment ;  so  strongly  established  were  the  pro- 
visions of  this  feudal  system. 

Early  in  the  next  reign,  Louis  le.  Gros  was  three  years  in  master 
ing  the  castle  of  one  of  his  barons.  A  few  years  afterwards,  when 
the  same  king  was  threatened  by  the  emperor  of  Germany,  he  was 
able  to  assemble  two  "hundred  thousand  men.  Such  was  the  feudal 
system ;  so  fitted  for  sudden,  short,  and  violent  efforts  for  the  public 
defence  against  an  enemy ;  so  inadequate  to  produce  the  benefits  of 
any  system  of  general  and  domestic  law,  equally  diffused  over  the 
whole  of  a  community. 

Near  sixty  years  afterwards,  his  son,  Louis  le  Jeune,  makes  a  pil 
grimage  to  the  tomb  of  Becket,  and  this  in  the  lifetime  of  Henrv 
the  Second.  On  his  return,  he  has  his  son  crowned  at  Rheims,  and 
the  English  monarch  assists  at  the  ceremony  as  Duke  of  Normandy. 
Instances,  these,  of  the  pecuUar  nature  of  the  two  great  characteris- 
tics  of  the  age,  superstition  and  the  feudal  system. 

The  next  reign  opens  with"  the  efforts  of  Philip  Augustus  to 
repress  the  outrages  of  the  barons  ;  but  he  himself  falls  upon  the 
Jews,  and  announces  to  his  subjects,  that  they  are  to  be  exonerated 
from  all  Jewish  claims,  on  paying  one  fifth  of  their  debt  to  the  royal 
treasury:  such  was  the  general  ignorance  and  neglect  ot  aU  tli« 


7a  LECTURE  IV. 

principles  of  order  and  justice.  Twenty  years  afterwards  we  see 
an  ordinance  in  favor  of  the  Jews :  a  still  stronger  mark  of  the 
wretched  state  of  commerce ;  for  from  these  two  instances  it  is  clear, 
that,  abominated  as  the  Jews  were,  the  French  were  so  ignorant  of 
commerce,  as  to  be  unable  to  do  without  them ;  and,  merciless  and 
unjust  as  were  the  French,  the  Jews  were  contented  to  endure  every 
thing  from  them,  because  they  could  derive  so  much  pecuniary  ad- 
vantage from  them. 

Louis  the  Eighth,  by  his  will,  after  declaring  his  eldest  son  king, 
gives  Artois  to  his  second  son,  Poitou  to  his  third,  Anjou  and 
Maine  to  his  fourth ;  this  was  two  centuries  and  a  half  after  Hugh 
Capet.  The  power  of  the  crown  had  still  to  struggle  with  great  dis- 
advantages, if  its  domains  could  thus  be  dispersed  by  the  sovereign, 
at  his  death,  among  the  youngest  branches  of  his  family. 

Louis  the  Ninth,  the  first  prince  of  his  age,  made  it  a  point  to  buy 
the  crown  of  thornS,  which  had  been  placed  on  the  Saviour,  from 
the  Venetians,  and  different  relics  from  the  crusaders.  The  same 
prince  finds  it  necessary  to  publish  an  ordinance  to  prevent  any  son 
from  avenging  the  murder  of  his  father  within  forty  days.  Super- 
stition and  violence  were,  therefore,  still  the  characteristics  of  the 
age  ;  and  an  age  of  devotion,  as  the  devotion  was  bhnd  and  cer- 
emonial, was  still  left  to  be  an  age  of  crimes. 

Philip  le  Hardi,  his  successor,  ennobles  one  of  his  tradesmen ;  the 
commercial  interest  was  therefore  now  advancing.  This  was  three 
centuries  after  Hugh  Capet. 

In  Philip  le  Bel's  reign  were  enacted  various  sumptuary  laws :  an 
indication  that  the  great  and  afiluent  were  spending  their  revenue 
on  themselves,  and  therefore  insensibly  encouraging  commerce.  But 
we  have  also  various  ordinances  against  usury:  an  indication  that 
the  profits  of  money  were  high,  and  therefore  that  commerce  was 
still  in  its  infancy. 

Louis  Hutin,  his  successor,  in  1315,  passes  an  ordinance  to  secure 
the  serfs  from  being  distressed  in  their  persons,  goods,  instruments 
of  agriculture,  &c. ;  soon  after,  he  obliges  the  serfs  to  purchase 
their  liberty  by  selling  their  movables  :  indications,  these,  how  de- 
graded had  been  their  condition,  but  that  their  condition  was  on  the 
whole  improving. 

In  1318,  the  Duke  of  Brittany  obtains  letters  of  remission  from 
Philip  le  Long  for  not  having  attended  his  coronation  :  an  indication 
that  the  power  of  the  crown  was  now  in  France  advanced  and  ac- 
knowledged ;  for  Brittany  was  at  that  time  one  of  the  most  powerful 
and  independent  fiefs  remaining. 

During  the  six  years  of  Charles  le  Bel,  from  1322  to  1328,  the 
relics  of  the  chapel  royal  still  accompanied  the  king,  whenever  he 
left  Paris,  to  celebrate  the  four  great  festivals  of  the  year  ;  religion, 
tlierefore,  still  consisted  not  a  little  in  vain  ceremonials. 


THE  DARK  AGES.  71 

Incidents  of  this  sort  mark  the  character  of  the  times  in  which  they 
appear.  The  Abridgment  of  the  President  Renault,  from  which  they 
are  taken,  is  too  concise,  and,  above  all,  gives  little  information  re- 
specting the  constitution  of  France  ;  and  the  student  must,  on  that 
account,  be  more  attentive  to  every  particular  that  is  noted.  Millot 
is  better. 

The  appendixes  of  Hume  aiFord  a  very  striking  display  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  characteristics  of  a  particular  reign  or  period 
may  be  selected  and  explained  by  a  diligent  and  discerning  historian. 
In  this  manner  I  have  endeavoured  to  illustrate  my  meaning,  when 
I  recommended  that  particular  incidents  in  the  account  of  Renault, 
or  Millot,  or  D'Anquetil,  should  be  fixed  upon  as  characteristic's  of 
the  times,  and  made  subjects  of  reflection. 

I  proceed  now  to  give  a  few  specimens  of  such  subjects  as  are  also 
mentioned  by  Henault,  which  may,  I  think,  be  of  sufficient  impor 
tance  to  deserve  further  consideration  in  other  authors,  more  particu- 
larly in  the  valuable  and  very  detailed  history  of  Velly,  and  in  the 
philosophic  work  of  Mably.     For  instance  :  — 

1st.  The  establishments  of  Louis  the  Ninth,  or  St.  Louis.  These 
are  very  deserving  attention  ;  they  exliibit  the  efforts  that  were  made 
by  the  most  amiable  and  revered  monarch  of  his  time  to  improve  the 
jurisprudence  of  his  age.  Montesquieu  may  be  consulted.  There  is 
a  full  account  given  of  them  by  Velly. 

The  chief  object  of  St.  Louis  seems  to  have  been  to  prepare  his 
people  for  the  adjustment  of  their  quarrels,  not  by  private  combat, 
but  by  the  decisions  of  law,  after  an  examination  of  witnesses.  At 
the  same  time  it  must  be  observed,  that  most  of  the  great  objects  of 
civil  and  penal  jurisprudence  appear  to  have  occupied  his  attention, 
and  it  is  not  very  possible  now  to  understand  all  the  meaning,  and 
therefore  all  the  merit,  of  his  provisions ;  but  the  great  design  of  the 
whole  must  have  been  to  soften  and  modify  the  jurisprudence  of  the 
baronial  courts,  and  to  place  the  whole  within  the  reach  of  improve- 
ment, by  opening  the  way  to  the  paramount  jurisdiction  of  the  courts 
of  the  sovereign. 

France,  in  the  time  of  St.  Louis,  was  divided  into  the  coimtry 
under  the  king's  obedience,  and  the  country  under  the  obedience  of 
the  great  barons.  It  was  not  possible  for  St.  Louis  to  embody  liia 
own  opinions  of  equity  and  law,  and  then  enforce  a  new  system  of 
jurisprudence.  He  attempted  to  reform  existing  systems,  by  intro- 
ducing one  more  improved  within  his  own  dependencies,  and  holding 
it  up  to  the  observation  of  the  other  parts  of  the  kingdom.  He  seems 
everywhere  to  struggle  with  difficulties,  to  modify  and  to  balance,  to 
capitulate  with  the  evils  ,vhich  he  could  not  remove, —  evils  on  which, 
by  any  other  conduct,  he  could  have  made  no  impression.  Such  must 
ever  be  the  true  reformer ;  ardor  may  animate  his  mind,  but  patience 
must  be  his  virtue.     The  true  reformer  is  the  pliilosopher  who  sup 


72  LECTURE  IV. 

poses  nc  -wonders  in  himself  and  expects  them  not  in  others,  and  is 
rather  the  sower  who  goes  forth  to  sow  his  seed,  than  the  lord  who 
comes  to  gather  into  barns.  The  result  was  what  might  have  been 
expected ;  the  labors  of  St.  Louis  were  successful,  and  he  exhibited 
the  great  criterion  of  genius,  that  of  advancing  his  countrymen  in 
improvement  a  step  beyond  the  point  at  which  he  found  them. 

Again,  and  as  another  specimen  of  subjects  to  be  further  consid- 
ered. The  reign  of  Philip  le  Bel  is  remarkable  for  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  Pope  and  the  king,  and  still  more  for  the  first  assembly  of 
the  States-General,  summoned  by  this  prince  for  his  defence  and  jus- 
tification, but  which  must,  hoAvever,  not  be  confounded  or  thought 
the  same  vnih.  the  national  assemblies  in  the  times  of  Charlemagne, 
These  events  are  very  important,  and  may  be  considered  in  Yelly. 
The  commons  formed  a  distinct  part  of  this  assembly,  and  they  took 
their  share  in  animating  the  king  to  defend  the  rights  of  his  king- 
dom ;  but  their  language  spoke  an  infant  power,  and  breathed  no 
longer  the  independent  fierceness  of  the  soldier  who  resisted  Clovis. 
"  Be  pleased,"  they  said,  "  to  guard  the  sovereign  freedom  of  your 
kingdom  ;  for  in  temporal  matters  the  king  can  acknowledge  no  sov- 
ereign on  earth  but  God  alone."  "  We  own  no  superior  in  tem- 
porals but  the  king,"  said  the  nobles.  The  clergy  hesitated,  but  at 
last  confessed  their  duty  to  their  temporal  sovereign.  The  failure  of 
such  a  Pope  as  Boniface,  on  this  occasion,  shows  clearly  that  the 
power  of  the  see  had  already,  in  1303,  passed  its  meridian. 

Again,  3dly.  The  French  Parliaments  are  a  proper  subject  of 
inquiry.  Philip  proposed  to  make  the  Parliaments,  or  courts  of  jus- 
tice, stationary ;  this  afterAvards  took  place.  The  account  given  by 
Velly  should  be  consulted.  The  student  is,  no  doubt,  aware  that  the 
dispensers  of  justice  should  be  few  in  number,  and  neither  be  removed 
nor  advanced  at  the  mere  pleasure  of  the  executive  power, —  that  is, 
be  exposed  neither  to  be  corrupted  nor  terrified.  You  will  do  well 
to  observe  the  changes  that  took  place  with  respect  to  this  part  of 
the  French  constitution,  a  part  so  important  to  the  happiness  of  every 
community.  Indeed,  one  of  the  great  subjects  of  this  early  period 
of  modern  history  is  the  constitution  of  France,  or  rather,  the  for- 
times  of  the  constitution  of  France.  These  you  will  best  understand, 
and,  indeed,  can  understand  only,  by  meditating  the  work  of  the 
Abbe  de  Mably.  His  work  exhibits  the  philosophy  of  the  French 
history.  I  ought  to  speak  of  it  in  terms  of  the  utmost  gratitude ; 
and  I  must  repeat  to  you,  that  I  do  no  more  than  mention  this  great 
subject  of  the  constitution  of  France,  and  this  masterly  treatise  on  its 
changes  and  fortunes,  that  I  may  impress  upon  you  more  strongly, 
or  rather,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  do  it,  impose  upon  you  more  com- 
pletely, the  necessity  of  reading  the  work  for  yourselves. 

I  must  now  make  a  pause.  I  must  consider  myself  as  ha\dng 
passed  through  the  first  and  most  repulsive  portion  of  modem  history. 


THE  DARK  AGES.  1% 

have  not  been  able  to  do  more  than  allude  to  and  lecommend 

subjects  and  books  that  have  employed  the  lives  of  men  of  learning 
and  reflection.  But  the  whole  of  the  period  may,  I  hope,  be  est? 
mated  in  a  general  and  even  satisfactory  manner,  either  on  a  more 
confined  scale  or  a  larger,  by  fixing  the  attention  upon  the  points 
and  the  books  I  have  mentioned.  I  say  a  confined  scale  or  a  larger, 
for  I  have  exhibited  both  to  you. 

And  now  that  we  have  to  take  our  leave  of  the  Dark  Ages,  I  can- 
not but  make  one  effort  more  to  recommend  them  to  your  attention 
and  study. 

The  great  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  these  Dark  Ages  are,  as  I 
conceive, — First,  that  civil  liberty  cannot  result,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, from  the  rude,  natural  liberty  of  barbarous  warriors.  Again, 
that  religion,  in  like  manner,  cannot  consist  with  uncivilized  igno- 
rance. The  power  of  the  sword  and  of  superstition,  of  the  military 
chief  and  of  the  priest  (of  the  priest  in  the  unfavorable  sense  of  the 
term),  must  at  first  follow,  and  may  continue  for  ages. 

But,  in  the  next  place,  the  great  lesson  which  the  Dark  Ages  ex- 
iiibit  is  also  that  which  human  life  is  unhappily  at  every  moment  and 
on  every  occasion  exhibiting,  —  the  abuse  of  power. 

The  great  characteristics  of  the  Dark  Ages  are  the  feudal  system 
and  the  Papal  power.  But  consider  each ;  the  incidents,  as  they  are 
Termed,  of  the  feudal  system,  —  that  is,  the  practices  that  obtained 
under  the  feudal  system ;  and,  again,  the  doctrines  and  the  decrees 
of  the  Papal  see.  Outrageous  as  many  of  these  may  seem,  they 
were  still  but  specimens  of  the  abuse  of  power. 

The  Dark  Ages  show  human  nature  under  its  most  unfavorable 
aspects,  but  it  is  still  human  nature.  We  see  in  them  the  picture 
of  our  ancestors,  but  it  is  only  a  more  harsh  and  repulsive  portrait 
of  ourselves. 

Observe,  for  instance,  the  Feudal  System,  its  origin,  its  results. 
Among  a  set  of  independent  warriors,  the  distinctions  of  the  weak 
and  the  strong  naturally  arose,  the  leader  and  the  follower,  the  mili- 
tary chief  and  the  dependant.  Society  necessarily  fell  into  little 
knots  and  divisions ;  in  the  absence  of  all  central  government,  of  all 
more  regular  paramount  authority,  each  military  chief  in  extensive 
conquered  countries  necessarily  became  a  petty  sovereign, — tlie 
petty  sovereign  a  despot.  When  lands  were  once  received  on  the 
general  principle  of  homage,  the  natural  course  of  the  abuse  of 
power  was  inevitable ;  the  incidents,  that  is,  the  oppressions,  of  the 
feudal  system  followed ;  but  for  all  these  disgusting  specimens  of 
legal  outrage  and  licensed  wrong  a  sort  of  reason  may  always  be 
found  to  have  existed,  when  the  incident  is  traced  up  to  its  first  ele- 
ments and  original  introduction. 

Consider,  in  like  manner,  the  Ecclesiastical  Power.  ^  The  pnesta 
of  the  Dark  Ages  proceeded  only,  as  did  the  barons,  with  the  same 
10  0 


74  LECTURE  IV. 

ttnch'3cked  and  therefore  insatiable  selfishness,  to  subjugate  every 
thing  to  their  will.  The  ecclesiastical  tyrants,  like  the  civil  tyrants, 
only  converted  the  existing  situation  of  mankind  and  the  genuine 
principles  of  human  nature  to  their  own  gratification  and  aggran- 
dizement. That  they  should  attempt  to  do  so  is  not  wonderful,  nor 
is  it  wonderful  that  they  succeeded. 

Our  Barbarian  ancestors,  ignorant  themselves,  confided  in  men 
whom  they  considered  as  wise  and  learned,  and  who,  comparatively, 
were  wise  and  learned.  This  was  natural ;  it  was  even  reasonable  ; 
they  had  no  other  resource  but  to  confide,  and  they  had  no  means 
of  learning  how  to  measure  their  confidence. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  distinguishing  doctrines  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  communion  were  all  addressed  to  the  most  estab- 
lished feelings  of  the  human  heart,  —  absolution,  confession,  prayers 
for  the  dead,  penance,  purgatory ;  their  rites  and  ceremonies  not 
less  so ;  not  to  mention  that  their  tenets  were  and  are  still  fortified 
by  texts  more  numerous,  and  even  more  weighty  (I  do  not  say  con- 
clusive), than  we  of  the  Protestant  communion  are  now  in  the  habit 
of  condescending  to  consider  or  even  to  know.  The  great  doctrine 
of  all,  the  paramount  authority  of  the  Pope,  as  the  genuine  successor 
of  St.  Peter,  was  always  supported,  when  necessary,  by  the  words 
of  our  Saviour .  to  that  apostle ;  and  even  his  infallibihty  was  suffi- 
ciently proved  to  our  rude  ancestors  by  the  obvious  argument,  that 
Christ  would  not  leave  his  Church  without  a  guide,  to  whom  re- 
course might  be  had  under  all  those  difficulties  which  must  necessa- 
rily arise  among  the  contradictory  views  of  contending  sects ;  in  a 
word,  those  doctrines  of  the  Roman  Catholic  communion,  which,  at  a 
very  late  period,  could  subdue  for  a  time  even  the  learning  and 
understanding  of  a  Chillingworth,  may  readily  be  supposed  to  have 
obtained  an  easy  victory  over  the  unlettered  soldiers  of  the  Dark 
Ages. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  thoughtlessness  of  mankind  amid 
the  occupations  of  civilized  life,  their  apprehensions  for  the  future 
are  unceasing,  the  moment  that  the  great  truth  of  their  immortahty 
is  properly  announced  to  them  in  their  ruder  state.  These  appre- 
hensions, in  themselves  so  just  and  natural  in  every  period  of  soci- 
ety, when  united  to  ignorance  so  great  as  that  which  existed  in 
Europe  at  this  particular  period,  produced  effects  which  at  first  sight 
may  appear,  but  cannot  on  reflection  appear,  astonishing.  The  most 
fierce  and  savage  soldier  became  docile  and  submissive ;  the  most 
powerful  monarch  trembled  in  secret  on  his  throne,  and  found  his 
knights  and  his  vassals  a  pageant  and  a  show. 

But  the  single  terror  of  excommunication,  and  all  the  preparatory 
processes  of  spiritual  punishment,  were  perfectly  adequate  to  pro- 
duce these  intellectual  and  political  wonders.  No  one  in  our  own 
happier  times  can  form  an  idea  of  what  was  then  a  sentence  of  ex- 


THE  DARK  AGES.  75 

eommunication.  It  was  to  live  alone  in  the  midst  of  society,  to  bo 
no  longer  human,  to  be  without  the  character  of  man  here,  and  to  be 
without  hope  hereafter.  The  clergy  of  the  Dark  Ages  (to  adopt, 
in  part,  the  striking  illustration  of  Hume,*  suggested,  indeed,  by  a 
passage  in  Dryden's  "  Sebastian"),— the  clergy  of  the  Dark  Ages 
had  obtained  what  alone  Archimedes  wanted ;  they  had  got  another 
world  on  which  to  rest  their  engines,  and  they  moved  this  world  at 
their  pleasure. 

The  Inquisition  itself  had  its  origin  in  the  most  acknowledged  feel- 
ings of  our  nature.  Its  advocates  and  its  ministers  could  always 
appeal,  in  its  support,  to  the  most  regular  conclusions  of  the  human 
mind.  The  reasoning  was  then,  as  it  Avould  be  now  to  the  generality 
of  mankind,  perfectly  intelligible  and  convincing.  Truth,  it  was  said, 
could  be  only  on  one  side ;  by  error  we  may  destroy  our  own  souls 
and  those  of  others.  Error  must  therefore  be  prevented,  and  if  not 
by  gentle  means,  on  account  of  the  greatness  of  the  object,  by  other 
means,  by  any  means,  by  force.  This  is  the  creed  of  intolerance  to 
this  hour.  The  tribunal  that  appeared  with  all  its  tremendous  appa- 
ratus of  famiUars,  inquisitors,  and  executioners,  was  but  a  conse- 
quence which,  in  an  unenhghtened  period,  followed  of  course. 

The  great  and  only  difficult  victory  of  the  Papal  see  was  over  the 
clergy  themselves,  —  the  law  of  celibacy.  When' this  triumph,  that 
had  been  long  in  preparation,  was  once  obtained  by  the  reno\>-ned 
Gregory  the  Seventh,  towards  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century,  the 
ecclesiastics  then  became  a  sort  of  regular  army,  -with  a  dictator  at 
their  head,  to  which  nothing  could  be  successfully  opposed. 

But  even  this,  the  most  extraordinary  phenomenon  of  the  whole, 
may  still  be  traced  up,  as  well  as  the  existence  of  the  various  mo- 
nastic orders,  with  all  their  extravagant  and,  at  first  sight,  unnatural 
observances,  to  principles  that  are,  notwithstanding,  the  genuine 
principles  of  the  human  heart,  and  inseparable  from  our  nature. 
The  esprit  du  corps, — the  merit  of  the  severer  virtues,  of  self-denial, 
of  self-abasement,  —  these,  united  with  the  religious  principle,  gave 
occasion  to  the  monastic  character  and  all  its  observances,  and  they 
form  at  once  a  solution  of  all  these  outrageous  deviations  from  the 
more  calm  and  ordinary  suggestions  of  the  common  sense  and  com- 
mon  feelings  of  mankind. 

Observances  of  this  kind  have,  m  fact,  existed  among  the  nations 
of  every  clime  and  age ;  they  exist  in  India  at  this  moment.  But 
consider  the  principles  we  have  mentioned.  This  esprit  du  corps  is 
founded  on  the  sympathies,  on  some  of  the  most  effective  sympa- 
thies, of  the  human  mind ;  and  the  severer  virtues  of  self-control,  of 
self  denial,  of  self-abasement,  of  chastity,  and  again  the  vii-tues  of 
humility  and  of  piety,  are  all  virtues  in  themselves  so  awful  and 
respectable,  that  they  have  always,  even  in  their  excesses,  received 
the  admiration  of  mankind,  and  they  are  the  highest  and  the  best 


76  LECTURE  IV. 

praise  of  man,  wlien  well  directed  and  attempered ;  —  that  they  should 
not  be  so  in  times  of  ignorance  can  be  matter  of  no  surprise  ;  these 
are  subjects  which  are  often  misunderstood,  even  among  ourselves. 

Pursue  the  same  train  •of  reasoning  to  the  less  fatal,  less  degrad- 
ing, extravagances  of  this  dark  period,  —  the  institution  of  Chivalry, 
for  instance,  —  the  expeditions  to  the  Holy  Land. 

Chivalry,  if  considered  in  its  original  elements,  is  only  a  very 
striking  testimony  to  those  more  generous  principles  of  the  humar 
heart  which,  it  should  seem,  can  never  be  separated  from  our  nature, 
under  any,  the  most  disorderly,  state  of  society.  The  same  testi- 
mony seems  to  have  been  offered  in  times  the  most  -remote.  The 
knights  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  not  a  little  the  counterparts,  how- 
ever improved,  of  the  fabled  gods  and  heroes  of  antiquity,  of  Her- 
cules and  Theseus ;  and  have  been  celebrated  in  the  same  romantic 
manner.  They  were  the  redressers  of  oppression ;  the  moral  bene- 
factors of  the  community  in  which  they  lived ;  the  mirrors  of  the 
noblest  qualities  of  the  human  character ;  the  exhibitors  of  those 
two  great  virtues  of  tenderness  and  courage,  which  were  then  so 
peculiarly  necessary  to  society.  The  foundations  of  the  chivalrous 
character  were  laid  in  human  nature,  in  the  consciousness  that  be- 
longs to  good  actions,  and  in  that  sensibility  to  the  applause  of  oth- 
ers, from  which  those  who  can  really  perform  good  actions  neither 
can  nor  need  be  exempt. 

Original  principles  like  these  could  easily  be  associated  in  a  re- 
ligious age  with  the  religious  principle,  more  especially  with  Chris- 
tianity, the  religion  of  benevolence,  —  the  religion  which,  of  all 
others,  teaches  us  to  think  most  of  those  around  us,  and  least  of 
ourselves. 

The  only  part  of  the  chivalrous  character  which  it  is  somewhat 
difficult  to  account  for  is  that  delicate  devotion  to  the  fair  sex,  by 
which  it  was  so  strongly  and  often  so  whimsically  distinguished. 

This  devotion  must  be  traced  up  "to  the  woods  of  Germany ; 
where,  however  it  may  be  explained,  it  appears  from  Tacitus  that 
the  other  sex  had  even  more  than  their  natural  share  of  impcrtance 
and  respect.  This  natural  importance  and  respect  could  not  but  be 
materially  strengthened  and  improved  subsequently  by  the  influence 
of  the  Christian  religion,  which  still  existed  amidst  the  confusions  of 
Europe,  and  survived  them.  This  religion  could  not  but  have  made 
the  weaker  sex  more  worthy  of  the  estimation  of  the  stronger,  and 
the  stronger,  in  its  turn,  more  fitted  to  comprehend  and  rehsh  the 
more  gentle  virtues  of  the  weaker. 

The  subsequent  state  of  society,  where  the  great  families  lived 
often  in  a  state  of  separation  and  hostility,  must  have  interposed 
those  difficulties  to  the  gratification  of  the  sexual  passion  which 
have  such  a  remarkable  tendency  to  soften  and  refine  it.  Even  in 
civilized  life  we  see  this  passion  so  affiscted  by  difficulties,  as  some- 


THE  DARK  AGES.  77 

times  to  be  sublimed  into  extravagances  as  wild  as  those  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  as  preposterous  as  were  ever  exhibited  by  those  who 
maintained  hy  arms  the  beauty  of  their  mistresses  against  all  comers. 

Humanity  and  courage  are  the  virtues  which  the  softer  sex  must 
from  their  very  nature  be  always  most  disposed  to  patronize.  The 
knight  and  his  lady  were  thus  formed  in  their  characters  for  each 
other.  Jousts  and  tournaments  still  further  contributed  to  aniuiuto 
all  the  natural  sentiments  with  which  both- were  inspired;  and  tlii's<i 
trials  of  skill  and  spectacles  of  magnificence  were  the  necessary  exhi- 
bitions of  the  merits  of  both,  —  of  beauty  on  the  one  side,  and  mili- 
tary prowess  on  the  other ;  and  were  the  obvious  resources  of  those 
who  must  otherwise  have  been  without  occupation  and  amusement, 
and  whose  minds  could  not  at  that  period  be  diversified  by  all  the  in- 
tellectual pursuits  of  modem  and  more  civilized  life.    . 

On  the  whole,  there  was  in  chivalry  much  which  the  natural  ardor 
and  enthusiasm  of  the  human  character  might  convert  into  the  ex- 
travagant, and  sometimes  into  the  ridiculous,  and  in  tliis  state  it 
might  be  seized  upon  by  a  man  of  genius,  like  Cervantes,  and,  when 
arrayed  in  the  colors  of  his  own  pleasantry  and  fancy,  be  transmitted 
to  the  amusement  of  posterity ;  but  the  virtues  of  the  knight,  of  the 
hero  of  chivalry,  were  real  and  substantial  virtues.  Courtesy  to  the 
low,  respect  to  the  high,  tenderness  to  the  softer  sex  and  loyalty  to 
the  prince,  courage  and  piety,  gentleness  and  modesty,  veracity  and 
frankness,  —  these,  after  all,  are  the  virtues  of  the  human  character ; 
and  Avhatever  appearances  they  might  assume  under  the  particular 
circumstances  of  these  ages,  they  are  still  the  proper  object  of  the 
love  and  respect  of  mankind  under  every  circumstance  and  in  every 
age. 

The  knights,  it  must  be  confessed,  received  an  education  that  was 
too  military  to  be  favorable  to  knowledge  ;  they  were  not  the  scholars 
or  the  men  of  science  of  their  day,  but  they  contributed,  notwith- 
standing, to  elevate  and  to  humanize  the  times  in  which  they  lived, 
and  they  transmitted,  and  they  indeed  thoroughly  engrafted  upon  the 
European  character,  the  generous  and  manly  virtues. 

Lastly,  to  take  the  other  specimen,Vhich  we  have  mentioned,  of 
these  Middle  Ages,  —  the  Crusades.  These  are,  according  to  Mr. 
Hume,  the  most  durable  monuments  of  human  folly.  It  may  be  so ; 
but  whatever  may  have  been  the  less  worthy  motives  that  contnbuted 
to  carry  such  myriads  to  the  Holy  Land,  no  warriors  would  have 
reached  it,  if  a  piety,  however  unenlightened,  if  a  miUtary  spirit, 
however  rude,  that  is,  if  devotion  and  courage,  had  not  been  the 
great  actuating  principles  of  the  age.  But  courage  and  devotion  are 
still  virtues,  however  unfortunately  exercised;  the  difference  be- 
tween  these  crusaders  and  ourselves  is  still  only  that  of  a  more  iiuM 
ligent  faith  in  us,  and  better  regulated  feelings.  Piety  and  magna 
nimity  are  still  our  virtues,  as  they  were  theirs. 


78  LECTURE  IV. 

The  crusaders,  indeed,  were  inflamed  bj  the  images  of  the  Hol^ 
•Land ;  for  thej  saw,  and  they  were  overpowered  >vith  indignation 
when  they  saw,  the  sacred  earth,  which  had  been  blessed  by  the 
footsteps  of  our  Saviour,  profaned  by  the  tread  of  Barbarians,  who 
rejected  his  faith,  and  outraged  his  pious  and  unoffending  followers : 
but  in  this  the  crusaders  submitted  only  to  the  associations  of  their 
nature.  The  same  power  of  association  is  still  the  great  salutary 
law  by  which  we,  too,  are  animated  or  subdued,  by  which  we,  too, 
are  hurried  into  action  or  moulded  into  habit ;  and  it  is  as  impossible 
for  us  now,  as  it  was  to  the  crusaders  of  the  Middle  Ages,  to  behold 
"without  affection  and  reverence  whatever  has  been  once  connected 
with  objects  that  are  dear  and  venerable  in  our  eyes. 

It  is  thus  that  things,  in  themselves  the  most  inanimate,  are  every 
day  seen  to  assume  almost  the  nature  of  life  and  existence.  Is  there 
at  Runnymede,  for  instance,  to  be  found  nothing  more'  than  the 
beauty  of  the  scene  ?  Do  we  walk  without  emotion  amidst  the  ruins 
of  ancient  Rome  ?  Is  Palestine  a  land,  and  Jerusalem  a  city,  like  a 
common  land  and  a  common  city  ?  Far  different  is  the  answer 
which  Nature  has  unalterably  given  to  appeals  of  this  kind  in  every 
climate  and  in  every  heart.  And  if,  indeed,  the  sepulchre  in 
which  our  Saviour  was  inumed,  if,  indeed,  the  cross  on  which  he 
expired,  could  be  presented  to  our  eyes,  —  if  we  could  indeed  be- 
lieve that  such  were  in  truth  the  objects  actually  exhibited  to  our 
view,  —  assuredly,  we  should  sink  in  reverence,  as  did  our  fore- 
fathers, before  such  affecting  images  of  the  past;  assuredly,  with 
the  Sufferer  himself  we  should  identify  these  mible  instruments  of  his 
sufferings  ;  and  the  sacrifice  of  our  hearts  would  be,  not  the  idolatry 
of  blindness,  but  the  natural  effusion  of  irresistible  devotion  and  awe. 

It  is  not  the  sentiments  by  which  these  heroes  were  impelled  that 
we  can  bear  to  censure  ;  it  is  the  excess  to  which  they  were  carried ; 
it  is  the  directioir  which  they  took  ;  it  is  piety  preposterously  exer- 
cised ;  it  is  courage  unlawfully  employed  ;  the  extravagances  to  which 
virtue  and  religion  may  be  made  subservient,  not  virtue  and  religion. 

So  natural,  indeed,  are  such  sacred  principles,  so  attractive,  so  re- 
spectable even  in  their  excesses,  that  we  willingly  allow  to  our  imagi- 
nation the  facility  which  it  loves,  of  moulding  into  visions  of  sublimity 
and  beauty  the  forms  and  the  scenes  which  time  has  now  removed 
within  its  softened  twilight,  and  in  some  respects  secured  from  the 
intrusions  of  our  colder  reason.  \Vlio  is  there  that  can  entirely 
escape  from  the  delusion  and  the  charm  of  Pilgrims  gray  and  Red- 
cross  Knights,  the  fights  of  Ascalon  and  the  siege  of  Acre,  the 
prowess  and  the  renown  of  our  lion-hearted  Richard  ?  It  is  by  an 
effort,  an  unwilling  effort,  that  we  turn  to  think  of  the  bloodshed  and 
desolation,  the  disease  and  famine,  the  pain  and  death,  by  which 
these  unhappy  enterprises  were  accompanied. 

Little  need  be  said  of  the  custom  of  Duelling  by  which  these 


ma^ 


THE  DARK  AGES.  79 


were  so  distingulslied.  The  custom  is  founded  too  evidently  on  gome 
of  the  most  powerful  principles  of  our  nature,  particularly  that  of  re- 
sentment, —  given  us  for  the  wisest  purposes,  and  necessary  to  our 
well-being,  but,  of  all  oth^jrs,  the  principle  that  has  been  most  abused 
by  the  folly  of  mankind.  The  practice  has  even  descended  to  our 
own  times,  though  we  have  no  longer  the  reasons  or  the  excuse  which 
our  forefathers  had  for  such  nefarious  or  ridiculous  or  misguided  ex- 
cesses of  just  and  honorable  sentiment.  In  the  absence  of  all  gen- 
eral law,  men  were  in  former  times  naturally  a  law  unto  themselves. 
These  appeals,  too,  were  considered  at  that  period  as  appeals  to 
Heaven.  There  was  here  something  of  necessity,  something  of  reason- 
ableness. With  respect  to  ourselves,  on  the  contrary,  experience 
has  taught  us  no  longer  to  expect  these  extraordinary  interpositions 
to  defend  the  right ;  a  more  enlarged  philosophy  has  served  to  show 
us  the  impropriet}^  of  supposing  that  the  general  laws  of  the  Creator 
should  be  continually  suspended  for  the  adjustment  of  our  guarrels, 
or  that  the  rewards  and  punishments  which  are  to  await  innocence 
and  guilt  hereafter  should  be  regularly  expected  and  realized  in  our 
present  state.  But  customs  remain,  when  the  reasons  of  them  have 
ceased.  In  the  midst  of  our  lawyers,  our  sages,  and  our  divines,  we 
violate  every  precept  of  law,  morality,  and  religion ;  in  the  midst 
of  civihzation,  improvement,  and  social  happiness,  we  suffer  our 
comforts  and  our  peace,  here  and  hereafter,  to  hang  upon  the 
chance  of  an  angry  look  or  Avord ;  and  we  retain  the  preposterous 
folly,  while  we  have  lost  the  ignorance,  —  the  bloody  ferocity,  but 
no  longer  the  humble  piety,  of  our  ancestors. 

It  is  thus  that  the  history  of  the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages,  like 
every  other  part  of  history,  is  still  but  a  representation  of  human 
nature,  and,  as  such,  deserving  of  our  curiosity  and  examination. 

The  poet  may,  no  doubt,  find  the  richest  materials  amid  transae- 
tions  where  the  passions  were  so  violently  excited,  and  in  a  period 
when  human  manners  were  cast  into  forms  so  striking  and  so  different 
from  our  own;  and  the  antiquarian,  the  constitutional  lawyer,  and 
the  philosopher  must  find,  amid  the  opinions  and  practices  of  these 
illiterate  Barbarians,  the  origin  and  foundation  of  the  laws,  the  senti- 
ments, and  the  customs  that  distinguish  Europe  from  the  other 
quarters  of  the  world,  and  .the  different  kingdoms  of  Europe  from 
each  other.  But  to  the  morahst  and  the  statesman  the  great  reflec- 
tion is  everywhere  the  same :  the  deplorable  nature  of  ignorance ; 
the  value  of  every  thing  which  can  enlighten  mankind ;  the  ment  of 
every  man  who  can  contribute  to  open  the  views  or  strengthen  the 
understanding  of  his  fellow-creatures.  It  is  but  too  evident,  from 
the  history  of  these  periods  of  darkness,  that  we  have  only  to  su^ 
pose  a  state  of  society  where  the  general  ignorance  shall  be  suf- 
ficiently complete,  and' impossibilities  themselves  seem  realized ;  men 
may  find  degradation  in  the  most  ennobling  sentnnenta  ot  their 
nature,  and  destruction  and  crimes  in  their  best  nrtues. 


A^^^ 


80  LECTURE  V. 


LECTURE   V. 


ENGLAND. 

I  HAVE  hitherto  said  nothing  of  England.  Yet  has  England  a 
dearer  claim  on  our  curiosity  and  attention,  and  its  history,  and  more 
particularly  its  constitutional  history,  must  be  considered  with  more 
diligence  and  patience,  than  can  possibly  be  directed  to  those  of  any 
other  country. 

The  first  authentic  notice  which  we  have  of  the  inhabitants  of  this 
island  is  honorable  to  their  memory :  they  were  attacked  by  the  first 
man  of  the  first  nation  then  in  the  world  ;  they  resisted,  and  were  not 
subdued.  The  account  is  given  by  Caesar  himself ;  and  what  Caesar 
delivers  to  posterity,  however  short,  cannot  but  be  deserving  of  our 
observation. 

Further  information  with  respect  to  the  Britons  may  be  afterwards 
collected  from  Suetonius ;  and  the  gradual  successes  of  the  Roman 
commanders  will  be  found  in  Tacitus.  In  his  Life  of  Agricola  the 
subject  is  closed ;  all  further  contest  is  at  an  end.  But  the  speech 
which  is  there  attributed  to  Galgacus,  when  once  read,  can  never  be 
forgotten :  the  great  historian  has  here  displayed  the  rare  merit  of  a 
mind  elevated  in  the  cause  of  justice  above  every  domestic  partiality 
and  national  prejudice.  When  he  exhibits  the  cause  which  called 
the  Caledonians  to  the  field,  he  is  no  longer  the  son-in-law  of  the 
Roman  general,  nor  the  countryman  of  the  Roman  people  ;  he  is  the 
assertor  of  all  the  generous  principles  of  our  nature ;  he  is  the  pro- 
tector of  humanity  ;  and  he  discharges  with  fidelity  and  spirit  the 
noble  office,  the  great  duty,  of  the  historian,  by  exhibiting  to  our 
sympathy  the  wrongs  of  unoffending  freedom.  The  Romans  were, 
indeed,  successful,  and  the  independence  of  Britain  was  no  more. 
But  the  sentiments  which  must  have  animated  these  last  defenders 
of  their  country  still  breathe  in  the  immortal  pages  of  this  celebrated 
writer ;  and  the  virtues  of  the  Caledonians  are  now  for  ever  united 
to  the  taste  and  feelings  of  mankind. 

Another  melancholy  scene  succeeds.  The  Romans  retire  from  the 
island,  and  the  Britons,  deprived  of  their  protection,  are  insulted  and 
overpowered  by  every  invader.  The  Romans  had  long  inured  them 
to  a  sense  of  inferiority.  Tlie  country  had  been  partly  civilized  and 
improved,  but  the  mind  of  the  country  had  been  destroyed.  The 
Britons  had  lost  the  rude  virtues  of  barbarians,  but  had  not  acquired 
that  sense  of  honor  and  consciousness  of  political  happiness  which  do 
more  than  supply  their  place  in  the  character  of  civilized  man.  They 
had  not  felt  the  influence  of  a  o-overnment  wJiich  themselves  could 


ENGLAND.  81 

stare.  They  were  unable  to  make  head  against  their  enemies ;  and 
they  exhibited  to  the  world  that  lesson,  which  has  been  so  often  re- 
peated, that  a  country  can  never  be  defended  by  a  population  that 
has  been,  on  whatever  account,  degraded  ;  that  they  who  are  to  resist 
an  invader  must  first  be  moulded,  by  equal  laws  and  the  benefits  of  a 
free  government,  into  a  due  sense  of  national  pride  and  individual 
importance  ;  and  that  men  cannot  be  formed  into  heroes  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  suspicion  and  injustice. 

It  is  true,  that  the  Britons  made  a  better  resistance  to  their  in- 
vaders than  could  have  been  expected.  There  may  be  much  exag- 
geration and  vain  lamentation,  as  Mr.  Turner  supposes,  in  the  rep- 
resentations of  Gildas,  on  which  Bede,  and  after  him  our  historian 
Hume,  relied ;  but  the  independence  of  the  island  must  at  last  have 
been  lost,  from  the  destructive  effect  of  such  general  principles  as  I 
have  stated. 

The  next  era  in  our  history  exhibits  the  total  subjugation  of  Britaili 
by  the  Angles,  Jutes,  and  Saxons.  These  were  northern  nations  ; 
and  we  are  thus  brought,  with  respect  to  England,  exactly  to  the 
same  point  from  which  we  set  out  in  examining  the  history  of  Eu- 
rope, —  the  conquest  of  the  northern  nations. 

Again,  we  must  observe  the  particular  circumstances  of  the  Norman 
Conquest  which  followed.  This  conquest  gave  occasion  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  feudal  system  in  all  its  rigors.  The  Pope  had  also 
extended  his  empire  to  this  remote  island.  So  that  in  England,  as  in 
the  rest  of  Europe,  we  have  the  feudal  system  and  the  Papal  power ; 
and  these  were,  in  the  instance  of  our  own  country,  as  in  the  rest  of 
Europe,  (without  stopping  to  notice  some  fortunate  peculiarities  in 
our  case,  or  some  advantages  concomitant  with  these  evils,)  the  great 
impediments  to  the  improvement  of  human  happiness. 

The  subject  of  English  history  now  lies  before  us,  from  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Romans  to  the  time  of  Henry  the  Eighth.  ^  I  cannot  occu- 
py you  in  hstening  here  to  such  information  as  I  might  collect  for 
you  from  books.  You  must  read  the  books.  I  will  observe,  upon 
them,  and  upon  the  subject  before  us  ;  but  I  can  do  no  more.  The 
whole  subject  may  be  evidently  distinguished  into  two  great  di- 
visions :  —  the  fate  and  fortunes  of  the  different  monarclis,  barons, 
and  remarkable  men  that  appear  in  our  annals ;  and  the  fate  and  for- 
tunes of  the  constitution  of  England.  The  latter  is  the  great  subject 
for  you  to  study.  The  first,  indeed,  you  ought  to  know  and  may 
readily  know,  but  the  second  not  so  readily ;  the  former  is  of  impor. 
tance  chiefly  as  connected  with  the  latter.  In  a  word,  there  are  be_^re 
you  the  facts  of  the  history,  and  the  philosophy  of  the  history.  You 
will  soon  learn  the  one,  but  you  must  endeavour  to  understand  the 
other. 

Having  thus  given  you  my  general  notion  of  what  you  are  to  air 
tempt  to4o,  I  will  describe  to  you  the  best  and  shortest  means  yon 
11 


80  LECTURE  V. 

can  use  for  the  purpose.  You  must  read,  then,  and  compare  Hume 
and  Rapin,  and  study  Millar  on  the  English  Constitution.  Bear 
away,  then,  this  general  impression  from  this  lecture, —  that  it  is  the 
constitutional  history  of  your  country  which  is  the  great  subject  be- 
fore you,  and  that  Hume,  Rapin,  and  Millar  are  to  be  your  authors  ; 
that  the  subject  cannot  be  contracted  for  you  into  any  shorter  com- 
pass than  this.  But  to  these,  which  I  originally  mentioned,  I  must 
now  add  the  invaluable  History  of  Mr.  Hallam,  and  that  no  one  who 
has  been  admitted  to  the  benefits  of  a  regular  education  can  be  par- 
doned, if  he  do  not  exert  himself  at  least  to  this  extent.  But  when 
England  is  the  subject,  most  of  you  may  be  disposed  to  take  any 
pains  that  can  be  thought  necessary,  to  inform  yourselves  of  its  con- 
stitutional history  ;  and  it  is  to  those,  therefore,  that  I  shall  now,  for 
some  time,  address  myself,  —  to  those  who  are  ready  to  study  the 
constitutional  history  of  their  country  more  thoroughly. 

'In  the  first  place,  then,  Priestley's  Lectures  and  Nicholson's  His- 
torical Library  will  give  you  an  account  of  all  books  and  sources  of 
information  belonging  to  English  history. 

Of  the  Saxon  law  what  now  can  be  known  has  been  collected  by 
difierent  antiquarians,  and  edited  more  particularly  by  Wilkins.  You 
may  also  estimate  this  part  of  the  subject  from  the  first  appendix  of 
Hume.     This  appendix  will  be  sufficient  for  the  general  reader. 

Mr.  Turner  has  published  some  volumes  containing  many  particu- 
lars which  the  student  will  not  readily  find  elsewhere,  and  he  will, 
from  the  text  and  from  the  notes,  sufficiently  comprehend  what  is  the 
knowledge  which  the  study  of  the  Saxon  language  and  Saxon  antiqui- 
ties would  furnish  him  with, 

Mr.  Turner  is  often  capable  of  affording  his  reader  valuable  topics 
of  reflection ;  but,  though  apparently  a  most  patient  antiquarian,  his 
unagination  is  so  active,  that  his  style  is  unexpectedly  loaded  with 
metaphors,  to  a  degree  that  is  not  only  inconsistent  with  historic  com- 
position, but  with  all  composition.  Very  extensive  reading  is  dis- 
played^ and,  on  the  whole,  the  work  may  be  consulted  with  advan- 
tage. There  is  nothing  said  of  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  a 
strange  omission  ;  nor  of  the  rise  of  the  English  House  of  Commons, 
though  Mr.  Turner  evidently  conceives  that  the  commons  formed  no 
part  of  the  Witenagemote. 

Mr.  Turner  has,  since  I  wrote  this  paragraph,  published  three  " 
quarto  volumes  on  the  English  history,  from  William  the  First  to 
Henry  the  Eighth.  Ho  is  an  antiquarian,  as  I  have  mentioned,  and 
wdiatever  a  man  who  looks  into  original  records  publishes  must  be 
of  more  or  less  importance.  •  Mr.  Turner  often  gives  his  reader  the 
impression  of  an  amiable  man,  rather  than  one  of  a  very  superior 
understanding ;  yet  many  curious  particulars  may  be  collected  and 
much  instraction  may  be  derived  from  his  learned  and  often  amusing 
work. 


ENGLAND.  86^ 

This  lecture  was  drawn  up  many  years  ago,  in  the  years  1807  and 
1808.  I  have  now,  therefore,  to  mention  to  you  also  the  eighth 
chapter  of  Mr.  Hallam's  work  on  the  Middle  Ages.  Tliis  chapter 
refers  entirely  to  the  Enghsh  constitution,  into  the  history  of  which 
it  enters  with  great  learning  and  ability.  You  must  come  to  no  de- 
cision on  any  point  connected  with  this  subject,  without  first  turning 
to  tliis  chapter  of  Mr.  Hallam.  He  thinks  for  himself ;  and  he  is  a 
critic  and  examiner  of  the  labors  of  those  who  have  gone  before. 
Since  this  lecture  was  written,  his  Constitutional  History  has  ateo 
appeared  ;  a  work,  as  I  have  already  said,  quite  invaluable. 

Dr.  Lingard  has  lately  published  a  History  of  England ;  and  we 
have  now,  therefore,  the  views  and  reasonings  of  those  who»are  mem- 
bers of  the  Roman  Catholic  communion,  presented  to  us  by  a  writer 
of  great  controversial  ability.  •  Dr.  Lingard  also  consults  records,  and 
judges  for  himself,  and  his  book  must  therefore  be  always  referred  to 
on  every  occasion  of  importance.  He  tells  the  story  of  England  in 
too  cold  a  manner,  and  it  is  truly  the  Roman  Catholic  history  of 
England  ;  but  his  work  is  interesting,  because  the  reader  knows  that 
the  writer  is  not  only  an  able  writer,  but  a  man  of  research  and  of 
antiquarian  learning,  and  it  therefore  never  can  be  conjectured  be- 
forehand what  may  be  the  information  which  he  mil  produce  or  the 
sentiments  that  he  will  adopt.  He  sometimes  diffei-s  with  his  prede- 
cessors, even  on  general  subjects,  and  not  always  with  good  reason. 

I  must  now,  however,  mention  to  you  the  three  octavo  volumes  on 
English  history  that  were  drawn  up  by  ^ir  James  Mackintosh,  for 
Dr.  Lardner.  There  is  little  pretension  in  the  appearance  of  these 
volumes.  Do  not  be  deceived  by  this  circumstance ;  they  are  full 
of  weighty  matter,  and  are  everywhere  marked  by  paragrajihs  of 
comprehensive  thought  and  sound  philosophy,  poUtical  and  moral ; 
tiiey  are  well  worthy  their  distinguished  author.  The  sentences  are 
now  and  then  overcharged  with  reflection,  so  as  to  become  obscure, 
particularly  in  the  first  volume.  But  do  not  be  deterred  by  a  fault 
that  too  naturally  resulted  from  the  richly  stored  and  liighly  meta- 
physical mind  of  tliis  valuable  writer. 

You  may  easily  consult  the  monkish  writers  ;  you  will  find  thera 
edited  in  a  form  by  no  means  repulsive  :  "  Rerum  Anglicanun  Scrip- 
tores  Decem,"  &c.  You  will  not  probably  turn  to  read  works  of  this 
kind  in  any  very  regular  manner  ;  but  I  would  advise  you  to  consult 
them  at  particular  periods  of  our  history,  periods  when  their  repre- 
sentations are  likely  to  be  instructive,  —  when  popular  commotions, 
for  instance,  occur,  —  changes  of  the  government,  —  any  transacHon 
that  may  be  connected  with  general  principles.  You  may  remember 
with  what  effect  an  allusion  is  made  to  the  old  historians,  Kmghton 
and  Walsingham,  by  Mr.  Burke,  when  he  meant  to  show  that  all  the 
modem  principles  of  the  revolutionary  school  of  France  were  but  of 
tiie  same  nature  with  the  vulgar  jargon  of  John  Ball  in  the  reign  of 


84  LECTURE   V. 

Richard  the  Second.  I  allude  to  his  note  in  the  Appeal  from  the 
Kew  to  the  Old  Whigs. 

A  good  notion  of  the  early  constitutional  history  of  England  may 
be  collected  from  Cotton's  Abridgment  of  the  Records,  which  ought 
by  all  means  to  be  consulted ;  it  has  been  edited  by  Prynne,  whose 
preface  should  be  perused.  The  reader  is  furnished  with  an  index  at 
the  end,  which  will  point  out  to  him  a  variety  of  topics  well  fitted  to 
excite  his  curiosity ;  and  he  may  thus  acquire,  by  pursuing  the  refer- 
ences, most  of  the  benefit  which  the  book  can  render  him,  in  a  very 
easy  and  expeditious  manner.  It  is  not,  however,  always  a  sufficient 
representation  of  the  records,  which  it,  indeed,  only  professes  to 
abridge.    , 

It  is  to  be  observed,  that  records  are  consulted  often  to  determine 
points  of  difficulty  ;  abridgments  cannot  ,then  be  satisfactory.  Cotton 
is  censured  as  inadequate,  sometimes  as  inaccurate ;  but  the  work  is 
an  abridgment.  Omission  is  not  necessarily  inaccuracy,  though  it 
has  alwa}^  a  tendency  to  be  so,  and  may  sometimes  operate  as  if  it 
were.  Cotton  is,  of  course,  no  authority  in  Westminster  Hall  or 
Parliament. . 

Brady's  History,  Tyrrell's,  and  Carte's  may  be  consulted,  and  the 
parliamentary  History ;  but  as  the  latter  work,  and  the  proper  con- 
tinuations of  it,  are  not  always,  at  least  not  cheaply,  to  be  procured, 
you  may  refer  to  a  very  adequate  selection  from  them,  that  has  been 
published  by  Cobbett,  or  rather  by  Hansard,  and  that  forms  the  vol- 
umes of  his  Parhamentary*  History ;  the  preface  to  each  of  which 
volumes  will  always  afford  the  reader  all  the  necessary  information 
respecting  such  original  works  as  can  now  be  resorted  to. 

It  is  totally  impossible  to  convey  the  impression  which  is  given  by 
these  original  documents  in  any  words  but  their  own.  Nothing  can 
be  more  curious  and  strikuig  than  their  language  to  our  modern  ears, 
particularly  where  the  Commons  are  mentioned.  When  we  consider 
what,  very  happily  for  the  community,  that  assembly  now  is,  it  is 
perfectly  amusing  to  observe  the  submissive  approaches  which  they 
long  made,  not  only  to  the  king,  but  to  the  lords  and  prelates, — 
their  alarm,  their  total  despondency,  when  they  see  any  tax  impend 
ing  over  them. 

It  is  in  these  original  documents,  that  their  early  insignificance,  and 
the  slow,  but  accelerated,  growth  of  their  power,  can  best  be  seen ; 
and  how  idle  is  the  declamation  which  would  refer  us  to  these  times, 
as  the  best  times  of  our  Parliaments.  Most  of  the  valuable  privileges 
which  the  House  of-  Commons  enjoys,  most  of  the  important  offices 
which  that  house  now  discharges  for  the  community,  may  be  there 
traced  up  to  all  their  rude  beginnings  ;  visible  sometimes  in  the  shape 
of  pretensions  and  assumptions,  —  sometimes  of  claims  and  rights,  — 
and  all  or  any  of  them,  with  the  exception  of  the  right  to  give  away 
their  own  and  the  public  money,  waived,  or  asserted,  or  modified, 


ENGLAND.  85 

Rxordlng  to  the  circumstances  of  their  situation.  So  much  has  lib- 
erty owed  to  perseverance,  and  to  the  vigilant  improvement  of  oppor- 
tunity ;  not  to  any  original  contract  or  adjustment  between  the  ele- 
mentary powers  of  the  constitution,  the  monarch,  the  aristocracy,  and 
the  commonalty. 

Much  of  this  sort  of  information,  and  of  every  other  historical  in- 
formation, may  be  found  in  the  History  of  Dr.  Henry  ;  but  the  same 
facts,  when  collected  and  printed  in  a  modem  dress,  properly  ar- 
ranged, and  to  be  read  without  difficulty,  as  they  are  in  the  work  of 
Dr.  Henry,  no  longer  excite  the  same  reflection,  nor  obtain  the  same 
possession  of  the  memory,  which  they  do,  when  seen  in  something 
like  their  native  garb,  in  their  proper  place,  and  in  all  the  simplicity, 
singularity,  and  quaintness  which  belong  to  them. 

I  do  not  say  that  there  will  be  no  labor  in  referring  to  original 
authorities,  but  I  say  that  the  labor  will  be  rewarded ;  and  that,  un- 
less such  diligence  be  exercised,  no  conclusion  can  safely  be  drawn, 
in  any  particular  case,  from  the  supposed  facts  of  our  constitutional 
history.  And  this  is  the  more  necessary,  because,  from  the  very 
nature  of  a  mixed  government  and  the  very  nature  of  the  human 
mind,  historians  and  philosophers  are  affected  by  different  feelings, 
and  give  different  representations  of  the  same  periods ;  and  every 
student  must  refer  to  authorities  and  judge  for  himself. 

Turn,  for  instance,  to  the  History  of  Hume.  We  are  scarcely 
Wintered  upon  the  work  and  referred  to  the  notes,  before  we  see  the 
symptoms  of  some  contrariety  of  opinion  between  the  historian  and 
other  writers,  with  respect  to  the  original  nature  of  our  constitution. 
If  we  have  recourse  to  the  authors  whom  he  quotes  or  alludes  to,  the 
shades  of  controversy  soon  thicken  around  us,  and  we  ]3erceive  that 
the  same  dispute  exists  among  our  ^wn  writers  that  will  be  found 
among  the  historians  and  antiquarians  of  the  FrQuch  nation,  —  be- 
tween those  who  insist  upon  the  popular,  and  those  who  contend  for 
the  aristocratic  and  monarchical,  nature  of  the  original  constitutions 
and  governments  of  Europe. 

Controversies  of  this  kind  have  arisen,  not  only  from  the  curioua 
and  disputable  nature  of  these  topics,  but  from  a  difference  of  senti- 
ment which  has  always  existed  among  the  writei*s  and  reasoners  that 
have  lived  under  the  mixed  governments  of  Europe.  Secretly  or 
avowedly,  they  have  always  fallen  into  two  divisions,  —  those  who 
think  the  interests  of  the  community  are  best  served  by  favoring  the 
monarchical  part  of  a  constitution,  and  those  who  think  the  same  end 
is  best  attained  by  inclining  to  its  popular  privileges.  The  result  has 
been,  that  writers  of  the  first  description  have  been  eager  to  show 
that  the  prerogatives  of  the  monarch  were  from  the  eariiest  times 
predominant ;  and  that  those  of  the  last  description  have  been  equally 
earnest  to  prove  that  all  power,  not  only  in  theory,  but  in  fact,  waa 
first  derived  from  the  people. 

H 


86  LECTURE  V. 

Such  discussions  may  h&  thought  by  many  little  more  than  the 
natural,  though  unimportant,  occupation  of  speculative  writers  and 
antiquarians ;  for  the  real  question,  it  will  be  said,  must  always  be, 
by  what  form  of  government  the  happiness  of  the  community  is  best 
secured,  —  not  what  was  in  fact  the  form  that  happened  to  exist 
among  our  ancestors  a  thousand  years  ago ;  their  mistakes  or  mis- 
fortunes can  be  no  rule  or  obligation  to  us ;  we  may  emulate  or 
avoid  their  example,  but  cannot  be  bound  by  their  authority. 

All  this  must  be  admitted,  yet  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
affairs  of  men  are  not  disposed  of  by  the  rules  of  logic  or  the  ab- 
stract truths  of  reasoning ;  these  may  remain  the  same,  and  may 
always  exhibit  to  the  monarch  and  to  the  people,  to  the  courtier  and 
the  patriot,  those  principles  and  maxims  which  are  best  fitted  to 
promote  the  happiness  of  the  community.  Neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  is,  however,  likely  to  see  such  truths  very  clearly,  or  to  ex- 
amine them  very  accurately.  It  is  by  a  certain  loose  and  coarse 
mixture  of  right  and  wrong  in  the  reasoning,  and  of  selfishness  and 
generosity  in  the  intention,  that  the  practical  politics  of  mankind 
are  carried  on,  according  to  the  varying  circumstances  of  the  case ; 
not  only,  therefore,  are  the  reasonings  of  philosophy  produced,  but 
arguments  are  urged,  drawn  from  precedent  and  ancient  usage, 
which  thus  appear  to  moderate,  as  it  were,  between  the  contending 
parties,  and  to  be  unaffected  by  the  heats  and  prejudices  of  the  mo- 
ment. It  seems,  for  example,  more  reasonable  to  insist  upon  privi- 
leges which  have  been  before  enjoyed,  more  reasonable  to  maintain 
prerogatives  which  were  originally  exercised.  Topics  of  this  nature, 
which  can  in  no  respect  be  slighted  by  any  sound  philosopher,  — 
much  the  contrary,  — -are  perfectly  adapted  to-  the  loose,  sweeping, 
and  often  irrational  decisions  of  the  generality  of  mankind ;  and 
therefore  the  discussions  of  antiquarians  and  philosophic  historians, 
with  respect  to  the  original  state  of  prerogative  and  privilege,  can 
never  be  without  their  interest  and  importance.  In  the  practical 
politics  of  mankind,  usage,  prescription,  custom,  are  every  thing,  or 
nearly  so ;  but,  in  this  country,  such  discussions  are  fitted  to  excite 
a  more  than  ordinary  degree  of  interest.  The  language  of  the 
statesmen  and  patriots  to  whom  we  are  so  much  indebted  for  our 
constitution  has  always  been,  that  they  claimed  their  undoubted 
rights  and  privileges,  their  ancient  franchises,  the  laws  and  liberties 
of  the  land,  and  their  immemorial  customs.  One  monarch  has  been 
obliged  to  capitulate  with  his  subjects,  and  acknowledge  their  immu- 
nities and  franchises  formally  by  charter ;  one  has  perished  on  a 
scaffold ;  another  been  exiled  from  the  throne.  Revolutions  and  a 
civil  war  have  marked  the  influence  of  opposite  opinions  with  respect 
to  the  popular  nature  of  our  constitution.  These  dreadful  and  peril- 
ous scenes  could  not  fail  to  transmit  this  original  division  of  senti- 
ment to  us,  their  posterity.     The  distinction  between  those  who  in- 


ENGLAND.  87 

cline  to  the  popular  part  of  the  constitution  and  those  who  incline  to 
the  monarchical  exists  to  this  hour,  and  can  cease  only  with  the  con 

stitution  itself. 

The  great  leading  idea  which  should  he  formed  of  our  constitu 
tional  history  is,  that  there  has  always  been  a  constant  struggle  be- 
tween prerogative  and  privilege. 

Open,  for  Ristance,  a  volume  of  Hume,  in  any  reign  after  the 
House  of  Commons  had  obtained  an  existence,  —  any  extract  may 
serve  as  a  specimen  of  the  whole,  —  it  will  instantly  be  seen  that 
the  points  at  issue  between  the  crown  and  the  subject  were  always 
nearly  the  same  (precisely  the  same  in  principle),  from  the  earUest 
struggles  of  the  barons,  down  to  the  Revolution  in  1688. 

Take,  for  example,  a  paragraph  in  his  reign  of  Edward  the  Third, 
page  490,  8vo : — "They  mistake,  indeed,  very  much,"  says  he, 
"  the  genius  of  this  reign  [of  Edward  the  Third] ,  who  imagine  that 
it  was  not  extremely  arbitrary.  All  the  high  prerogatives  of  the 
crown  were  to  the  full  exerted  in  it ;  but,  what  gave  some  consola- 
tion and  promised  in  time  some  relief  to  the  people,  they  were 
always  complained  of  by  the  Commons:  such  as  the  dispensing 
power,  the  extension  of  the  forests,  erecting  monopohes,  exacting 
loans',  stopping  justice  by  particular  warrants,  the  renewal  of  the 
commission  of  trailbaston,  pressing  men  and  ships  into  the  pubhc 
service,  levying  arbitrary  and  exorbitant  fines,  extending  the  author- 
ity of  the  Privy  Council  or  Star-Chamber  to  the  decision  of  private 
causes,  enlarging  the  power  of  the  mareschal's  and  other  arbitrary 
courts,  imprisoning  members  for  freedom  of  speech  in  Parliament, 
obliging  people,  without  any  rule,  to  send  recruits  of  men-at-arms, 
archers,  and  hobblers,  to  the  army." 

Now,  if  the  references  of  Mr.  Hume  are  consulted,  it  will  be 
found,  as  he  asserts,  that  traces  of  such  arbitrary  exercises  of  power 
appear  on  our  records.  But,  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  they  were  always 
complained  of  by  the  Commons."  On  consulting  the  references, 
this,  too,  will  be  found  to  be  the  case.  And  here,  then,  we  have 
before  us  a  picture  of  the  whole  subject,  —  a  continued  struggle  be- 
tween prerogative  and  privilege,  and  of  the  same  nature  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  the  Third  as  afterwards  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  First  and  even  of  James  the  Second. 

G-rievances  like  these  continually  occurred,  from  the  irregtilar 
nature  of  government  and  society  in  such  barbarous  times ;  but  the 
natural  feelings  of  mankind,  operating  upon  the  example  transmitted 
by  more  ancient  times,  continually  revived  the  spirit  of  resistance. 
This  virtuous  spirit  found  in  the  House  of  Commons  a  regular  and 
legal  organ  through  ivhich  the  rights  of  the  commmiity  could  be 
asserted ;  and  this  is  the  struggle  and  this  the  merit  of  our  ances- 
tors, —  this  the  inherited  dutv,  if  necessary,  of  ourselves. 

Now,  such  being  the  real  picture  of  our  constitutional  history, 


88  LECTURE  V. 

the  student  is,  in  the  next  place,  to  be  reminded  of  what  we  nave 
already  stated  to  him,  and  must  in  the  course  of  these  lectures  for 
ever  repeat,  —  the  natural  divisions,  not  only  of  mankind,  but  of 
philosophers,  on  political  subjects,  and  the  manner  in  which  they 
separate  into  two  classes :  those,  for  instance,  who  are  anxious,  first 
and  principally,  for  the  prerogative  of  the  crown ;  and  those,  on  the 
other  hand,  ayIio  are  zealous,  first  and  principally,  fo¥  the  privileges 
of  the  people. 

It  may  be  very  true,  that,  could  the  selfishness  and  the  irritabihty 
of  men  allow  them  to  weigh  and  consider  the  reasonings  of  each 
other,  the  real  interests  of  both  crown  and  people  would  be  found  to 
consist  in  their  mutual  support,  and  are  always  in  truth  the  same  ; 
but  the  rude  warfare  of  human  passions  admits  not  of  such  salutary 
adjustments ;  and  as  mutual  offences  are  in  practice  constantly  given 
and  received,  men  who  naturally  kindle  at  the  sight  of  what  they 
conceive  to  be  insolence  and  usurpation  on  the  one  side,  or  on  the 
other  to  be  cruelty  and  wrong,  are  not  only  inflamed,  when  they  live 
at  the  time,  and  are  witnesses  of  the  scene,  but  they  are  unable  to 
give  an  accurate  representation  even  of  the  transactions  of  the  past ; 
they  cannot  consider  them  with  proper  calmness,  even  when  they 
observe  them,  in  a  subsequent  period,  at  a  secure  distance  of*  time 
and  place.  So  true  is  this,  that  not  one  thoroughly  impartial  his- 
torian of  our  annals  can  be  mentioned ;  and  it  is  necessary  to  warn 
my  hearers  that  they  are  to'  adopt  no  train  of  reasoning,  nor  even 
the  narrative  of  any  important  proceeding,  without  a  due  examina- 
tion of  diiferent  writers,  and  a  careful  consideration  of  their  particu- 
lar prejudices. 

Take,  as  specimens,  the  reigns  of  Edward  the  Second  and  Rich- 
ard the  Second.  Let  them  be  considered,  first  in  Hume,  and  after- 
wards in  Rapin ;  the  reader  will  be  impressed  with  the  difference 
between  the  representations  of  the  one  historian  and  the  other.  Let 
him  then  turn  to  the  account  given  of  these  reigns  by  Millar  ;  the 
difference  will  be  still  more  striking.  The  reign  of  Richard  the 
Second,  for  instance,  is  represented  by  Millar  as  perfectly  analogous 
to  that  of  James  the  Second ;  a  king  neglecting  the  interests  and 
violating  the  rights  of  his  subjects,  and  justly  deposed.  In  Hume, 
on  the  contrary,  Ave  see  only  the  picture  of  a  prince  unfitted  to  con- 
tend with  a  turbulent  people  and  a  factious  aristocracy,  and  perish- 
ing by  a  cruel  death,  rather  from  weakness  of  understanding  than 
from  any  malignity  of  disposition. 

The  discordant  observations  of  these  two  disting-uished  philoso- 
phers, when  viewing  the  same  actors  and  events  at  the  distance  of 
four  centuries,  sufficiently  exemplify  that  division  of  sentiment  which 
has  been  described  as  existing  more  or  less  among  all  political  rea- 
soners  on  similar  occasions.  Throughout  all  our  history  it  may  be 
observed,  that  all  violence  and  resistance  are  imputed  by  Hume  tc 


ENGLAND.  89 

faction  and  barbarism,  by  Millar  and  most  other  writers  to  a  laud 
able  spirit  of  freedom  and  independence. 

These  are  the  observations  that  I  have  to  address  to  those  students 
who  are  disposed  to  search  diligently  into  the  records  of  our  history. 
But  I  must  now  turn  again  to  the  general  reader,  who  may  not  have 
4h.e  same  ardor  of  inquiry  or  patience  of  study. 

Rapin  and  Hume  are  our  two  great  historians.  Byt  it  is  Hume 
who  is  read  by  every  one.  Hume  is  the  historian  whose  views  and 
opinions  insensibly  become  our  own.  He  is  respected  and  admired  by 
the  most  enlightened  reader ;  he  is  the  guide  and  philosopher  of  the 
ordinary  reader,  to  whose  mind^  on  all  the  topics  connected  with  our 
history,  he  entirely  gives  the  tone  and  the  law.  On  every  account, 
therefore,  I  shall  dedicate  the  remainder  of  this  lecture  chiefly  to  the 
consideration  of  his  work,  that  your  confidence  may  not  be  given  too 
implicitly,  and  that  while  you  feel,  as  you  ought  to  do,  the  charm  of 
his  composition,  the  charm  of  what  Gibbon  called  so  justly  his  care- 
less and  inimitable  beauties,  you  may  be  aware  also  of  the  objections 
that  certainly  exist  to  the  general  tendency  and  practical  effect  of  his 
representations. 

The  two  great  histories  which  we  read,  as  I  must  again  observe, 
are  those  of  Rapin  and  Hume.  Their  political  sentiments  are  differ- 
ent ;  but  Hume  is  the  author  who,  from  his  conciseness,  the  charms 
of  his  style,  and  the  weight  of  his  philosophical  observations,  is  always 
preferred,  and  is  far  more  universally  and  thoroughly  read. 

It  is  impossible,  indeed,  that  the  confidence  of  a  reader  should  not 
be  won  by  the  general  air  of  calmness  and  good  sense  which,  inde- 
pendent of  other  merits,  distinguishes  the  beautiful  narrative  of 
Hume.  If  he  should  turn  to  his  authorities  (speaking  fii*st  on  the 
favorable  side  of  the  question),  he  mil  then,  and  then  only,  be  able 
to  perceive  the  entire  merit  of  this  admirable  writer,  —  the  dexterity 
and  sagacity  with  which  he  has  often  made  out  his  recital,  the  ease 
and  grace  with  which  it  is  presented  to  the  reader,  and  the  valuable 
and  penetrating  remarks  by  which  it  is  enriched. 

But,  to  speak  next  on  the  unfavorable  side,  by  turning  to  the  same 
authorities,  we  shall  then  only  perceive  the  entire  demerit  of  his  work. 
It  is  understood,  indeed,  by  every  reader,  it  has  been  proclaimed  by 
many  writers,  that  Hume  always  inclines  to  the  side  of  prerogative ; 
that,  in  his  account  of  the  Stuarts,  his  History  is  little  better  than  au 
apology  ;  his  pages  are  therefore  read,  in  this  part  of  his  work  at 
least,  with  something  of  distrust,  and  his  representations  are  not  c.ii- 
■  sidered  as  decisive.  But  what  reader  turns  to  consult  his  rcfei-enoes 
or  examine  his  original  authorities  ?  What  effect  does  this  distrust, 
after  all,  produce  ?  Practically,  none.  In  defiance  of  it,  is  not  the 
general  influence  of  his  work,  on  the  general  reader,  just  such  as  the 
author  would  himself  have  wished,  — as  strong  and  a^  permanent  as 
if  every  atatement  and  opinion  in  his  History  had  deserved  our  per- 
fect assent  and  approbation  ? 

12  H* 


90  LECTURE  V. 

I  must  confess  that  this  appears  to  me  so  entirely  the  fact,  judging 
from  all  that  I  have  experienced  in  myself  and  observed  in  others, 
that  I  do  not  conceive  a  lecturer  in  history  could  render  (could  offer, 
at  least)  a  more  important  service  to  an  English  auditory  than  by 
following  Mr.  Hume,  step  by  step,  through  the  whole  of  his  account, 
and  showing  what  are  his  fair,  and  what  his  unfair  inferences,  -* 
what  his  juat  representations,  and  what  his  improper  colorings,  — 
what  his  mistakes,  and,  -above  all,  what  his  omissions,  —  in  short, 
what  are  the  dangers,  and  w^hat  the  advantages,  that  must  attend 
the  perusal  of  so  popular  and  able  a  performance.  But  such  lectures, 
I  apprehend,  could  not  be  listened  to.  Were  they  even  formed  into 
a  treatise,  they  would  be  only  in  part  perused  by  the  general  reader  ; 
nor  would  they  be  properly  and  thoroughly  considered  by  any  but  the 
most  patient  inquirers. 

I  would  msh,  however,  to  make  some  effort  of  this  kind,  however 
shght  and  imperfect.  A  sort  of  specimen,  perhaps,  may  be  offered, 
—  a  general  notion  may,  I  hope,  be  given  ;  and  as  investigations  of 
this  nature  are  very  repulsive  and  fatiguing,  I  shall  fix  only  upon 
some  one  paragraph,  the  first  that  occurs,  and  examine  it  in  all  its 
important  parts ;  and,  contenting  myself  with  this  example,  leave  my 
hearers  to  draw  their  o^vn  reflections,  and  pursue  such  inquiries  to 
any  further  extent  which  they  may  hereafter  judge  expedient. 

I  have  already  quoted  a  paragraph  from  the  reign  of  Edward  the 
Third,  to  show  that  the  nature  of  the  .contest  between  prerogative  and 
privilege  ahvays  turned  upon  the  same  points  through  the  whole  of 
our  history.  It  may  also  be  remembered  that  I  have  always  repre- 
sented the  right  of  taxation  as  the  most  important  question  of  all. 
Now  the  passage  that  immediately  follows  in  Mr.  Hume  is  this :  — 

"  But  there  was  no  act  of  arbitrary  power  more  frequently  repeated 
in  this  reign  than  that  of  imposing  taxes  Avithout  consent  of  Parliar 
ment.  Though  that  assembly  granted  the  king  greater  supplies  than 
had  ever  been  obtained  by  any  of  his  predecessors,  his  great  under- 
takings and  the  necessity  of  his  affairs  obliged  him  to  levy  still  more  ; 
and  after  his  splendid  success  against  France  had  added  weight  to 
his  authority,  these  arbitrary  impositions  became  almost  annual  and 
perpetual.  Cotton's  Abridgment  of  the  Records  affords  numerous 
instances  of  this  kind,  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  in  the  thirteenth 
year,  in  the  fourteenth,  in  the  twentieth,  in  the  twenty-first,  in  the 
twenty-second,  in  the  twenty-fifth,  in  the  thirty-eighth,  in  the  fiftieth, 
and  in  the  fifty-first. 

"  The  king  openly  avowed  and  maintained  this  power  of  levymg 
taxes  at  pleasure.  At  one  time,  he  replied  to  the  remonstrance  made 
by  the  Commons  against  it,  that  the  impositions  had  been  exacted 
from  great  necessity,  and  had  been  assented  to  by  the  prelates,  earls, 
barons,  and  some  of  the  Commons  ;  at  another,  that  he  would  advise 
with  his  Council.     When  the  Parliament  desired  that  a  law  might  be 


ENGLAND.  M 

enacted  for  the  punishment  of  such  as  levied  these  arbitrary  impo- 
sitions, he  refused  comphance.  In  the  subsequent  year,  they  desired 
that  the  king  might  renounce  this  pretended  prerogative  ;  but  his 
answer  was,  that  he  would  levy  no  taxes  without  necessity,  for  the 
defence  of  the  realm,  and  where  he  reasonably  might  use  that  au- 
thority. This  incident  passed  a  few  days  before  his  death,  and  these 
were,  in  a  manner,  his  last  words  to  his  people.  It  would  seem  that 
the  famous  charter  or  statute  of  Edward  the  First,  '  De  tallagio  non 
concedendo,'  though  never  repealed,  was  supposed  to  have  already 
lost  by  age  all  its  authority. 

"  These  facts  can  only  show  the  practice  of  the  times ;  for  as  to 
the  right,  the  continual  remonstrances  of  the  Commons  may  seem  to 
prove  that  it  rather  lay  on  their  side  ;  at  least,  these  remonstrances 
served  to  prevent  the  arbitrary  practices  of  the  court  from  becoming 
an  estabhshed  part  of  the  constitution." 

Now  here  we  have,  certainly,  very  important  statements.  Let  my 
hearer  observe  them. 

"  But  there  was  no  act  of  arbitrary  power  more  frequently  repeated 
in  this  reign  than  that  of  imposing  taxes  without  consent  of  ParUar 
nient."  —  "  These  arbitrary  impositions  became  alnlost  annual  and 
perpetual."  —  "  The  king  openly  avowed  and  maintamed  this  power 
of  levying  taxes  at  pleasure."  —  Such  are  Mr.  Hume's  expressions 
to  represent  the  facts. 

"  These  facts,"  he  continues,  "  can  only  show  the  practice  of  the 
times  ;  for  as  to  the  right,  the  continual  remonstrances  of  the  Com- 
mons may  seem  to  prove  that  it  rather  lay  on  their  side."  —  Such  is 
the  general  air  of  his  reasoning  upon  these  facts. 

Now  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  a  writer  like  Mr.  Hume  will  be 
palpably  and  entirely  unfair  either  in  his  facts  or  his  reasonings,  yefe 
he  may  be  sufficiently  so  to  give  his  reader  an  impression  on  the 
whole  not  so  favorable  to  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  subject  as 
the  case  admits  of. 

The  authority  quoted  is  Cotton's  Abridgment  of  the  Records  ;  and 
on  consulting  tlie  references  of  Mr.  Hume,  they  will  be  seen  to  prove, 
as  he  asserts,  that  money  was  raised  by  the  king  without  the  author- 
ity of  Parliament.  This  must  be  considered  as  proved  by  the  occa- 
sional complaints  of  the  Commons,  which  m  the  references  constantly 
appear  ;  but  the  still  more  important  consideration  is  this,  —  what 
were  the  anstvers  of  the  king  to  these  complaints  of  the  Commons  . 
Mr.  Hume's  assertion  is,  that  "  the  king  openly  avowed  and^  mam- 
tained  this  power  of  levying  taxes  at  pleasure.  At  one  time,  says 
Hume,-  "  he  rephed  to  the  remonstrance  made  by  the  Commons 
against  it,  '  that  the  impositions  had  been  exacted  from  great  7iece^ 
8ity,  and  had  been  assented  to  by  the  prelates,  earls,  bai-ons,  anci 
some  of  the  Commons.'  "  Now  even  this  answer,  thus  given  Dy  .w. 
Hume,  does  not  justify  him  in  the  assertion,  that  the  kmg  opemj 


92  LECTURE  V. 

avowed  and  maintained  the  power  of  levying  taxes  at  pleasure ,  — 
quite  the  contrary ;  for  the  king  alleged,  not  his  right,  but  the  necessi 
ty  of  the  case,  and  the  assent  of  the  Lords  and  part  of  the  Commons. 
Upon  looking,  however,  at  Mr.  Hume's  reference  in  Cotton,  page 
53,  the  real  answer  appears  to  have  been  as  follows  :  — "If  any  such 
imposition  be  made,  the  same  was  made  upon  great  necessity,  and 
with  the  assent  of  the  prelates,  counts,  barons,  and  other  great  men, 
and  some  of  the  Commons  then  present ;  notwithstanding,  the  king 
w^ills  not  that  such  undue  impositions  be  drawn  into  consequence." 
These  last  words,  "notwithstanding,"  &c.  &c.,  are  totally  omitted 
by  Mr.  Hume  in  his  representation  of  the  king's  answer  ;  but  they 
are  evidently  very  material,  and  entirely  opposed  to  Mr.  Hume's 
affirmation,  that  the  king  openly  avowed  and  maintained  this  power 
of  levying  taxes  at  pleasure,  —  in  so  much  so,  that  they  are  the  very 
words  which  are  always  used,  when  a  particular  exception  is  made  to 
a  general  rule,  and  it  is  thought  necessary  to  assert  and  acknowledge 
the  general  rule,  and  leave  it  as  it  stood  before.  The  king's  answer, 
in  every  part  of  it,  particularly  in  this  last  omitted  part,  implies  that 
the  right  of  levying  money  could  not  be  regularly  exercised  without 
the  Parliament! 

Again.  At  another  time,  says  Mr.  Hume,  the  king  replied,  "  that 
he  would  advise  with  his  Council"  ;  but  the  real  answer  in  the  refer- 
ence in  Cotton,  page  57,  is  this,  —  "  that  the  subsidy,"  of  which 
they  seem  to  have  complained,  "  was  granted  for  a  time  yet  endur- 
ing, within  w^hich  time  the  king  will  advise  with  his  Council  what 
shall  be  best  to  be  done  therein  for  the  good  of  the  people."  The 
first  part  of  this  answer,  —  "  that  the  subsidy  was  granted  for  a 
time  yet  enduring,^''  —  which  acknowledges  the  right  of  the  Com- 
mons, is  again  totally  omitted  by  Mr.  Hume,  and  his  representation 
is,  that  the  king  answered,  "  that  he  would  advise  with  his  Council." 

Again.  "  When  the  Parliament,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  desired  that 
a  law  might  be  enacted  for  the  punishment  of  such  as  levied  these 
arbitrary  impositions,  he  [the  king]  refused  compliance."  Upon 
consulting  the  reference,  the  petition  of  the  Commons  runs  thus. 
They  petition,  "  that  such  as  shall  of  their  own  authority  lay  new 
impositions  without  assent  of  Parliament  may  lose  hfe,  member,  and 
other  forfeitures."  In  the  House  of  Commons  this  was  surely  a  most 
violent  and  objectionable  mode  of  asserting  their  right  of  taxation, 
and  well  deserving  the  resistance  of  the  king.  The  answer  of  the 
king  was,  —  "  Let  the  common  law,  heretofore  used,  run."  Now 
this  is  not  so  much  to  refuse  compliance,  as  to  give  a  proper  an- 
swer. On  the  whole,  we  have  here  neither  the  exact  petition  nor  the 
exact  answer  that  would  have  been  supposed  from  the  account  given 
by  Mr.  Hume  ;  the  words  of  the  Commons  would  have  been  sup- 
posed, from  Hume's  expressions,  more  reasonable,  and  those  of  the 
king  more  authoritative  and  arbitrary,  than  they  really  were ;  that 


ENGLAND.  98 

iS,  an  improper  representation  is  given  of  both  the  one  and  the 
other. 

"  In  the  subsequent  year,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  they  desired  tha/. 
the  king  might  renounce  this  pretended  prerogative."  The  refer- 
ence which  is  printed  in  the  margin  of  Hume,  in  some  editions,  132; 
should  be  152,  and  is  more  exactly  represented  by  Mr.  Hume  than 
any  of  the  rest.  For  the  part  of  the  Parliament  roll  referred  to  wo 
are  indebted  to  the  dihgence,  not  of  Cotton,  but  of  his  editor,  the 
famous  Prynne. 

The  petition  from  the  Commons  was  for  a  general  surrender  of  the 
right,  totally  and  formally.  But  the  king,  whose  end  was  now  ap- 
proaching, having  nothing  further  to  hope  or  fear  from  his  people, 
and  not  inclined  by  his  own  act  formally  to  abandon  for  his  successor 
a  power  which  he  had  sometimes  found  it  so  convenient  to  exercise, 
returned  for  answer,  as  might  have  been  expected,  —  "  As  to  that. 
That  no  charge  be  laid  upon  the  people  but  by  common  assent ;  the 
king  is  not  at  all  willing  to  do  it,  without,  great  necessity,  and  for  the 
defence  of  the  realm,  and  where  he  may  do  it  with  reason." 

In  those  other  instances  which  are  produced  by  Mr.  Hume  to  prove 
the  practice  of  arbitrary  impositions,  instances  where  Mr.  Hume 
quotes  no  answer,  there  is  either  no  answer  from  the  king  on  record, 
or  one  that  is  soothing  and  apologetical,  or  one  that  is  favorable  to 
the  right  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Indeed,  the  king's  very  silence 
must  be  considered  as  favorable  to  their  right. 

In  one  of  the  first  instances  of  complaint  referred  to  by  Hume,  the 
answer  was,  —  "  Forasmuch  as  these  charges  were  ordained  "  —  al- 
luding to  charges  ordained  by  the  Privy  Council  without  the  Com- 
mons —  "for  safe  conduct  of  merchandises  into  the  realm  and  forth 
to  foreign  parts,  upon  which  conduct  the  king  hath  spent  much,  which 
before  Michaelmas  cannot  well  be  levied,  it  seemeth  that  the  levying 
of  it,  for  so  small  a  time  to  come,  should  not  be  grievous."  This  is 
apologetical.  Again  ;  some  merchants  had  farmed  the  customs  and 
subsidies,  and  raised  the  rate  above  that  mentioned  by  Parliament ; 
the  Commons  complained ;  the  answer  was,  —  "  Let  the  merchants 
be  called  into  Parliament  and  answer."  In  another  instance  of  com- 
plaint not  mentioned  by  Mr.  Hume,  the  answer  was  the  same  as 
one  already  cited,  —  "  That  the  imposition  was  made  upon  great  ne- 
cessity, with  the  assent  of  the  courts,  &c.,  and  some  of  the  Commons, 
and  that  the  king  wills  not  that  such  imposition  be  unduly  drawn  in 
consequence." 

The  studeflt,  after  having  weighed  these  answers,  is  then  to  reflect 
upon  the  great  ability,  attractive  qualities,  military  talents,  and  bril- 
liant victories  of  this  renowned  monarch,  Edward  the  Third;  and 
he  must  then  consider  whether  no  stronger  conclusion  can  be  drawn 
from  the  whole  than  what  Mr.  Hume  leaves  with  his  readers,  which 
is  this:  that,  "as  to  the  right  [of  taxation],  the  continual  remon- 


m  LECTURE  V. 

strances  of  tlie  Commons  may  seem  to  prove  that  it  rather  lay  on 
their  side." 

The  passage  that  has  been  thus  taken  from  Mr.  Hume  was  not 
selected  as  one  in  which  he  was  either  faulty  or  other>vise  in  his  rep- 
resentations, but  as  one  that  exhibited,  in  the  smallest  compass,  the 
nature  of  the  constitution  at  that  time,  and  ever  after,  till  1688,  and 
as  one  that  involved  more  especially  the  question  of  the  right  of  taxa- 
tion. It  was  literally  the  first  that  I  tried.  Gn  examination,  how- 
ever, it  turns  out  that  we  do  not  arrive  at  the  conclusions  which  Mr. 
Hume  has  drawn  for  us  ;  far  from  it ;  and  we  are  thus  taught  to  be 
more  than  ever  suspicious  of  the  historian's  particular  prejudices. 
And,  on  the  whole,  this  instance  will  show  you  that  you  must  not 
take  it  for  granted  that  Mr.  Hume  accurately  represents  even  the 
very  authorities  he  quotes  ;  so  irresistible,  in  these  cases,  is  the  influ- 
ence of  the  sentiments  of  the  mind  over  the  operations  of  the  under- 
standing. 

I  stop  to  observe,  that,  as  a  lecturer  on  history,  I  can  only  point 
out  to  you  fields  of  inquiry  and  trains  of  reasoning,  and  it  must  be 
left  for  you  to  do  the  rest. 

Thus,  I  have  just  now  drawn  your  attention  to  one  great  line  of 
objection  to  Mr.  Hume's  History,  —  his  inaccurate  representation  of 
the  very  authorities  he  quotes.  You  must  yourselves  pursue  the 
subject. 

But  I  will  now  mention  another,  —  the  coloring  which  he  gives  to 
his  materials,  and  this  more  particularly  in  a  manner  of  his  own.  He 
ascribes  to  the  personages  of  history,  as  they  pass  before  him,  the 
views  and  opinions  of  later  ages,  —  those  sentiments  and  reasonings, 
for  instance,  which  his  own  enlightened  and  powerful  mind  was  en- 
abled to  form,  not  those  which  either  really  were  or  could  be  formed 
by  men  thinking  and  acting  many  centuries  before.  But  this  is  to 
mislead  the  reader,  and,  in  fact,  to  draw  him  aside  from  all  the  proper 
instruction  of  history,  much  of  which  lies  in  the  comparison  of  one 
age  with  another. 

I  will  refer  to  an  instance,  taken  from  the  times  we  are  now  con- 
sidering, as  a  general  specimen  of  what  I  conceive  to  be  one  of  the 
most  common  and  serious  faults  that  can  be  objected  to  in  the  attrac- 
tive pages  of  his  History. 

In  his  account  of  the  unfortunate  close  of  the  reign  of  Richard  the 
Second,  Mr.  Hume  observes,  that  one  man  alone,  the  Bishop  of  Car- 
lisle, had  the  courage,  amid  the  general  disloyalty  and  violence,  to 
appear  in  defence  of  his  unhappy  master,  and  to  ple^d  his  cause 
against  all  the  power  of  the  prevaihng  party.  He  then  gives  a  repre- 
sentation of  the  speech.  But  if  we  turn  to  Sir  John  Hayward's  His- 
tory (the  authority  which  Hume  himself  quotes),  we  may  there  see 
the  speech  fully  given ;  and  it  will  be  found  not  without  its  beauties, 
but  certainly  very  inferior  to  the  representation  of  it  which  is  exhib- 


ENGLAND.  8& 

ited  in  Hume.  The  pliilosophic  observations  which  are  intenvoven 
and  added  by  Mr.  Hume  serve  to  give  a  great  force  and  finish  to  the 
expostulations  of  the  bishop  in  favor  of  the  fallen  monarch  ;  but  tlio 
more  important  consideration  is,  that  they  serve  also  to  throw  over 
the  proceedings  of  the  barons  an  air  of  greater  violence  and  criminal- 
ity than  properly  belongs  to  them ;  for  their  conduct  rises  up  in  still 
stronger  contrast,  if  such  views  of  the  English  constitution  and  of  the 
principles  of  government  could  indeed  have  been  taken  and  urged  in 
such  an  assembly  by  a  contemporary  statesman,  a  man  of  like  pa* 
sions  and  like  information  with  themselves. 

I  will  venture  to  take  up  your  time  by  considering  more  minutely 
the  instance  before  us.  Observe,  first,  the  beautiful  reasonings  of 
Hume  ;  it  would  be  not  a  little  marvellous,  if  they  had  been  produced 
by  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle  in  the  time  of  Richard  the  Second.  "  He 
represented,"  says  Hume,  "  to  the  Parliament,  that  all  the  abuses  of 
government  which  could  justly  be  imputed  to  Richard,  far  from 
amounting  to  tyranny,  were  merely  the  result  of  error,  youth,  or  mis- 
guided counsel "  ;  this,  though  in  difierent  words,  the  bishop  did  say: 
"  and  admitted,"  continues  Mr.  Hume,  "  of  a  remedy  more  easy 
and  salutary  than  a  total  subversion  of  the  constitution  "  ;  this,  which 
is  of  a  more  philosophic  cast,  the  bishop  did  not  say.  Now  mark 
what  immediately  follows  in  Hume  ;  not  any  such  observation  as  was 
very  likely  to  be  offered  by  the  bishop  to  the  barons,  or  even  to  have 
occurred  to  the  mind  of  Sir  John  Hay  ward  himself,  two  centuries  after- 
wards, but  the  very  observation  which  contains  the  whole  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  Mr.  Hume  while  writing  the  History  of  England,  —  the 
great  principle  by  means  of  which  he  defends  all  the  arbitrary  pro- 
ceedings of  our  monarchs,  and  by  which  he  reconciles  his  unwary 
readers  to  the  admission  of  sentiments  and  opinions  unfavorable  to 
the  best  interests  and  assured  rights  of  the  popular  part  of  our  con- 
stitution. The  bishop  represented  to  the  Lords,  continues  Mr.  Hume, 
that  even  had  these  abuses  of  government  "  been  much  more  violent 
and  dangerous  than  they  really  were,  they  had  chiefly  proceeded 
from  former  examples  of  resistance,  which,  making  the  prince  sensi- 
ble of  his  precarious  situation,  had  obliged  him  to  establish  his  throne 
by  irregular  and  arbitrary  expedients"  :  the  bishop  said  nothing  of 
the  sort.     And  now  observe  the  next  remark  that  follows  in  Hume, 

—  how  worthy  of  the  generalizing  muid  of  the  philosopher  of  tlie 
eighteenth  century ;  how  little  likely  to  have  been  addressed  by  a 
warm-hearted  ecclesiastic  to  the  disorderly  barons  of  the  fourteenth, 

—  that  "  laws  could  never  secure  the  subject,  which  did  not  give 
security  to  the  sovereign ;  and  if  the  maxim  of  inviolable  loyalty, 
which  formed  the  basis  of  the  English  government,  were  once  rd 
jected,  the  privileges  belonging  to  the  several  orders  of  the  state, 
'instead  of  being  fortified  by  that  licentiousness,^ would  thereby  lose 
the  surest  foundation  of  their  force  and  stability." 


96  LECTURE  y. 

All  this  is  very  true,  and  worthy  of  a  great  reasoner  like  Mr. 
Hume,  when  applying  the  powers  of  his  mind  to  the  subject  of  gov- 
ernment ;  and  all  this  may  be  cheerfully  assented  to  by  the  warmest 
partisan  of  popular  privileges ;  and  the  more  so,  because  it  is  at  length 
^understood,  that  the  king  can  act  only  by  his  ministers ;  and  that 
though  the  king  must  be  secure,  that  his  mind  may  be  at  rest  on  the 
subject  of  his  prerogative,  and  that  the  security  also  of  his  people 
may  be  thus  undisturbed,  still  that  his  ministers  need  not ;  that  they 
are  responsible,  at  least,  though  the  sovereign  be  not ;  that,  in  short, 
there  is  some  one  responsible,  and  that  the  community  is  not  left  at 
the  mercy  of  fortune,  and  without  any  reasonable  means  of  watching 
over  its  own  interests. 

No  such  interpretation,  however,  of  this  great  principle  of  govern- 
ment is  added  by  Mr.  Hume  ;  and  neither  the  principle  so  stated,  nor 
the  interpretation,  is  to  be  found  in  Sir  John  Hayward ;  and  it  was 
not  in  this  philosophic  manner  that  the  bishop  reasoned,  according  to 
the  representation  of  Sir  John  Hayward ;  his  arguments  were  founded 
merely  upon  the  obvious  doctrines  of  passive  obedience  and  the  di- 
vine right  of  kings.  "  I  will  not  speak,"  said  the  bishop,  according 
to  Sir  John  Hayward,  "  what  may  be  done  in  a  popular  state  or  in  a 

consular In  these  and  such  like  governments,  the   prince 

hath  not  regal  rights But  if  the  sovereign  majesty  be  in  the 

prince,  as  it  was  in  the  three  first  empires,  and  in  the  kingdom  of 
Judea  and  Israel,  and  is  now  in  the  kingdoms  of  England,  France, 
Spain,  Scotland,  Muscovia,  Turkey,  Tartaria,  Persia,  Ethiopia,  and 
almost  all  the  kingdoms  of  Asia  and  Africke,"  —  very  like  the  philo-' 
sophic  reasonings  of  Hume,  all  this  !  England,  Ethiopia,  and  Africke  ! 
—  "  although,  for  his  vices,  he  be  unprofitable  to  the  subjects,  yea 
hurtful,  yea  intolerable,  yet  can  they  lawfully  neither  harm  his  per- 
son nor  hazard  his  power,  whether  by  judgment  or  else  by  force  ;  for 
neither  one  nor  all  magistrates  have  any  authority  over  the  prince, 
from  whom  all  authority  is  derived,  and  whose  only  presence  doth 
silence  and  suspend  all  inferior  jurisdiction  and  power.  As  for  force, 
what  subject  can  attempt,  or  assist,  or  counsel,  or  conceal  violence 
against  his  prince,  and  not  incur  the  high  and  heinous  crime  of  trea- 
son?" 

The  bishop  then  goes  on  to  quote  the  instance  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
of  Balthasar,  of  Saul,  and  then  insists,  that  "  not  only  our  actions,  but 
our  speeches  also,  and  our  very  thoughts,  are  strictly  charged  with 
duty  and  obedience  unto  princes,  whether  they  be  good  or  evil ;  that 
the  law  of  God  ordaineth,  that  he  which  doth  presumptuously  against 
the  ruler  of  the  people  shall  die ;  that  we  are  not  to  touch  the  Lord's 
anointed,  nor  rail  upon  the  judges,  neither  speak  evil  against  the 
ruler  of  the  people ;  that  the  Apostles  do  demand,  further,  that  even 
our  thoughts  and  souls  be  obedient  to  higher  powers ;  and  lest  any 
should  imagine  that  they  meant  of  good  princes  only,  they  speak 


ENGLAND.  97 

generally  of  all ;  and  further,  to  take  away  all  doubt,  they  make  ex- 
press mention  of  the  evil,'*  &c.,  &c. 

^  The  bishop  then  goes  on  to  illustrate  his  doctrine  by  the  considera- 
tion of  the  domestic  relation  of  parent  and  child.     "  The  son  must 
not  lift  up  his  hand,"  says  he,  "  against  the  father,  though,  for  all 
excess  of  villanies,  odious  and  execrable  both  to  God  and  man ;  but 
our  country  is  dearer  unto  us  than  our  parents,  and  the  prince  is 
pater  ^atrice,  the  father  of  our  country,  and  therefore,  &c.,  &c.,  must 
not  be  violated,  how  imperious,  how  impious  soever  he  be.     Doth  he 
command  or  demand  our  persons  or  our  purses,  we  must  not  shun  for 
the  one  nor  shrink  for  the  other;  for,  as  Nehemiah  saith,"  continues 
the  bishop,  "  kings  have  dominion  over  the  bodies  and  over  the  cattle 
of  their  subjects,  at  their  pleasure.  .....  Yea,  the  Church  hath 

declared  it  to  be  an  heresy  to  hold  that  a  prince  may  be  slain  or  de- 
posed by  his  subjects  for  any  disorder  or  default,  either  in  hfe  or  else 
in  government." 

Such  is  the  reasoning  of  the  bishop,  as  given  by  Sir  John  Hay- 
ward.  And  his  philosophy,  when  it  appears,  is  the  following :  — 
"  There  will  be  faults  so  long  as  there  are  men ;  and  as  we  endure 
with  patience  a  barren  year,  if  it  happen,  and  unseasonable  weather, 
and  such  other  defects  of  nature,  so  must  we  tolerate  the  imperfec- 
tions of  rulers  and  quietly  expect  either  reformation  or  else  a  change." 
This  is  the  first  specimen  of  it,  and  the  only  remaining  philosophic 
position  that  I  can  observe  is  the  following :  —  "Oh,  how  shall  the 
world  be  pestered  with  tyrants,  if  subjects  may  rebel  upon  every  pre- 
tence of  tyranny !"  The  instances  that  follow  to  illustrate  this  re- 
mark are  not  well  chosen  by  the  bishop :  —  "If  they  levy  a  subsidy 
or  any  other  taxation,  it  shall  be  claimed  oppression,"  &c.,  &c. 

And  now  what  will  my  hearer  suppose,  if  I  tell  him  that  I  believe 
the  speech  thus  given  by  Sir  John  Hayward  to  the  good  bishop  is 
wholly  the  composition  of  Sir  John  himself ;  and  that,  though  the 
general  statement  of  passive  obedience  may  have  been  expressed  by 
the  bishop,  no  such  words  were  uttered  as  he  describes  ?  Walsing- 
ham  takes  no  notice  of  the  bishop's  speech.  Another  historian.  Hall, 
but  about  the  time  of  Sir  John  Hayward,  says  that  the  bishop  did 
rise  up  in  his  place  and  speak ;  and  the  doctrines  of  passive  obedi- 
ence are  put  into  his  mouth  by  Hall.  The  same  is  done  in  the  play 
of  Richard  the  Second,  by  Shakspeare.  And  these  doctrines  were, 
possibly,  the  topics  that  he  chiefly  insisted  upon  ;  but  the  oiily  fact 
that  can  now  be  ascertained  is,  that  he  was  thrown  into  prison  for 
words  spoken  in  Parliament  in  opposition  to  the  usurpation  of  Henry ; 
and  on  this  has  been  founded  the  very  elaborate  speech  of  Sir  John 
Hayward,  and  the  very  improbable  arguments  ascribed  to  him  by 
Hume.  Now  all  this  is  not  to  write  history,  either  in  3Ir.  Hume  or 
in  Sir  John  Hayward. 

And  this  instance  will  be  sufficient  to  show  you,  as  before,  the  par 
13  I 


9B  LECTURE  V. 

ticular  description  of  fault  which  may  be  objected  to  Mr.  Hume,  — 
that  of  coloring  the  materials  before  him,  and  attributing  to  the  per- 
sonages of  history  the  sentiments  of  his  own  philosophic  mind ;  and 
this  second  description  of  fault  is  to  be  added  to  the  former  which  I 
have  mentioned,  —  that  of  not  accurately  representing  the  very  pas- 
sages he  quotes. 

In  the  next  page  of  his  History,  indeed,  when  Mr.  Hume  comes  to 
comment  upon  the  title  of  Henry  the  Fourth  to  the  crown,  he  attrib- 
utes a  speech  to  the  king,  and  properly,  for  he  can  extract  from  the 
rolls  of  Parliament  the  very  words  which  the  king  made  use  of. 
This  Mr.  Hume  does,  and  this  is  to  write  history. 

The  words  extracted  are  certainly  very  remarkable,  and  very  de- 
scriptive of  the  scene  and  the  age  ;  but  it  is  relics  of  this  kind  that 
an  historian  should  produce  and  make  the  subject  of  the  philosophic 
meditation  of  his  reader,  not  offer  him  modem  views  and  sentiments 
of  his  own.  A  few  barbarous  words,  or  any  distinct  fact,  that  can 
be  shown  to  be  authentic,  are  worth  volumes  of  reasonings  and  con- 
jectures of  a  thinking  mind  ;  or  rather,  it  is  on  such  relics  and  facts 
that  the  student  must  in  the  first  place  alone  depend  when  he  col- 
lects materials  for  his  instruction,  and  he  must  never  lose  sight  of 
them  when  he  comes  afterwards  to  build  up  his  political  reasonings 
and  conclusions. 

It  is  upon  this  account,  &-nd  it  is  to  impress  this  lesson  upon  your 
recollection,  that  I  have  gone  into  this  detail,  and  perhaps  not  a  little 
exercised  your  patience.  It  is  for  this  reason,  and  for  another,  — 
to  show  you  the  importance  of  the  political  principles  of  men  ;  a  point 
which  I  must  for  ever  enforce  in  the  course  of  these  lectures.  First 
observe  the  general  remarks  of  Hume.  "  Though  some  topics,'*  says 
Mr.  Hume,  while  introducing  the  passages  I  have  just  quoted  from 
him,  "  though  some  topics  employed  by  that  virtuous  prelate  [the 
Bishop  of  Carhsle]  may  seem  to  favor  too  much  the  doctrine  of  pas- 
sive obedience,  &c.,  &c.,  such  intrepidity  as  well  as  disinterestedness 
of  behaviour  proves,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  that,  whatever  his  specu- 
lative principles  were,  his  heart  was  elevated  far  above  the  meanness 
and  abject  submission  of  a  slave."  Undoubtedly  it  does :  this  ob- 
servation of  Mr.  Hume  is  very  just,  and  therefore  it  is  more  incum- 
bent upon  me,  as  your  lecturer,  to  impress  upon  your  minds  the  im- 
portance of  your  political  principles,  that  you  may  endeavour  to  be 
wise  as  well  as  virtuous.  It  is  but  too  plain,  from  the  historian's  own 
account,  that  men  of  the  most  noble  feelings  and  honorable  character, 
such  as  the  bishop  is  here  supposed  by  Mr.  Hume  to  have  been, 
may,  on  public  occasions,  act  upon  principles  and  enforce  political 
doctrines  which  can  have  no  tendency  but  to  make  their  fellow-creac 
tures  base  and  servile,  whatever  they  may  be  themselves,  by  injuring 
and  destroying  the  only  source  of  all  elevated  character  in  a  people, 
the  free  principles  of  the  constitution  of  their  government.     It  is  of 


ENGLAND.  90 

little  consequence,  that  men  may  not  have,  themselves,  the  feelings 
of  slaves,  if  they  propagate  doctrines  that  will  practically  and  in  the 
result  make  a  nation  of  slaves  around  them. 

But  to  return  to  Hume.  Gilbert  Stuart,  a  very  able,  though 
somewhat  impetuous,  inquirer  into  the  earlier  parts  of  our  history, 
has  pronounced  his  opinion  upon  the  work  of  Mr.  Hume  in  the  fol- 
lowing words :  —  "  From  its  beginning  to  its  conclusion,  it  is  chiefly 
to  be  regarded  as  a  plausible  defence  of  prerogative.  As  an  elegant 
an  i  a  spirited  composition,  it  merits  every  commendation.  But  no 
friend  to  humanity,  and  to  the  freedom  of  this  kingdom,  will  con- 
sider his  constitutional  inquiries,  with  their  effect  on  his  narrative, 
and  compare  them  with  the  ancient  and  venerable  monuments  of  our 
story,  without  feeling  a  lively  surprise  and  a  patriot  indignation." 
This  opinion,  however  severe,  is  not  very  different  from  that  which 
is  in  general  entertained  by  others  who  from  previous  study  are 
competent  to  decide,  —  and  this,  while  the  literary  merits  of  the 
History  are  universally  acknowledged.  The  student  will  therefore 
read  with  more  than  ordinary  care  what  he  is  told  is  so  fitted  at 
once  to  charm  his  taste  and  to  mislead  his  understanding. 

Since  I  drew  up  this  lecture,  a  work  has  been  published  by  Mr. 
Brodie,  of  Edinburgh.  It  is  not  well  written  in  point  of  style,  and 
the  author  must  be  considered  as  a  writer  on  the  popular  side,  but 
he  is  a  man  of  research  and  independence  of  mind.  It  is  a  work  of 
weight  and  learning,  and  it  appears  to  me  for  ever  to  have  dam 
aged,  and  most  materially  damaged,  the  character  of  Mr.  Hume  as 
an  accurate  historian.  It  justifies  the  opinion  I  have  just  alluded 
to,  as  pronounced  by  Gilbert  Stuart,  and  maintained  by  others  com- 
petent to  decide. 

I  must  observe,  before  I  conclude,  that  it  is  the  general  effect  of 
the  narrative  of  this  able  historian  that  is  of  so  much  importance. 
Particular  passages  might  be  drawn  from  his  work  of  every  descrip- 
tion, favorable  as  well  as  unfavorable  to  the  privileges  of  the  subject. 
But  the  sentiments  conveyed  by  such  particular  passages,  taken 
singly,  do  in  fact  stand  opposed  to  the  general  impression  that 
results  from  the  whole.  Were  a  popular  writer  to  seek  for  observar 
tions  favorable  to  the  cause  of  the  liberties  of  England,  he  would 
often  find  them  nowhere  better  expressed ;  but  their  being  found  in 
the  History  of  Hume  is  a  circumstance  quite  analogous  to  what  con- 
stantly obtains  in  every  literary  performance,  where  the  author  has, 
on  whatever  account,  a  general  purpose  to  accomplish,  which  the 
nature  of  his  subject  does  not  in  strict  reason  allow.  Truth  is  then 
continually  mixed  up  with  misrepresentation,  and  the  whole  mass  of 
the  reasoning,  which  in  its  final  impression  is  materially  wrong,  is  so 
interspersed  with  observations  which  are  in  themselves  perfectly 
right,  that  the  reader  is  at  no  time  sufficiently  on  his  guard,  and  is 
at  last  betrayed  into  conclusions  totally  unwarrantable,  and  at  van- 


100  LECTURE   V. 

ance  with  his  best  feelings  and  soundest  opinions.  Observe  the 
writings  of  Rochefoucauld  or  Mandeville ;  you  will  there  see  what  I 
am  describing,  —  as,  indeed,  you  may  in  every  work-  where  the 
author  is  deceived  himself  or  is  deceiving  others. 

One  word  more  and  I  conclude, — one  word  as  an  estimate  of  the 
whole  subject  between  Mr.  Hume  and  his  opponents. 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  agree  with  Mr.  Hunie,  that  the  whole 
of  our  history  during  the  period  from  EdAvard  the  First  to  Henry 
the  Eighth  w^as  a  scene  of  irregularity  and  of  great  occasional  vio- 
lence, —  that  neither  could  the  laws  be  always  maintained,  nor  could 
the  principles  of  legislation  ever  be  said  to  be  well  understood ;  we 
must  admit,  therefore,  that  it  is  not  fair  to  imagine,  as  Mr.  Hume 
complains  we  do,  that  all  the  princes  who  were  unfortunate  in  their 
government  were  necessarily  tyrannical  in  their  conduct,  and  that 
resistance  to  the  monarch  always  proceeded  from  some  attempt 
on  his  part  to  invade  the  privileges  of  the  subject.  This  we  must 
admit. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  it  must  be  observed,  that  the  struggle 
between  the  subject  and  the  crown  was  constantly  kept  up  in  the 
times  of  the  most  able  as  well  as  of  the  weakest  monarchs ;  that  they 
who  resisted  the  prerogative  never  did  it  without  producing  those 
maxims  and  without  asserting  those  principles  of  freedom  which  are 
necessary  to  all  rational  government, — which  are  by  no  means  fitted 
in  themselves  to  produce  anarchy,  and  by  no  means  inconsistent  with 
all  those  salutary  prerogatives  of  the  crown  which  are  requisite  to 
the  regular  protection  of  the  subject. 

In  the  third  place,  that,  if  these  maxims  and  principles  had  not 
«  been  from  time  to  time  asserted,  and  sometimes  with  success,  the  re- 
sult must  have  been  that  our  constitution  would  have  degenerated, 
like  that  of  France  and  of  every  other  European  state,  into  a  system 
of  monarchical  power,  unlimited  and  unrestrained  by  the  interfer- 
ence of  any  legislative  assemblies. 

And  that  therefore,  in  the  last  place,  Mr.  Hume  tells  the  story  of 
England  without  giving  sufficient  praise  to  those  patriots  who  pre- 
served and  transmitted  those  general  habits  of  thinking  on  political 
subjects  which  have  always  distinguished  this  country,  and  to  which 
alone  every  Enghshman  owes,  at  this  day,  all  that  makes  his  life  a 
blessing  and  his  existence  honorable. 


ENGLAND.  101 


LECTURE   VI.    ,    *;  •' 

ENGLAND. 

In  mj  last  lecture  I  called  your  attention  to  England.  Aft^r 
showing  you  that  in  the  consideration  of  its  history  we  soon  arrived 
at  the  same  points  as  in  the  history  of  the  rest  of  Europe,  I  men 
tioned  to  you,  that  there  were  before  you  the  facts  of  our  history 
and  the  philosophy  of  it ;  that  you  were  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of 
the  one,  but  that  you  must  endeavour  to  understand  the  other; 
above  all,  that  the  constitutional  history  of  your  country  must  be 
your  great  object  of  inquiry ;  that  Rapin,  Hume,  and  Millar  must 
be  your  authors ;  at  the  same  time  I  referred  you  to  other  sources 
of  information  and  other  historians. 

Next,  I  stated  to  you,  that  a  difference  in  the  opinions  of  men  had 
existed  and  always  must  exist  in  every  mixed  form  of  government ; 
that  there  must  always  be  those  who  favor  the  monarchical  and 
those  who  favor  the  popular  part  of  it ;  that  through  the  whole  of 
our  history,  down  to  1688,  there  had  been  maintained  a  struggle 
between  prerogative  and  privilege  ;  and  that  no  thoroughly  impartial 
historian  of  our  annals  could  be  found. 

Lastly,  I  attempted  to  give  you  some  general  description  of  the 
merits  of  Hume,  the  most  popular  and  the  most  able,  and  therefore 
the  most  important,  of  our  historians.  I  endeavoured  to  protect  you^ 
or  rather  to  enable  you  to  protect  yourselves,  from  the  mistakes  intc 
which  you  might^all,  if  you  depended  on  his  representations,  if  you 
rested  upon  them  with  that  confidence  which  his  evident  good  sense 
and  apparent  calmness  and  impartiality  would  naturally  inspire. 
His  references,  as  I  then  showed  you,  do  not  always  bear  him  out  in 
his  statements  ;  and  his  omissions  must  be  taken  into  account,  as  well 
as  his  misrepresentations  ; — this  is  the  first  point.  But  he  ascribes 
to  those  who  acted  in  the  earlier  scenes  of  our  history  sentiments 
and  opinions  which  belong  only  to  his  own  philosophic  mind  ;  —  this 
is  the  second.  On  the  whole,  he  does  not  tell  the  story  of  our  con- 
stitutional history  fairly.  He  must,  in  his  facts,  be  compared  witfc 
llapin, — if  necessary,  with  original  authorities;  and  in  his  philoso 
phy,  with  Millar  and  others. 

And  now  I  must  digress  for  a  moment,  to  offer  you  a  remarh 
which  I  hope  you  will  hereafter  not  think  very  unnatural  for  me  tc 
have  made  on  the  present  occasion. 

It  is  wonderful,  then,  I  must  observe,  it  is  wonderful  to^  see  men 
like  Mr.  Hume,  of  peaceful  habits  and  of  benevolent  affections,  men 
at  the  same  time  of  improved  minds  and  of  excellent  sense.      it  is 


102  LECTURE  VI. 

wonderful  to  see  them  so  indifferent  to  the  popular  privileges  of  the 
communitj.  Yet  is  this  a  sort  of  phenomenon  that  we  witness  every 
day,  ■  Such  men  would  not  in  practice  vindicate  themselves  from 
oppression  by-i-ising  up  in  arms  against  their  arbitrary  governors  ; 
they  are  not  of  a  temperament  to  set  their  lives  upon  a  cast.  What 
ppssihie  chance,'  then,  'have  they  for  the  security  of  their  property, 
for  the  very  freedom  of  their  persons,  above  all,  for  the  exercise  of 
their  minds,  but  the  existence  of  popular  privileges  ?  To  them, 
above  all  other  men,  civil  freedom  is  every  thing. 

Civil  freedom  cannot,  indeed,  exist  without  the  existence  at  the 
same  time  of  executive  power,  that  is,  of  prerogative.  Men  must 
be  protected  from  the  multitude.  But  surely  it  can  still  less  exist 
without  the  existence  of  popular  privileges ;  because  society  must  be 
protected  from  the  few,  as  well  as  from  the  many,  —  from  the  inso- 
lence, injustice,  and  caprice  of  the  high,  as  of  the  low.  The  mistake 
that  is  made  seems  to  be,  that  it  is  supposed  popular  privileges  will 
always  lead  to  disorder  and  render  the  government  insecure. 

The  very  reverse  is  the  fact ;  so  much  so,  that  certain  privileges 
may  be  trusted,  not  merelji  to  legislative  bodies,  men  of  property  and 
education  (which  is  the  first  and  main  point  to  be  contended  for),  but 
even  to  the  lowest  orders  of  the  people ;  the  very  rabble  can  learn  to 
know  how  far  they  are  to  go,  and  with  this,  as  with  their  right,  to  be 
content  and  advance  no  farther.  The  advantages  obtained  in  the 
cheerfulness  and  vigor  that  are  thus  imparted  to  the  whole  political 
system  of  a  country  are  above  all  price,  and  the  occasional  excesses 
of  a  mob  are  an  evil  trifling,  and,  in  comparison,  of  no  account. 

jNIen  of  arbitrary  or  timid  minds  will  not  understand  this,  and 
men  bred  under  arbitrary  governments  never  can.  Foreigners,  who 
survey,  for  instance,  one  of  our  popular  elections *at  Brentford  or 
Westminster,  generally  suppose  that  our  government  is  to  break  up 
in  the  course  of  the  week,  and  have  been  known  to  announce  to  their 
correspondents  on  the  Continent,  and  even  to  their  courts,  an  ap- 
proaching revolution.  The  mob,  in  the  mean  time,  know  very  well 
the  limits  within  which  they  may  for  a  time  disturb  the  peace  of  the 
community,  and  they  therefore  sing  their  ballads,  hoot  their  supeii- 
ors,  remind  them  (very  usefully)  of  their  faults  and  follies,  parade 
the  streets,  and  brandish  their  bludgeons;  but  as  to  an  insurrec- 
tion or  revolution,  no  enterprise  of  the  kind  ever  enters  into  their 
thoughts ;  certainly  it  makes  no  part  of  their  particular  bill  of  the 
performances. 

In  a  word,  power  is  like  money ;  men  should  be  accustomed,  as 
much  as  possible,  as  much  as  they  can  bear,  to  the  handling  of  it, 
that  they  may  learn  the  proper  use  of  it.  They  are  so,  more  or  less, 
in  free  governments ;  not  so  in  arbitrary ;  and  this  is  the  circum- 
stance which  always  constitutes  the  insecurity  of  arbitrary  govern- 
ments, while  they  stand,  and  the  difficulty  of  improving  them,  when 
ihey  can  stand  no  longer. 


ENGLAND.  108 

Where  popular  privileges  exist,  the  monarch  can  always  distia 
guish  between  the  characters  of  a  lawful  sovereign  and  an  arbitrary 
ruler ;  so  can  his  counsellors,  so  can  his  people.  These  are  advan- 
tages totally  invaluable.  The  world  has  nothing  to  do  with  certainty 
and  i^curity ;  but  popular  privileges  afford  the  best  chance  of  real 
tranquillity,  strength,  and  happiness  to  all  the  constituent  parts  of  a 
body  politic,  —  the  monarch,  the  aristocracy,  and  the  people. 

Far  from  viewing  the  popular  part  of  our  mixed  constitution  with 
the  indifference,  or  suspicion,  or  dislike,  or  hostility,  which  Mr. 
ITume  and  others  seem  to  do,  nothing,  as  I  conceive,  can  be  so  per 
fectly  reasonable  or  truly  philosophic  as  the  interest,  the  anxiety,  the 
reverence,  with  which  Millar  and  others  have  pursued  the  history  of 
the  democratic  part  of  our  constitution  through  our  most  eventful 
annals. 

Do  not  fail  to  observe  that  the  two  great  countries  of  Europe, 
France  and  England,  set  out  from  beginnings  much  the  same ; 
but  France  lost  her  constitution,  and  England  not.  How  was  this  ? 
I  ask  the  student ;  and  let  him  ask,  in  his  turn,  the  authors  I  recom- 
mend, —  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  and  Hume,  and  Rapin,  and  Blackstone, 
and,  above  all,  Millar.  Surely  the  question  will  not  be  an  indifferent 
one  to  him.     He  deserves  not  the  name  of  Englishman,  if  it  be. 

I  must  enter  a  little  more  into  the  subject,  though  detail  is  im- 
possible. 

The  three  great  points  are  always, — 1st,  What  is  the  law  ?  2d, 
Who  are  the  legislators  ?  and  lastly,  and  above  all,  What  are  the 
general  spirit  and  habits  of  thinking  in  the  community  ? 

Take-,  then,  the  long  period  before  us,  from  the  departure  of  the 
Romans  to  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

1st.  What  was  the  law,  —  the  constitutional  law  more  particular- 
ly, if  I  may  so  speak  ? — You  will  find  the  Jiistory  of  it  given  you, 
in  a  manner  sufficiently  concise  and  intelligible,  in  many  parts  of 
Blackstone  and  in  Millar.  You  must  mark  its  gradual  improve- 
ments, and  you  must  mark  them  again  and  again,  through  different 
periods,  down  to  our  own.  I  speak  now  chiefly  of  the  first  and 
fourth  volumes  of  Blackstone.  In  former  courses  of  my  lectures,  I 
"had  mentioned  a  few  of  the  principal  changes  that  took  place ;  but  I 
n-)w  think  it  best  to  refer  to  Blackstone  and  Millar,  and  to  do  no 
m(ire.  I  do  not  occupy  your  time  with  what  you  may  better  find 
elsewhere . 

But,  2dly,  who  have  been  the  legislators  ?  — This  is  a  very  curious 
part  of  our  history.  There  was  once  a  Witenagemote,  or  great 
national  assembly.  How  was  it  constituted,  and  what  were  ^^  P^^' 
"     But  we  have  no  such  assembly  now.     When,  therefore,  did  it 


ers 


cease  ?  and,  when  it  did  cease,  how  came  another  assembly  to  anse 
—  a  Pariiament,  a  Hdusc  of  Barons  or  Lords  ?  But  more ;  we 
have  now  not  only  on"  assembly,  but  two,  — not  only  a  House  ot 


104:  LECTURE  VI. 

Lords,  but  a  House  of  Commons.  This  is  surely  still  more  extraor 
dinary.  Not  only  the  barons,  the  aristocracy,  have  their  house  of 
assembly,  but  the  commonalty,  the  people,  have,  in  some  way  ?r 
other,  obtained  the  same.  But  how,  or  when,  or  why?  —  Such  are 
the  objects  of  inquiry  which  I  have  to  offer  to  your  curiosity.   * 

I  will  first  say  a  word  on  the  origin  of  these  two  different  houses 
of  assembly ;  secondly,  on  the  origin  and  growth  of  the  different 
prerogatives  and  privileges  belonging  to  each  estate,  of  king,  lords, 
and  commons. 

The  great  facts  of  this  first  subject,  those  that  you  are  especially 
to  observe,  seem  to  be  these:  —  that  there  was  first  a  Witenage- 
mote,  or  Great  Council ;  that  this  Witenagemote  existed  before 
and  soon  after  the  Conquest,  but  that  it  at  length  ceased,  or  the 
name  was  altered  into  that  of  Parliament.  Now,  unfortunately,  no 
records  exist  of  this  Witenagemote  and  Parliament  after  the  Con- 
quest, so  that  we  cannot  ascertain  what  were  the  quaUfications  that 
gave  a  seat  in  those  assemblies,  or  how  the  one  was  gradually 
changed  into  the  other. 

The  next  facts  are,  that  burgesses  from  the  towns  were  summoned 
by  Leicester,  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Third,  after- 
wards by  Edward  the  First,  and  the  succeeding  monarchs  ;  and 
lastly,  that,  in  the  course  of  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Third,  the 
lesser  thanes  or  knights  of  the  shire  had  been  incorporated  with  the 
burgesses,  and  they  had  become  together  a  separate  house.  But  of 
these  most  important  events,  this  rise  of  a  second  house  of  assembly, 
or  regular  estate,  and  this  mixture  of  the  knights  of  the  shire  with 
the  burgesses,  no  detail  or  history  can  be  given;  no  sufficient 'records 
exist.     All  this  is  very  unfortunate. 

You  will  now,  therefore,  understand  how  easily  our  antiquarians 
and  patriots  may  dispute  on  the  origin  and  growth  of  our  House  of 
Commons.  ^  But  on  this  subject  you  will  observe  what  is  said  by  Gil- 
bert Stuart  on  the  one  side,  by  Hume  on  the  other.  You  must,  on 
the  whole,  be  decided,  I  think,  by  Millar. 

This  lecture  was  written  many  years  ago  ;  but  I  may  now  mention, 
that  you  may  note  what  is  said  by  Burke,  in  his  Abridgment  of  the, 
English  History,  where  he  speaks  of  the  Witenagemote.  There  are 
also  two  articles  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  volume  xxvi.  in  March, 
1817,*  which  you  may  consider.  • 

These  works  and  their  references  will  enable  you  to  go  tli  rough  all 
the  learning  connected  with  the  subject ;  though  I  conceive  the  works 
themselves  will  be  quite  sufficient  for  your  information,  quite  suffi- 
cient to  enable  you  to  form  your  opinion.  I  will  give  you,  in  a  few 
words,  some  idea  of  the  reasonings  of  these  writers. 

*  Thero  is  a  dep:rec  of  confusion  in  this  reference.  Tlie  articles  alluded  to  are 
probably  one  in  vol.  xxvi.  (June,  1816)  on  the  Constitution  of  Parliament^  and  one  in 
vol.  xxviii.  (March,  1817)  on  Annual  Parliaments,  &c.  —  N. 


ENGLAND.  105 

The  constitution,  then,  and  office  of  the  Witenagemote  seem  to- 
have  been  as  analogous  to  those  of  the  free  assembUes  we  read  of  in 
Tacitus  as  the  different  nature  of  two  different,  though  kindred, 
periods  of  society  would  lead  us  to  expect.  The  principal  powers  of 
government  were  vested  in  tliis  great  council.  It  decided  on  peace 
and  war,  and  on  all  military  concerns  ;  it  made  laws  ;  and  it  concur- 
red in  the  exercise  of  the  royal  prerogative,  as  far  as  we  can  observe, 
on  all  occasions.  The  wites  or  sapientes  are  always  supposed  or  re- 
ferred to  in  the  documents  that  have  reached  us ;  but  who  these 
wites  or  sapientes  were  cannot  now  be  accurately  determined,  and, 
in  the  first  place,  a  controversy  has  arisen  with  respect  to  the  consti- 
tution of  this  great  council,  whether  it  was  entirely  aristocratical  or 
only  partly  so ;  and  this  is,  in  truth,  the  dispute  of  the  origin  of.  the 
House  of  Commons. 

Stuart  and  others  contend,  that  the  people  had  always  their  share 
in  the  legislature,  that  they  were  even  represented  in  the  Witena- 
gemote ;  and,  to  support  this  opinion,  various  expressions  are  pro- 
duced from  such  documents  as  have  come  do-wn  to  us :  —  "  Seniores, 
sapientes  populi  mei,"  —  "  Convocato  communi  concilio  tam  cleri  quam 
populi,"  —  "  Praesentibus  et  subscribentibus  archiepiscopis,  &c.,  &;c., 
procerumque  totius  terrge,  aliorumque  fidelium  infinita  multitudine." 

But  to  this  it  is  replied  by  Millar,  that  these  expressions,  if  they 
prove  any  thing,  prove  too  much,  for  they  go  to  prove  that  all  the 
people,  even  those  of  the  lowest  rank,  personally  voted  in  the  national 
council.  And  it  is  urged  by  Hume,  among  other  remarks,  that  the 
members  of  the  Witenagemote  are  almost  always  called  the  principes, 
magnates,  proceres,  &c.,  —  terms  which  seem  to  suppose  an  aiis- 
tocracy ;  that  the  boroughs  also,  from  the  low  state  of  commerce, 
were  so  small  and  so  poor,  and  the  inhabitants  in  such  dependence  on 
the  great  men,  that  it  seems  in  no  Avise  probable  that  they  would  be 
admitted  as  part  of  the  national  council.  And  the  various  remarks 
and  arguments  of  Millar,  a  zealous  protector  of  the  popular  part  of 
our  constitution,  take  the  same  general  ground,  and  are  on  the  whole 
decisive. 

The  most  important  remark,  however,  made  by  Stuart,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  question,  is  a  reference  to  a  paper  in  the  5th  of 
Richard  the  Second.  In  the  latter  end  of  the  passage  (to  the  former 
part  a  reply  might  be  made)  are  these  remarkable  words  :  —  ^''  And 
if  any  sheriff  of  the  realm  be  from  henceforth  negligent  in  making 
his  returns  of  writs  of  the  Parliament,  or  that  he  leave  out  of  the 
said  returns  any  cities  or  boroughs  which  be  bound  and  of  old  turn 
were  wont  to  come  to  the  Parliament,  he  shall  be  amerced,"  &c. 
"0/  old  time,''  you  will  observe.  The  intervening  space  of  two  or 
three  reigns,  it  is  contended,  between  the  49th  of  Henry  the  Third 
and  5th  of  Richard  the  Second  (about  a  ceniury)  could  never  give 
occasion  to  the  use  of  such  an  expression  as  the  "  old  time. 
14 


106  LECTURE  Yl 

Again,  Lord  Ljttelton,  in  his  Life  of  Henrj  the  Second,  goes 
through  a  very  candid  and  temperate  inquiry  into  this  question,  and 
he  thinks  the  Commons  was  originally  a  part  of  the  national  council 
or  Parliament.  The  strongest  evidence  he  produces  is  drawn  from 
the  two  celebrated  instances  of  the  petitions  sent,  one  by  the  borough 
of  St.  Albans,  the  other  by  Barnstaple. 

The  words  are  given  by  Lyttelton  in  the  petition  from  St.  Albans ; 
they  pray  to  send  burgesses,  "  prout  totis  retroactis  temporibus  venire 
consueverunt,  &c.,  tempore  Edwardi  [I.]?  &c.,  et  progenitorum  su- 
orum."  The  date  of  this  petition  is  1315,  in  the  time  of  Edward 
the  Second,  and  it  is  contended  that  such  words  must  mean  a  period 
before  the  49th  of  Henry  the  Third,  the  supposed  origin  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  which  was  only  fifty-one  years  before :  "  totis 
retroactis  temporibus,"  &c.  It  is,  therefore,  curious  to  observe  what 
was  the  answer  made. 

The  answer  to  the  petition  was,—"  Scrutentur  rotuli,  &c.,  si  tempori- 
bus progenitorum  regis  burgenses  prsedicti  solebant  venire  vel  non." 
Now  this  answer  would  be  somewhat  strange,  on  the  supposition  that 
the  49th  of  Henry  the  Third  was  the  date  of  the  origin  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  "  Let  the  rolls  be  searched,"  &c.,  &c.,  to  find  what, 
if  the  origin  of  the  Commons  was  only  fifty-one  years  back,  it  was 
well  known  could  not  possibly  exist.  And  yet,  after  all,  this  might 
be  the  technical  mode  of  making  answer,  the  legal  and  formal  way 
of  telling  the  petitioners  that  they  were  talking  nonsense. 

Again,  with  respect  to  the  second  petition,  that  from  Barnstaple. 
Barnstaple  founds  its  rights  on  a  charter  of  Athelstan,  which  would 
have  been  again  somewhat  ridiculous,  if  these  rights  had  been  known 
(as  they  might  have  been)  to  have  originated  in  the  thne  of  Henry 
the  Third,  only  eighty-one  years  before  the  time  of  this  petition  in 

Thus  we  have  three  distinct  testimonies :  the  words  of  the  Act  of 
Parliament,  the  words  "  old  time,"  in  the  time  of  Richard  the 
Second,  one  hundred  and  eighteen  years  after  the  49th  of  Henry 
the  Third;  the  words  of  this  petition  from  Barnstaple,  eighty-one 
years :  and  those  in  the  petition  from  St.  Albans,  fifty-one  years 
after. 

But  to  all  this  it  is  answered,  that  instances  may  be  produced 
where  distinct  falsehoods  are  asserted  in  petitions  to  Parliament  in 
the  way  of  pretension,  when  towns  and  boroughs  are  speaking  of 
their  former  history,  and  that  this  may  be  the  case  in  these  petitions 
from  St.  Albans  and  Barnstaple.  The  town  *  said  it  had  never  been 
represented  before,  though  it  had  made  before  not  less  than  twenty- 
two  returns. 

*  Not  St.  Albans,  nor  Barnstaple,  —  as  is  clearly  manifest  from  what  is  previously 
said  of  the  tenor  of  their  ])etitions,  and  from  the  whole  course  of  the  reasoninij:  on 
the  subject,  in  the  text.     TJicir  pretensions  were  of  a  cliaracter  exactly  opposite  to 


ENGLAND.  1Q7 

Dr.  Lingard  thinks  that  these  expressions  are  a  sort  of  verbia;ge ; 
so  endless  are  the  difficulties  of  this  curious  subject.  And  you  will 
also  observe,  that,  first,  Spelman  could  find  no  summons  of  a  burgess 
before  the  49th  of  Henry  the  Third.  Again,  Daines  Barrington  de- 
clares, in  a  note,  page  49  of  his  Observations  on  the  Ancient  Stat- 
utes, "  that  no  one  can  read  the  old  historians  and  chronicles  who 
will  observe  the  least  allusion  *  or  trace  of  the  Commons  having  been 
anciently  a  part  of  the  legislature,  if  he  does  not  sit  down  to  the  peru- 
sal with  an  intention  of  proving  that  they  formed  a  component  part." 
And  Mr.  Burke,  in  his  English  History,  after  struggling  with  the  sub- 
ject for  some  little  time,  observes,  —  "  All  these  things  are,  I  think, 
,  sufficient  to  show  of  what  a  visionary  nature  those  systems  are  which 
would  settle  the  ancient  constitution  in  the  most  remote  times  exactly 
in  the  same  form  in  which  we  enjoy  it  at  this  day ;  not  considering 
that  such  mighty  changes  in  manners,  during  so  many  ages,  always 
must  produce  a  considerable  change  in  laws,  and  in  the  forms  as  well 
as  the  powers  of  all  governments." 

On  the  whole,  the  favorers  of  the  popular  interest  would  have  done 
better,  I  think,  to  have  contented  themselves  with  resisting  any  im- 
proper conclusions  that  might  have  been  drawn  against  popular  privi- 

those  here  spoken  of,  —  not  that  they  had  never  been  represented  before,  but  that  they 
had  always^  or  from  a  very  remote  period,  been  represented ;  and  they  pray,  accordingly, 
that  this  right  may  be  continued  to  them.  The  town  here  referred  to,  the  name  of 
which  is  thus  inadvertently  omitted  by  Professor  Smyth,  is  undoubtedly  the  same  that 
we  find  mentioned  in  the  following  passage  from  Hallam's  Middle  Ages,  Chapter  viii. 
Part  3 :  —  "  The  elective  franchise  was  deemed  by  the  boroughs  no  privilege  or  bless- 
ing, but  rather,  during  the  chief  part  of  this  period,  an  intolerable  grievance,  "Where 
they  could  not  persuade  the  sheriff  to  omit  sending  his  writ  to  them,  they  set  it  at  de- 
fiance by  making  no  return.  And  this  seldom  failed  to  succeed ;  so  that  after  one  or 
two  refusals  to  comply,  which  brought  no  punishment  upon  them,  they  were  left  in 
quiet  enjoyment  of  their  insignificance.  The  town  of  Torrington,  in  Devonshire,  went 
farther,  and  obtained  a  charter  of  exemption  from  sending  burgesses,  grounded  upon 
what  the  charter  asserts  to  appear  on  the  rolls  of  chancery,  —  that  it  had  never  been 
represented  before  the  21st  of  Edward  the  Third.  This  is  absolutely  folse,  and  is  a 
proof  how  little  we  can  rely  upon  the  veracity  of  records,  — -  Torrington  having  made 
not  less  than  twenty-two  returns  before  that  time."  —  N. 

*  Professor  Smyth  quotes  from  the  first  edition  of  Barrington's  work,  published  in 
1766.  In  the  third  edition,  published  in  1769,  the  expression,  "i/ie  least  allusion," 
which  the  author  seems  upon  reflection  to  have  regarded  as  an  overstatement,  is  modi 
fied  to  "  any  strong  allusion."  This  modification,  though  of  some  importance  in  itself 
considered,  does  not,  however,  materially  affect  the  nrnin  bearing  of  the  passage  as  a 
whole,  in  its  present  connection. 

To  those  who  may  have  occasion  to  consult  the  work  here  referred  to,  it  may  be 
important  to  know  that  the  first  edition  is  pronounced  by  the  author,  in  the  preface  to 
the  third,  ''  an  hasty  publication,"  marked  by  '•  many  defects,"  and  "  not  so  accurate  in 
many  particulars  as  it  should  have  been."  The  second  seems  to  have  been  but  little 
improved ;  and  soon  after  it  was  published,  it  was  found  necessary,  in  consequence  of 
the  discovery  of  a  large  body  of  new  materials,  to  suppress  the  copies  which  rernamed 
unsold,  and  to  issue  a  third.  This  third  edition,  besides  ''  very  considerable  addmons; 
covering  nearly  two  hundred  pages,  by  which  the  original  was  enlarged  more  than  one 
fourth,  contains  numerous  important  corrections;  it  is  material  to  observe,  also,  that  me 
work  now  appeared,  for  the  first  time,  under  the  sanction  of  the  author's  name,  l  ne 
last  edition,  therefore,  is  obviously  the  one  which  should  always  be  used,  ^"5Hj'®'j?' 
study  or  citation :  the  use  of  the  first  for  the  quotation  given  in  the  text,  U  w  n>raij 
necessary  to  remark,  was  undoubtedly  accidental.  —  N. 


108  LECTURE  VI. 

leges  from  tlie  non-appearance  of  the  commons  in  the  Witenagemote. 
Their  absence  (for  I  think  their  absence  must  be  admitted)  may 
surely  be  accounted  for  without  any  prejudice  to  the  popular  cause ; 
and  the  propriety  of  their  appearance  in  the  national  councils  of  a 
subsequent  period  may  in  like  manner  be  shown  without  difficulty,  on 
every  principle  of  natural  justice  and  political  expediency. 

Since  writing  the  above,  an  important  work  has  appeared  on  the 
Dark  Ages,  by  Mr.  Hallam.  The  question  to  which  I  have  just  al- 
luded is  there  discussed  with  great  diligence,  temper,  and  learmng. 
I  do  not  know  that  the  general  impression  which  you  will  have  al- 
ready received  from  me  will  be  altered  by  a  reference  to  his  work, 
but  you  must  by  all  means  turn  to  it,  that  all  the  points  of  this  very 
obscure,  difficult,  and  yet  curious  and  interesting  case,  may  be 
properly  considered,  as  they  may  be,  if  you  will  avail  yourselves  of 
his  valuable  labors. 

On  the  one  side,  as  he  very  properly  observes,  it  may  be  said,  that 
the  king,  as  we  find  from  innumerable  records,  imposed  tallages 
upon  his  demesne  towns  at  discretion :  but,  on  the  other  side,  that 
no  public  instrument,  previous  to  the  49th  of  Henry  the  Third,  names 
the  citizens  and  burgesses  as  constituent  parts  of  Parliament,  though 
prelates,  barons,  knights,  and  sometimes  freeholders,  are  enumerated ; 
while,  since  the  undoubted  admission  of  the  commons  (the  49th 
of  Henry  the  Third),  they  are  almost  invariably  mentioned:  again, 
that  no  historian  speaks  of  representatives,  or  uses  the  word  citizen 
or  burgess,  in  describing  those  who  were  present  in  Parliament.  All 
this  is  very  strong,  and  on  the  whole,  as  it  appears  to  me,  added  to 
what  you  have  heard  from  others,  decisive  of  the  question. 

Having  thus  alluded  to  the  origin  of  our  two  different  houses  of 
assembly,  I  will  next  advert  to  the  origin  and  growth  of  the  different 
prerogatives  and  privileges  belonging  to  each'  estate  of  the  Lords  and 
Commons. 

This  subject  will  require  and  deserve  your  patience  as  students ; 
it  is  surely  very  curious.  Great  light  has  been  thrown  upon  it  by 
Professor  Millar.  De  Lolme  is  too  much  of  a  panegyrist  on  our  con- 
stitution, as  indeed  is  Blackstone,  —  not  to  say  that  the  latter  is 
rather  a  lawyer  than  ^  constitutional  writer.  Blackstone  is  quite 
inferior  to  himself,  when  he  becomes  a  political  reasoner  ;  and  if  he 
had  lived  in  our  own  times,  he  would  not  have  written  (he  could  not 
have  written,  a  man  of  such  capacity)  in  the  vague  and  even  super- 
ficial manner  in  which  he  has  certainly  done,  on  many  of  such  occa- 
sions, in  his  great  work  of  the  Commentaries.  Millar  is  the  author 
you  must  study,  and  I  will  now  endeavour  to  give  you  some  notion 
of  the  more  important  results  of  his  researches, —  that  is,  I  will  en- 
deavour to  give  you  some  idea  of  the  sort  of  reasoning  and  informa- 
tion  which  you  will  find  in  his  book. 

The  Witenagemote,  under  the  influence  of  the  Conquest,  became, 


ENGLAND.  109 

t 
m  the  first  place,  more  and  more  arlstocratical ;  in  the  second,  its 
regular  meetings  less  and  less  frequent,  till  they  at  last  ceased,  —  an 
important  event. 

1st.  It  became  more  and  more  aristocratical,  because  the  smaller 
landed  proprietors,  in  the  progress  of  the  feudal  system,  attached  them- 
selves to  the  greater  lords,  and  thus  gradually  excluded  themselves 
from  the  Witenagemote,  where  those  only  could  meet  and  deUberate 
who  were  considered  as  equals.  Another  reason  contributed  to  the 
same  effect.  There  were  many  lords  who,  though  they  did  not  attach 
themselves  to  a  superior  lord,  and  merge  their  consequence  in  his, 
had  still  an  "  allodial  property,"  though  less  extensive,  and  thougli 
inferior.  Such  lords  were  less  and  less  disposed  to  appear  in  the 
Great  Council,  because  they  were  more  and  more  likely  to  be  over- 
shadowed by  the  greater  barons,  and  to  find  themselves  and  their 
opinions  disregarded.  This  difference  in  tvealth  was  at  length  followed 
by  difference  in  dignity^  and  a  man  might  be  no])le,  yet  not  one  of 
the  p7v ceres,  —  not  one,  for  example,  unless  he  had  forty  hides  of 
land.  The  nobility  were  thus  divided  into  the  greater  and  lesser 
thanes,  a  distinction  that  you  must  remember. 

2dly.  Thq  regular  meetings  of  the  Witenagemote  at  last  ceased. 
An  important  point,  it  may  be  observed ;  for  what  w^as  the  result  ? 
We  might  have  lost  our  legal  assemblies,  as  France  did. 

These  regular  meetings  of  the  Witenagemote  were  originally  held 
at  Christmas,  Easter,  and  Whitsuntide.  But,  besides  these,  there 
were'  also  occasional  meetings  on  extraordinary  emergencies,  sum- 
moned by  the  king  himself.  These  last  became  more  frequent  with 
the  increase  of  the  national  business  ;  and  the  regular  meetings  were 
of  less  consequence  and  less  regarded,  —  the  more  so,  as  part  of  their 
business  had  originally  consisted  in  hearing  appeals  from  inferior 
courts.  These  appeals  had  multiphed  till  it  was  necessary  to  form  a 
separate  court  from  out  of  the  Great  Council,  called  the  Aula  Regis, 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  deciding  lawsuits.  In  this  manner  a  material 
office  of  the  Great  Council  was  superseded;  though,  as  the  Aula 
Regis  originally  acted  as  a  sort  of  deputy,  an  appeal  still  remained 
in  the  last  instance  to  the  Council,  which  is  now  retained  by  the 
House  of  Peers.  It  must  also  have  been  at  all  times  the  pohcy  of 
the  monarch  to  supersede  the  regular  meetings  of  the  Great  Council 
by  auxiUary  courts,  and  by  those  meetings  which  were  summoned  by 
himself.  And  in  this  manner,  partly  from  reasons  of  apparent  neces- 
sity and  convenience,  partly  by  the  natural  ambition  of  the  monarch, 
partly  from  the  disorders  of  the  times,  and  not  a  little  from  the  su- 
pineness,  ignorance,  and  want  of  concert  among  the  barons  them- 
selves, the  Great  Council  ceased  to  assemble  at  its  stated  periods ; 
and  its  extraordinary  meetings,  with  this  appeal  from  the  great  courfe 
of  law,  were  all  that  remained,  as  vestiges  of  its  former  power. 

But  these  extraordinary  meetings  could  not  take  place  unless  called 


110  LECTURE  VI. 

f 

by  tjlie  sovereign.  It  was  possible,  therefore,  that  these  meeting^ 
might  at  length  cease,  and  with  them  the  political  existence  of  the 
Great  Council  altogether.  If  this  event  had  taken  place,  the  consti- 
tution of  England  would,  in  the  result,  have  been  the  same  with  that 
of  France. 

This  was,  however,  most  fortunately,  not  the  case.  But  why  not? 
It  was  thus  :  —  William  had  introduced  the  feudal  system,  and  those 
who  held  immediately  of  the  crown  became,  in  consequence,  members 
of  the  great  national  council.  Now  the  labors  of  our  antiquarians 
have  informed  us,  from  an  examination  of  "  Domesday  Book,"  that 
these  immediate  vassals  scarcely  exceeded  the  number  of  six  hun* 
dred  ;  and  as  they,  therefore,  held  the  territory  of  all  England,  with 
the  exception  of  the  three  northern  counties  of  the  king's  own  do- 
mains, each  baron  must  have  been  very  powerful ;  and  it  is  evident 
that  the  king  must  have  found  it  always  expedient  to  avoid  their  dis- 
pleasure and  to  secure  their  assistance,  and  therefore  to  have  re- 
course to  them  for  their  advice,  or  rather,  for  their  public  concur- 
rence, in  the  great  measures  of  his  government.  These  national 
councils  were,  therefore,  very  fortunately  for  posterity,  never  with- 
out their  use  or  importance  to  the  Norman  kings ;  they,  therefore, 
often  called  these  extraordinary  meetings. 

But  again,  to  the  more  frequent  return  of  these  occasional  meet- 
ings, and  consequently  to  the  existence  of  the  national  council,  there 
was  another  circumstance  very  favorable.  The  crown  was  not  trans- 
mitted, as  in  France,  for  many  centuries,  from  son  to  son.  Most  of 
the  Norman  kings  were  usurpers,  —  Wilham  the  Second,  Henry  the 
First,  Stephen.  Even  Henry  the  Second  obtained  possession  of  the 
crown  only  after  a  compromise.  John  was,  again,  a  usurper ;  and 
even  in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Second,  of  Richard  the  First,  and 
Henry  the  Third,  the  Great  Councils  were  continually  appealed  to, 
from  the  circumstances  in  which  these  monarchs  were  placed.  In 
this  manner,  most  happily  for  England,  and  indeed  for  mankind,  the 
assembly  of  the  nation  still  made,  though  not  its  regular,  yet  its  occor 
sional  appearance,  and  with  sufficient  frequency  to  maintain  its  place 
in  the  legislature. 

Again,  it  is  known  that  the  Witenagemote  had  originally  consisted 
of  allodial  or  independent  proprietors  ;  that  not  only  had  these  grad- 
ually diminished,  but  it  was  the  poHcy  of  the  Conqueror  to  extinguish 
all  the  allodial  tenures,  and  to  render  all  the  proprietors  of  land  vas- 
sals of  the  crown ;  that  this  in  the  twentieth  year  of  his  reign  he  at 
last  effected ;  and  that  the  Great  Council  was  thus  entirely  altered, 
and  came  to  consist  of  those  only  who  held  immediately  from  the 
crown.  Our  antiquarians  have  also  furnished  sufficient  evidence  to 
show  that  Great  Councils  were  held  by  William  the  Conqueror,  Wil- 
liam Rufus,  and  the  succeeding  monarchs ;  so  that,  on  the  whole,  it 
may  be  allowed,  that  the  interests  of  the  crown  so  operated,  that,  in 


ENGLAND.  Ill 

point  of  fact,  the  national  assemblies  did  maintain  their  existence, 
and  did  occasionally  meet. 

And  here  tht  student  must  again  observe  how  nice  are  the  issues 
on  which  the  political  privileges  of  a  nation  are  to  depend.  We 
have  here  a  great  difficulty.  For  observe,  it  certainly  would  not 
have  been  for  the  good  of  the  whole  that  the  Great  Councils  should 
assemble  whenever  they  themselves  chose ;  nor  even,  perhaps,  of 
right  at  stated  times,  as  they  had  done  before  the  Conquest.  It 
might  be  desirable,  even,  that  the  sovereign  alone  should  have  the 
power  of  caUing  them  together ;  but  if  this  power  was  to  be  exercised 
merely  at  the  pleasure  of  the  monarch,  and  if  K,3  was  not,  in  some 
way  or  other,  to  be  laid  under  the  necessity  of  occasionally  meeting 
the  national  assembhes,  arbitrary  power  must  have  been  the  conse- 
quence. And  yet  a  principle  so  delicate  as  this  was  to  be  left  to  the 
arbitration  of  the  rude  warfare  and  undiscermng  passions  of  our  an- 
cestors. 

There  were  other  points,  not  less  delicate  and  important,  that  were 
now  adjusted  apparently  with  little  foresight  or  anxiety  about  the  con- 
sequences. I  shall  mention  them,  as  I  mentioned  the  last,  from  my 
wish  to  offer  you  specimens  of  the  subject  now  before  you,  and  with  a 
hope  of  attracting  your  curiosity. 

The  Witenagemote,  from  its  origin  and  nature,  had  always  decided 
on  peace  and  war ;  but  the  moment  the  members  of  it  became  vassals 
of  the  crown,  their  mihtary  service  became  due  to  their  lord  when- 
ever required,  and  the  justice  or  wisdom  of  the  contest  was  no  longer 
any  part  of  their  concern.  The  important  prerogative  of  declaring 
peace  or  war  was  thus  at  once  transferred  to  the  crown :  with  the 
crown  it  has  ever  since  remained ;  not  that  circumstances  are  the 
same,  —  not  that  any  national  council  has  ever  deliberated  upon  the 
subject ;  such  deliberations  upon  such  points  are  impossible ;  but  be- 
cause a  prerogative  like  this,  once  enjoyed,  was  too  important  to  be 
wilHngly  resigned,  and  could  not  forcibly  be  taken  away.  Whether 
expedient  or  not,  it  has,  therefore,  been  transmitted  as  an  inherit- 
ance of  the  crown ;  and  any  restraint  or  control  it  is  to  meet  "w-ith 
must  arise  from  causes  that  have  grown  up  into  importance  as  imper- 
ceptibly as  did  the  prerogative  itself.  So  fortunate  may  every  peo- 
ple justly  esteem  themselves,  who  are  possessed  of  a  form  of  govern- 
ment which  is  in  practice  tolerably  good ;  for  the  affairs  of  mankind 
have  but  httle  to  do  with  the  precision  of  theory  or  the  inferences  of 
reasoning. 

Taxation,  in  like  manner,  was  a  most  important  prerogative  of  the 
Witenagemote.  Fortunately  for  posterity,  it  was  not  lost.  For,  in 
the  first  place,  the  crown  had  immense  domains  and  a  large  revenue 
of  its  own,  and  therefore  did  not  find  it  entirehj  necessary  to  attempt 
the  usurpation  of  the  power  of  taxation.  And  secondly,  the  i^j^y 
which  the  barons  sustained  by  paying  money  could  be  understood  bj 


112  LECTURE  VI. 

them  without  any  great  political  foresight  or  comprehension  of  the 
general  principles  of  government.  The  obtaining  of  money  from 
the  subject  was,  at  that  time,  very  fortunately  for  us,  an  exercise  of 
occasional  oppression  and  force,  rather  than  a  regular  operation  of 
legislative  authority.  Finally,  upon  extraordinary  occasions,  the 
king  really  did  apply  to  his  subjects,  to  his  vassals,  for  an  aid^  which 
was  a  condition  of  their  feudal  tenure.  In  lieu  of  mihtary  service, 
he  received  a  pecuniary  composition  called  a  scutage  ;  from  the  soc- 
age vassals,  a  payment  called  a  hidage^  in  place  of  various  services 
which,  as  agricultural  tenants,  they  were  bound  to  render  him ;  from 
the  inhabitants  of  towns,  tolls,  and  duties,  or  tallages,  in  return 
for  his  protection ;  and  from  traders,  certain  duties,  called  customs, 
on  the  transit  of  goods.  In  this  manner  was  the  crown  placed  in  a 
state  of  comparative  opulence  and  independence,  during  the  earlier 
eras  of  our  constitution.  As  these  sources  of  revenue  declined,  the 
other  branches  of  the  legislature  were  advancing  into  strength. 
They  were  thus  able,  by  a  continued  struggle,  to  prevent  these  priv- 
ileges from  being  converted  into  fixed  oppression,  and  to  maintain 
the  right,  which  it  was  so  desirable  they  should  alone  exercise,  of 
concurring  with  the  crown  before  the  community  could  be  legally 
taxed. 

It  were  endless,  at  least  it  is  not  very  possible  in  lectures  like 
these,  to  pursue  the  subject  of  the  formation  of  our  legislature 
through  all  its  parts,  or  to  describe  the  origin  of  different  constitu- 
tional privileges  and  prerogatives.  You  may  judge  of  the  interest 
belonging  to  these  discussions,  I  hope,  from  what  I  have  already 
said.  I  had,  indeed,  put  down  other  specimens  of  the  subject,  but 
I  am  obliged,  for  want  of  time,  to  omit  them.  My  observations  re- 
ferred to  Avhat  I  thought  the  important  points,  and  which  I  must 
now  finally  recommend  to  your  attention :  for  instance,  the  addition 
that  was  made  to  the  national  assembly  by  the  representatives  of  the 
boroughs ;  the  separation  of  the  whole  into  two  houses, —  a  most 
important  point ;  how  the  lesser  barons,  the  knights  of  the  shire, 
originally  belonging  to  the  upper,  fell  into  the  lower  house  ;  how  the 
House  of  Commons  probably  thus  maintained  its  consequence,  if  not 
its  existence  ;  how  the  House  of  Commons  obtained  a  paramount  and 
almost  exclusive  influence  over  the  taxation  of  the  country.  None 
of  these  happy  events  took  place  in  the  constitution  of  France,  or 
other  European  governments.  You  will  find  them  explained,  often 
with  great  success,  by  Millar.  But  you  must  not  forget  the  learned 
and  very  valuable  work  of  Mr.  Hallam,  who  is  not  always  satisfied 
with  Millar,  and  should  have  stated  his  objections  more  in  the  detail 
to  a  writer  so  respectable  and  so  popular.  Nor,  again,  must  you 
omit  to  study  the  pages  of  Sir  James  Macldntosh's  History.  This 
lecture,  and  all  the  lectures  of  my  first  two  courses,  were  drawn  up 
many  years  before  the  appearance  of  either  of  these  important  pub- 
lications. 


ENGLAND.  113 

I  must  now  pass  on  to  the  third  part,  which  I  have  announced  to 
you  as  one  even  of  more  importance  than  the  former  two.  The 
first,  you  will  remember,  was,  What  are  the  laws  ?  tlie  second,  Who 
are  the  legislators  ?  But  the  third,  to  which  I  now  allude,  is,  The 
spirit  and  habits  of  thinking  that  exist  in  the  country. 

Of  our  country,  if  it  be  said  that  none  has  ever  enjoyed  a  better 
constitution,  it  may  at  the  same  time  be  said  that  none  has  ever 
been  more  honorably  distinguished  by  efforts  to  obtain  it.  In  con 
sidering  the  events  of  the  earlier  periods  of  our  history,  the  student 
should  never  lose  sight  of  the  feudal  system  and  the  Papal  power. 
These,  in  the  instance  of  our  own  country,  as  in  the  rest  of  Europe, 
soon  became  the  great  impediments  to  the  improvement  of  human 
happiness. 

But  there  was  a  peculiarity  in  the  case  of  England,  which  was 
attended  with  important  consequences.  The  feudal  system  had  not 
proceeded  by  its  own  natural  gradations  ;  it  had  not  been  regularly 
introduced^  but  it  had  been  established  by  the  Conqueror  violently^ 
and  on  a  sudden^  in  its  last  stage  of  oppression. 

In  an  earlier  and  milder  state,  it  seems  to  have  existed  in  its  prin- 
ciples, if  not  in  its  name  and  ceremonies,  among  the  Anglo-Saxons  ; 
but  it  did  not  in  this  island  attain  its  final  maturity  by  regular 
growth,  as  it  had  done  in  the  rest  of  Europe.  And  this  acceleration 
of  the  system,  that  seemed,  at  first,  to  be  more  than  usually  fatal  to 
every  hope  of  liberty,  was  in  the  event  much  otherwise. 

The  Saxon  constitution  was  broken  in  upon  when  in  a  state  of 
great  comparative  freedom.  It  was  necessarily  regretted  by  all  to 
whom  it  had  ever  been  known,  its  practices  were  in  part  retained, 
its  praises  transmitted,  its  memory  cherished ;  and  it  became  at 
length  dear  even  to  the  Normans,  who  began  to  consider  themselves 
as  belonging  to  the  island,  and  who  were  oppressed  by  the  rigors 
of  the  system  which  their  own  king  and  countrymen  had  estab- 
lished. 

Now  it  is  to  that  spirit  and  those  habits  of  thinking  that  were 
thus  inherited  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  government  and  introduced 
into  the  character  of  the  Norman  conquerors,  that  we  are  so  much 
indebted,  when  we  speak  of  the  superiority  of  our  constitution  and 
the  merits  of  our  ancestors.  Our  history  shows  a  continued  strug- 
gle between  the  crown  and  the  barons,  but  at  the  same  time  it  con- 
stantly speaks  of  the  unwearied  clamors  of  the  nation,  —  first  for 
the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  and  afterwards  for  the  charters 
that  were  obtained  from  our  unwilling  monarchs. 

It  is  to  these  clamors  for  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  it^  is 
to  these  charters  thus  bargained  for,  or  extorted,  that  I  would  vAsh. 
to  direct  your  attention.  It  is  here  you  are  to  find  the  proper  object 
of  your  admiration,  —  the  free  principles  of  your  mixed  constitution, 
the  original  source  of  that  free  spirit  which  distinguishes  your  own 
15  J* 


114  LECTURE   VI. 

English  character.  For  observe,  —  to  take  a  familiar  instance, — 
when  a  rich  man  walks  our  streets  or  villages,  he  will  not  offend  a 
poor  man,  however  poor,  if  he  has  the  feelings  of  an  Englishman 
within  him  ;  in  like  manner,  if  a  poor  man  be  struck  or  insulted,  he 
will  immediately  tell  his  oppressor,  that,  though  poor,  he  is  an. Eng- 
lishman, and  Avill  not  be  trampled  upon.  Now  these  are  most  honor- 
able and  totally  invaluable  traits  of  national  character,  not  to  be 
found  in  other  countries  in  Europe  :  in  spite  of  our  immense  system 
of  taxation  and  other  unfortunate  circumstances,  they  still  to  a  con- 
siderable degree  exist.  The  problem  I  propose  to  you  is  to  give  an 
historical  and  philosophical  explanation  of  them. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  and  to  look  up  to  l^e  highest  point  of 
their  origin,  they  were  derived  from  our  Saxon  ancestors,  and  after- 
wards from  our  Norman  ancestors  ;  and  therefore  at  present  I  would 
wish  to  attract  your  curiosity  to  the  two  subjects  I  have  just  men- 
tioned, —  the  Laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  and  the  Charters. 

But  when  we  turn  to  look  at  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor, 
we  meet  vnth.  a  most  uncomfortable  disappointment,  —  the  laws  are 
lost.  All  the  notion  that  can  now  be  formed  of  them  must  be  de- 
rived, as  it  is  supposed,  from  the  maxims  of  the  common  law,  such 
as  it  is  received  and  transmitted  from  age  to  age  by  our  courts  and 
judges.  Great  pains  were  taken  by  the  illustrious  Selden  to  dis- 
cover these  celebrated  laws,  but  in  vain.  In  the  Note-book  on  the 
table  you  will  find  a  short  account  of  his  labors ;  which,  as  a  concise 
specimen  of  what  the  researches  of  an  antiquarian,  and  even  of  a 
constitutional  writer,  must  often  be,  I  would  recommend  you  to 
read. 

With  respect  to  the  charters,  the  second  subject  I  mentioned,  we 
have  been  more  fortunate  ;  we  may  consider  ourselves  as  in  possession 
of  them ;  and  they  have  been  made  accessible,  not  only  to  the  learn- 
ing of  an  antiquarian,  but  to  the  knowledge  of  every  man  of  ordinary 
education:  this  has  been  done  by  Blackstone.  "  There  is  no  trans- 
action," says  Blackstone,  "  in  the  ancient  part  of  our  English  history 
more  interesting  and  important  than  the  rise  and  progress,  the  gradu- 
al mutation,  and  final  estabhshment  of  the  chai-ters  of  liberties,  em- 
phatically styled  the  '  Great  Charter '  and  '  Charter  of  the  Forest ' ; 
and  yet  there  is  none  that  has  been  transmitted  down  to  us  with  less 
accuracy  and  historical  precision."  The  Vinerian  Professor  was 
therefore  animated  to  undertake  an  authentic  and  con-ect  edition  of 
the  Great  Charter  and  Charter  of  the  Forest,  with  some  other  aux- 
iliary charters,  statutes,  and  corroborating  instruments,  cai-efully 
printed  from  the  originals  themselves,  or  from  contemporary  enrcl- 
ments  or  records :  the  work  he  executed  and  delivered  to  the  public. 

Of  his  "History  of  tl^e  Charters"  it  is  in  vain  to  attempt  any 
abridgment ;  for  such  is  the  precision  of  his  taste,  and  such  the  im- 
portance of  the  subject,  that  there  is  not  a  sentence  in  the  composi- 


ENGLAND.  115 

tlon  that  is  not  necessary  to  the  whole,  and  that  should  not  be  pemsed. 
Whatever  other  works  may  be  read  slightly,  or  omitted,  this  is  one 
the  entire  meditation  of  which  can  in  no  respect  be  dispensed  with. 
The  claims  which  it  has  on  our  attention  are  of  no  common  nature. 

The  labor  which  this  eminent  lawyer  has  bestowed  on  the  subject 
is  sufficiently  evident.^  Yet,  however  distinguished  for  his  high  en- 
dowments and  extensive  acquirements,  and  however  impressed  with 
a  sense  of  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  a  free  government,  he 
has  certainly  never  been  considered  as  a  writer  very  particularly 
anxious  for  the  popular  part  of  the  constitution,  notwithstanding  his 
occasional  very  crude  declamations  of  a  popular  nature  ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  these  charters  must  have  been  very  instrumental  in  saving 
our  country  from  the  establishment  of  arbitrary  power,  or  they  would 
never  have  excited  in  the  Professor  such  extraordinary  exertion  and 
respect. 

In  the  second  place,  we  may  surely  be  expected  to  consider  with 
some  attention  what  our  ancestors  acquired  with  such  difficulty  and 
danger,  and  maintained  with  such  unshaken  courage  and  persever- 
ance. These  charters,  says  Blackstone,  "  from  their  first  concession 
under  King  John,  A.  D.  1215,  had  been  often  endangered  and 
undergone  very  many  mutations  for  the  space  of  near  a  century,  but 
were  now  [in  the  29th  of  Edward  the  Second  *]  fixed  upon  an  eter- 
nal basis ;  having,  in  all,  before  and  since  this  time,  as  Sir  Edward 
Coke  observes,  been  established,  confirmed,  and  commanded  to  be 
put  in  execution  by  two-and-thirty  several  acts  of  Parliament." 

There  is  a  commentary  on  Magna  Charta  at  the  close  of  Sullivan's 
Lectures  on  the  Laws  of  England,  which  will  be  very  serviceable  to 
you  in  your  perusal  of  this  great  record  of  our  liberties. 

My  comments  on  these  charters,  given  in  my  former  course,  I  now 
omit.  For  these  charters  must  be  read  attentively  by  yourselves,  and 
you  will  easily  acquire  a  proper  insight  into  the  nature  of  their  pro- 
visions. The  result  of  your  first  perusal  will  be  that  of  disappoint- 
ment ;  you  will  think  that  they  contain  nothing  very  remarkable, 
nothing  much  connected  with  civil  liberty,  as  you  now  understand 
and  enjoy  it.  This  gives  me  another  opportunity  (I  caimot  avail 
myself  too  often  of  such  opportunities)  to  remind  you  that  you  must 
alwajs  identify  yourselves  with  those  who  appear  before  you,  from 
time  to  time,  in  the  pages  of  history ;  —  this  is  the  first  point ;  —  and 
that  it  is  the  general  spirit  and  meaning  of  the  whole  of  a  constitu- 
tional transaction,  not  the  minute  detail  of  it,  that  you  must  always 
more  particularly  consider ;  —  this  is  the  second  point. 

To  advert  to  these  points  a  little  longer.  —  When  we  look  into 
these  charters  for  those  provisions  of  civil  liberty  which  the  enlarged 
and  enlightened  view  of  a  modern  statesman  might  suggest,  we  for* 

*  A  mistake  for  Edward  the  First ;  Edward  the  Second  reined  less  than  twenty 
yairs.     See  Blackstone's  History  of  the  Charters  (Oxff  rd,  1759),  p.  buuv.  —  JS. 


116  LECTURE  VI. 

get  that  they  who  obtained  these  charters  were  feudal  lords,  strug 
gling  with  their  feudal  sovereign ;  and  that  more  was,  in  fact,  per- 
formed than  could  be  reasonably  expected ;  at  all  events,  they  had  the 
obvious  merit  of  resisting  oppression,  —  a  conduct  that  is  always  re- 
spectable, as  it  always  indicates  a  sense  of  right  and  courage. 

The  exertion  of  such  qualities  is  of  use  generally  to  the  existing 
generation,  and  still  more  to  posterity.  No  such  steadiness  and 
spirit  were  shown  by  the  barons  of  other  countries ;  and  this  of  itself 
is  a  sufficient  criterion  of  the  merit  of  the  English  barons.  The  plain 
narrative  of  these  transactions  is,  of  itself,  the  best  comment  on  their 
conduct,  and  its  highest  praise.  That  the  barons  should  be  jealous 
of  their  own  powers  and  comforts,  when  they  found  them  trenched 
upon  by  the  monarch,  may  have  been  natural ;  that  they  should  as- 
sert their  cause  by  an  appeal  to  arms  may  have  been  the  character 
of  the  age ;  that  they  should  resist  and  overpower  such  princes  as 
Henry  or  John  was,  perhaps,  what  might  have  been  expected.  In 
all  this  there  may  possibly  not  be  thought  any  very  superior  merit ; 
but  there  is  still  merit,  and  merit  of  a  most  valuable  kind.  To  main- 
tain, however,  a  struggle  systematically,  and  for  many  succeeding 
ages,  was  neither  natural,  nor  the  character  of  the  age ;  and  to  have 
encountered  and  overpowered  the  rage,  the  authority,  and  the  ability 
of  a  prince  like  Edward  the  First,  so  fitted  in  every  respect  to  dazzle 
and  seduce,  deceive  and  subdue  them,  —  this  constitutes  a  merit 
which  in  other  countries  had  no  parallel,  and  which  leaves  us  no 
sentiment  but  that  of  gratitude,  no  criticism  but  that  of  applause. 

But,  in  addition  to  these  general  remarks,  one  more  particular 
observation  must  be  left  with  you,  and  it  is  this,  —  that,  in  the 
course  of  these  charters,  if  they  are  properly  examined,  it  will  at 
length  be  seen,  that  all  the  leading  objects  of  national  concern  were 
adverted  to,  that  the  outlines  of  a  system  of  civil  liberty  were  actually 
traced.  Provision  was  made  for  the  protection  and  independence  of 
the  Church ;  the  general  privileges  of  trade  were  considered ;  the 
general  rights  of  property ;  the  civil  Uberties  of  the  subject ;  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice. 

It  may,  indeed,  be  remarked,  that  the  provisions  for  general 
liberty  in  these  charters  were  few,  short,  indistinct,  and  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  suppose  that  a  few  words  like  these  could  in  any  respect 
embrace  all  the  multiplied  relations  of  social  life  and  regular  govern- 
ment ;  and  that  much  more  must  be  done  before  the  liberties  of  man- 
kind can  be  secured,  or  even  deUneated  or  described  with  proper  ac- 
curacy and  effect.  Where,  then,  it  may  again  be  urged,  where  is 
now  the  value  of  these  celebrated  charters?  To  this  it  must  be  re- 
plied, that  a  rude  sketch  was  made,  according  to  the  circumstances 
of  the  times,  and  that  nothing  more  could  be  accomplished  or  ex- 
pected ;  that  a  reasonable  theory,  that  the  right  principle,  was  every- 
where produced  and  enforced,  and  that  tliis  was  sufficient.     Posterity 


ENGLAND.  117 

was  left,  no  doubt,  to  imitate  those  who  had  gone  before,  bj  trans- 
fusing the  general  meaning  of  the  whole  into  statutes,  accommo- 
dated to  the  new  exigencies  that  might  arise.  It  was  not  necessary 
that  they  who  ^ere  to  follow  should  tread  precisely  in  tlie  same 
steps ;  but  they  were  to  bear  themselves  erect,  and  walk  after  the 
same  manner.  The  track  might  be  altered,  but  the  port  and  the 
march  were  to  be  the  same.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  event.  In 
Hampden's  cause  of  ship-money,  and  on  every  occasion,  when  the 
liberties  of  the  subject  were  to  be  asserted,  —  in  writing,  in  speeches, 
in  Parliament,  in  the  courts  of  law,  —  these  charters  were  produced, 
examined,  and  illustrated ;  and  they  supplied  the  defenders  of  our 
best  interests  at  all  times  with  the  spirit  and  the  materials  of  their 
virtuous  eloquence.  Civil  liberty  had  got  a  creed  which  was  to  be 
learned  and  studied  by  its  votaries  ;  a  creed  to  which  the  eyes  of  all 
were  to  be  turned  with  reverence  ;  which  the  subject  considered  as 
his  birthright;  which  the  monarch  received  from  his  predecessors  as 
the  constitution  of  the  land ;  which  the  one  thought  it  his  duty  to 
maintain,  and  which  the  other  thought  it  no  derogation  to  his  dignity 
to  acknowledge. 

"  It  must  be  confessed,"  says  Hume,  "  that  the  former  articles  of 
the  Great  Charter  contain  such  mitigations  and  explanations  of  the 
feudal  law  as  are  reasonable  and  equitable ;  and  that  the  latter  in- 
volve all  the  chief  outlines  of  a  legal  government,  and  provide  for 
the  equal  distribution  of  justice,  and  free  enjoyment  of  property, — 
the  great  objects  for  which  political  society  was  at  first  founded  by 
men,  which  the  people  have  a  perpetual  and  unalienable  right  to 
recall,  and  which  no  time,  nor  precedent,  nor  statute,  nor  positive 
institution  ought  to  deter  them  from  keeping  ever  uppermost  in  their 
thoughts  and  attention." 

At  the  close  of  the  subject,  though  he  resumes  his  natural  hesita- 
tion and  circumspection,  he  seems  considerably  subdued  by  the  merit 
of  the  actors  in  these  memorable  transactions. 

"  Thus,"  says  he,  "  after  the  contests  of  near  a  whole  century, 
and  those  ever  accompanied  with  violent  jealousies,  often  with  public 
convulsions,  the"  Great  Charter  was  finally  established,  and  the  Eng- 
lish nation  have  the  honor  of  extorting,  by  their  perseverance,  this 
concession  from  the  ablest,  the  most  warlike,  and  the  most  ambitious 
of  all  their  princes Though  arbitrary  practices  often  pre- 
vailed, and  were  even  able  to  establish  themselves  into  settled  cus- 
toms, the  validity  of  the  Great  Charter  was  never  afterwards  for- 
mally disputed;  and  that  grant  was  stilt  regarded  as  the  basis 
of  English  government,  and  the  sure  rule  by  which  the  authority  of 
every  custom  was  to  be  tried  and  canvassed.  The  jurisdiction  of 
the  Star-Chamber,  martial  laAV,  imprisonment  by  warrants  from  the 
Privy  Council,  and  other  practices  of  a  like  nature,  though  estab- 
lished for  several  centuries,  were  scarcely  ever  allowed  by  the  Eng- 


118  LECTURE  VI. 

lisli  to  be  parts  of  their  constitution.  The  affection  of  the  nation  for 
liberty  still  prevailed  over  all  precedent,  and  even  all  pohtical  rear 
soning.  The  exercise  of  these  powers,  after  being  long  the  source 
of  secret  murmurs  among  the  people,  was  in  fulness  of  time  sol 
emnlj  abolished  as  illegal,  at  least  as  oppressive,  by  the  whole  legis- 
lative authority." 

These  appear  to  me  remarkable  passages  to  be  found  in  the  His- 
tory of  Hume,  and  I  therefore  offer  them  to  your  notice. 

You  will  find  Hallam  very  decisive  in  his  opinion  of  the  value  of 
this  Great  Charter.  He  considers  it  as  the  most  important  event  in 
our  history,  except  the  Revolution  in  1688,  without  which  its  bene- 
fits would  have  been  rapidly  annihilated. 

Before  I  conclude,  I  must  once  more  remind  you,  that  it  is  the 
general  spirit  and  habits  of  thinking  in  a  community  that  are  all  in 
all ;  that  charters,  and  statutes,  and  judges,  and  courts  of  law,  are 
all  of  no  avail  for  perpetuating  a  constitution,  or  even  for  securing 
the  regular  administration  of  its  blessings  from  time  to  time,  —  are 
all  of  no  avail,  if  a  vital  principle  does  not  animate  the  mass,  and 
if  there  be  not  sufficient  intelligence  and  spirit  in  the  community  to 
be  anxious  about  its  o\vn  happiness  and  dignity,  its  laws  and  govern- 
ment, and  those  provisions  and  forms  in  both  which  are  favorable  to 
its  liberties.  When  this  vital  principle  exists,  every  defect  is  sup- 
plied from  time  to  time  by  those  who  bear  rule,  and  who  can  never 
be  long  or  materially  at  a  loss  to  know  what  either  Magna  Charta  or 
the  free  maxims  of  our  constitution  require  from  them.  However 
complicated  may  be  the  business,  however  new  the  situations  for 
which  they  have  to  provide,  the  outline  of  a  free  constitution,  though 
rude  and  imperfect,  can  easily  be  filled  up  by  those  who  labor  m  the 
spirit  of  the  original  masters. 

When  this  is  honorably  done,  and  when  the  spirit  and  vital  princi- 
ple of  a  constitution  are  faithfully  preserved,  those  who  rule  and 
those  who  are  governed  may  and  do  sympathize  with  each  other. 
They  are  no  longer  drawn  out  and  divided  into  ranks  of  hostility, 
open  or  concealed ;  there  is  no  storm  above  ground,  no  hollow  mur- 
muring below.  The  public  good  becomes  a  principle,  acknowledged 
by  the  monarch  as  his  rule  of  government ;  and  loyalty  is  properly 
cherished  by  the  subject,  as  one  of  the  indispensable  securities  of  his 
own  political  happiness.  Men  are  taught  to  respect  each  other,  and 
to  respect  themselves.  The  lowest  man  in  society  is  furnished  with 
his  own  appropriate  sentiment  of  honor,  which  in  him,  as  in  his 
superiors,  is  to  protect  and  animate  his  sense  of  duty ;  he,  too,  like 
those  above  him,  has  his  degradations  of  character  to  which  he  will 
not  stoop,  and  his  elevations  of  virtue  to  which  he  must  aspire. 
This  is  that  real  protection  to  a  state,  that  source  of  all  national 
prosperity,  that  great  indispensable  auxiliary  to  the  virtue  and  even 
the  religion  of  a  country,  which  may  well  be  considered  as  the 


FRANCE.  119 

mark  of  every  good  government,  for  it  constitutes  the  perfection  of 
the  best. 

But  all  this  must  be  the  work,  not  of  those  who  are  placed  low  in 
the  gradations  of  the  social  order,  but  of  those  who  are  destined,  by 
whatever  advantages  of  property,  rank,  and  particularly  of  Ugh 
office,  to  have  authority  over  their  fellow-creatures ;  of  such  men, 
men  like  yourselves,  it  is  the  bounden  duty  to  cherish  the  constitu- 
tional spirit  of  their  country,  and,  in  one  word,  to  promote  and  pro- 
tect the  respectability  of  the  poor  man.  When  those  who  are  so 
elevated  use  to  such  purposes  the  influence  and  the  command  which 
do  and  ought  to  belong  to  them,  they  employ  themselves  in  a  man- 
ner the  most  grateful  to  their  feelings,  if  they  are  men  of  benevo- 
lence and  virtue,  —  the  most  creditable  to  their  talents,  if  they  are 
men  of  genius,  and  understandi»g , 


LECTURE   VII. 


FRANCE. 


We  must  now  turn  to  the  French  history.  The  period  which  we 
may  consider  is  that  which  interv^ened  between  the  accession  of 
Philip  of  Valois  and  the  death  of  Louis  the  Eleventh.  This  period 
I  would  wish  particularly  to  recommend  to  your  examination,  for  it 
is  the  most  important  in  the  constitutional  history  of  France. 

I  have  already  endeavoured  to  draw  your  attention  to  this  great 
subject,  —  the  constitutional  history  of  France.  There  are  few  that 
can  be  thought  of  more  consequence  in  the  annals  of  modern  Eu- 
rope. Had  France  acquired  a  good  form  of  government  while  the 
feudal  system  was  falling  into  decay,  the  character  of  the  French 
nation  would  have  been  very  different  from  what,  in  the  result,  it 
afterwards  became.  All  the  nations  on  the  continent  would  have 
been  materially  influenced'in  their  views  and  opinions  by  such  an  ex- 
ample The  whole  history  of  France  and  of  those  countries  would 
have  been  changed,  and  the  private  and  public  happiness  of  the 
world  would  have  been  essentially  improved. 

The  first  and  great  subject  of  inquiry,  therefore,  in  the  French 
history,  is  this,  —  What  were  the  circumstances  that  more  particu- 
larly affected  the  civil  liberties  of  France  ? 

It  is  quite  necessary  to  remark,  that  this  subject  is  never  properly 
treated  by  the  French  historians.     They  never  seem  to  feel  its  in> 


120  LECTURE  Vn. 

poi-tance,  to  understand  its  nature.  When  they  advert  to  the  state 
of  France,  when  they  endeavour  to  consider  how  the  country  is  to 
be  improved,  how  advanced  to  perfection,  they  content  themselves, 
as  their-  orators  seem  to  have  done  in  the  States-General,  with  vague 
declamations  about  order  and  virtue,  and  the  discharge  of  the  duties 
of  life ;  a  love  of  his  people  must,  they  think,  be  found  in  the  sover- 
eign, purity  of  morals  in  his  subjects.  These  are  the  topics  on 
which  they  harangue.  Every  poHtical  good,  they  suppose,  is  to  re- 
sult from  the  private  and  individual  merits  of  the  monarch  and  those 
whom  he  is  to  govern.  They  look  no  further.  It  seems  never  to 
have  occurred  to  them,  that  the  virtues  which  they  wish  for,  both  in 
the  prince  and  the  subject,  are  generated  by  a  free  government,  and 
that  it  is  in  vain  to  expect  them  under  any  other. 

From  this  general  observation  on  the  French  writers  one  illus- 
trious exception  must  be  made,  —  the  Abbe  de  Mably.  His  work 
must,  therefore,  be  continually  compared  with  the  representations  of 
the  historians  Velly,  Mezeray,  and  Le  Pere  Daniel.  It  is  in  his 
work,  and  in  his  alone,  that  the  philosophy  of  the  French  history 
can  be  found.  Without  it  an  English  student  would  pass  through 
the  whole  detail,  continually  misled  by  his  guides,  or  suffered  to 
move  on  without  once  finding  his  attention  properly  directed  to  the 
great  misfortune  of  France,  —  the  misfortune  of  her  political  sys- 
tem, —  the  decHne  and  the  destruction  of  her  constitutional  liberties. 

This  subject  has  not  been  overlooked  by  our  own  great  historian, 
Robertson.  In  his  introduction  to  his  History  of  Charles  the  Fifth, 
he  describes,  in  a  concise  and  unaffected  manner,  the  means  by 
which  the  prerogative  and  the  power  of  th^  crown  were  extended, 
and  the  alteration  that  took  place  in  the  constitution  and  government 
so  unfavorable  to  the  general  liberty  of  the  subject ;  the  fatal  man- 
ner in  which  the  ancient  national  assemblies  lost  their  legislative 
power,  and  in  which  the  monarch  gradually  assumed  it,  and  still 
more  fatally  assumed  the  power  of  levying  taxes.  There  are  three 
notes  (38,  39,  40)  particularly  worth  reading,  in  liis  preface  to 
Charles  the  Fifth. 

With  respect  to  the  constitution  of  France,  the  great  point  in  that 
constitution  was,  as  it  has  been  in  all  the  European  constitutions, 
simply  this,  —  whether  the  national  assemblies  could  maintain  their 
importance,  and,  above  all,  preserve  thair  right  of  taxation.  On 
this  right  of  taxation  every  thing  depended. 

To  the  general  principles  of  liberty  a  nation  is  easily  made  blind, 
or  can  even  become  indifferent.  Such  principles  are  never  under- 
stood by  the  multitude ;  and  the  interest  they  excite  is  of  a  nature 
too  refined  and  generous  to  animate  the  mass  of  mankind  either  long 
or  deeply.  But,  fortunately  for  them,  they  who  trample  upon  their 
rights  generally  (as  it  would  be  expressed  by  the  people  themselves) 
want  their  money  ;  and  here,  at  least,  is  found  a  coarser  strm^r,  which 


FRANCE.  121 

can  always  vibrate  strongly  and  steadily.  The  tax-gatherer  can,  at 
all  events,  be  discovered  by  the  people  to  be  an  enemy,  as  they  sup- 
pose, to  their  happiness.  Popular  insurrections  have  seldom  had  any 
other  origin  ;  and  the  unfeeUng  luxury  of  the  great  is  thus  sometimes 
most  severely  punished  by  the  headlong  and  brutal  fury  of  the  multi- 
tude. Patriots  and  legislators  are,  therefore,  the  most  successfully 
employed,  when  they  are  fighting  the  ignorant  selfishness  of  the  low 
against  the  vicious  selfishness  of  the  high,  —  when  they  are  exchang- 
ing tax  for  privilege,  and  purchasing  what  is,  in  fact,  the  happiness 
of  both,  by  converting  the  mean  passions  of  each  to  the  purposes  of 
a  generous  and  enlightened  prudence.  But  to  do  this,  it  is  necessary 
that  some  body  of  men  who  can  sympathize  with  the  people  should 
have  a  political  existence,  and  that  their  assent  should  be  necessary 
to  make  taxation  legal.  Of  peaceful,  regular,  constitutional  free- 
dom, which  is  the  only  freedom,  this  is  the  best  and  the  only  practical 
safeguard. 

You  must  now  recall  to  your  minds  what  I  have  already  said  of  the 
French  history,  —  that  the  great  writers  are  too  voluminous,  and  that 
you  must,  therefore,  meditate  the  incidents  that  appear  in  the  abridg- 
ments of  Renault  and  Millot,  or  the  concise  history  of  D'Anquetil ; 
and,  when  they  seem  likely  to  be  of  importance,  consult,  if  you  please, 
the  great  historians. 

An  instance  of  this  kind  occurs  early  in  the  period  we  are  now 
considering.  You  will  see  in  the  abridgments  that  the  States-General 
assemble ;  an  important  circumstance  always.  You  will  turn  to 
Mably,  and  you  will  find  that  a  very  remarkable  struggle,  as  he  con- 
ceives, took  place  between  the  crown  and  the  people ;  and  you  might 
here,  therefore,  turn  to  Velly  and  the  regular  historians.  The  fact 
seems  to  be,  that  a  great  crisis  in  the  French  constitution  did  really 
take  place  during  the  reigns  of  the  earlier  princes  of  the  house  of 
Valois,  particularly  of  John,  when  the  country  was  oppressed  by  the 
successful  and  unjust  inroads  of  our  Edward  the  Third.  The  States- 
General  were  called ;  and  the  opportunity  was  taken  by  the  tliird 
estate,  and  more  particularly  by  Marcel,  the  Parisian,  and  his  asso- 
ciates, to  raise  the  public  into  importance,  and  to  balance,  or,  as  the 
French  liistorians  represent  it,  to  overpower,  the  authority  of  the 
prince. 

Here,  then,  is  evidently  a  period  that  cannot  be  too  deeply  medi- 
tated. The  historian  Villaret,  the  successor  of  Velly,  seems  to  have 
taken  due  pains  with  this  part  of  his  undertaking.  Le  Pere  Daniel 
appears,  unfortunately,  to  have  no  just  apprehension  of  its  impor- 
tance, and,  indeed,  not  to  be  animated  by  any  principles  of  legislation 
and  government  sufficiently  favorable  to  the  rights  of  the  people. 
The  political  sentiments  of  Me'zeray  are  more  accurate  ;  but  he  is  too 
concise  in  his  narrative,  and  too  sparing  of  his  observations.  These 
are  the  great  historians.  But  the  Abbe  de  Mably  is  well  aware  how 
16  K 


122  LECTURE  VII. 

important  to  tlie  liberties  of  France  was  tlie  conduct  of  the  States- 
General  on  this  occasion ;  and  he  states,  explains,  and  criticizes  their 
views  and  their  feelings  apparently  with  great  penetration  and  pro- 
priety. The  student  will  contrast  these  writers  with  each  other,  and 
form  his  own  estimate  of  these  memorable  transactions. 

The  narrative  in  Velly  or  Yillaret  opens  with  a  history  of  the 
States-General,  to  which  there  seems  nothing  to  object.  But  the 
moment  the  historian  arrives  at  the  particular  point  we  are  consider- 
ing, his  inadequacy  to  the  subject  appears.  He  speaks  of  the  third 
estate  as  having  gradually  learned  to  discuss  the  rights  and  encroach 
on  the  limits  of  the  royal  authority ;  and  their  efforts  to  improve  the 
constitution  by  managing  the  taxation,  and  by  bargaining  for  the 
reformation  of  various  abuses,  he  calls  the  first  essay  of  a  poiver 
usurped.  He  observes  that  many  writers  have  seen  a  parallel  be- 
tween these  transactions  and  those  of  the  English  at  Rannymede  ; 
and  he  therefore  very  properly  gives  an  estimate  of  all  those  proceed- 
ings in  our  own  country.  When  this  estimate  is  considered,  the 
parallel  is,  no  doubt,  most  striking  and  complete ;  the  requisitions  of 
the  States  and  the  concessions  of  each  party  seem  all  of  the  same 
nature  as  those  between  our  own  King  John  and  his  barons. 

I  must  now  mention,  that,  in  the  first  course  of  lectures  which  I 
delivered,  I  went  through  many  particulars  of  this  remarkable  strug- 
gle, drawing  my  narrative  from  Yelly  and  the  Abbe  de  Mably ;  but 
I  begin  to  doubt  whether  I  may  not  hope  to  employ  your  time  better. 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  then  made,  or  that  any  effort  of  mine  could 
possibly  make,  a  detail  of  this  kind  sufficiently  intelligible  ;  all  that 
I  beheve  you  would  carry  away  from  the  lecture,  if  I  were  to  repeat 
it,  would  be  a  general  impression  that  there  was  in  this  part  of  the 
French  history  a  constitutional  struggle  worth  your  attention,  and 
that  you  must  consider  it  for  yourselves  in  the  Abbe  de  Mably.  This 
would  be  the  right  impression,  no  doubt ;  but  I  may,  perhaps,  pro- 
duce this  impression  sufficiently  by  simply  assuring  you,  without  any 
further  occupation  of  your  time,  that  this  is  the  case,  and  that  you 
must  meditate  this  period  well.  Do  not  regard  the  slight  manner  in 
which  you  may  see  it  mentioned  in  French  authors.  You  can  easily 
conceive  what  an  event  it  would  have  been  to  Europe  and  mankind, 
if  the  French  nation  had,  like  our  own,  obtained  a  free  government ; 
and  from  what  you  have  yourselves  heard  and  remember  of  the  affairs 
of  the  world,  for  these  last  five-and-twenty  years,  this  subject  of  the 
free  constitution  of  France  will  only  derive  a  new  and  more  effective 
interest. 

The  contest  in  the  reign  of  King  John  of  France  has  distinct 
stages,  in  some  of  which  it  resembles  the  struggle  between  our  own 
King  John  and  the  barons ;  in  others,  the  struggle  between  Charles 
the  First  and  his  Parliament ;  and  at  length  it  assumes  an  appearance 
precisely  the  same  which  it  did  in  the  frightful  and  disgraceful  periods 


FRANCE.  123 

of  the  late  French  revolution,  —  every  thing  at  the  disposal  of  the 
multitude,  and  even  the  outrages  carried  on  in  a  manner  very- 
similar,  —  the  Dauphin's  officers  murdered  in  his  presence,  and  the 
party-colored  cap  placed  upon  his  head,  as  was,  in  a  similar  irruption 
into  the  palace,  the  bonnet  rouge  on  the  head  of  the  late  most  amiable 
and  most  unfortunate  monarch,  Louis  the  Sixteenth.  Thje  result  was 
but  too  certain :  either  the  erection  of  some  military  despotism,  or 
the  restoration  of  their  ancient  government,  returning  with  all  its 
abuses,  and  more  than  ever  confirmed  in  its  faults  and  errors. 
Either  event  would  necessarily  have  been  destructive  of  all  rational 
liberty.  The  latter  took  place.  And  here  may  be  said  to  have 
ended  all  the  more  regular,  and  therefore  more  hopeful,  efforts  for 
the  constitution  of  France. 

The  great  mistake  seems  to  me  to  have  been,  that  charters  were 
not  continually  obtained,  —  one  was  obtained,  —  but  I  mean  con- 
tinually obtained  or  renewed  from  time  to  time,  as  was  done  in  Eng- 
land. It  is  impossible  that  a  constitution  should  be  established,  or 
even  very  thoroughly  improved,  at  once,  by  the  laws  or  provisions  of 
any  one  body  of  men ;  and  the  provisions  that  were  made  for  this 
purpose  by  our  own  ancestors  at  Runnymede  seem  to  have  been  for 
a  long  time  but  too  ineffectual.  But  a  charter  often  renewed  or  im- 
proved may  long  remain  and  always  be  remembered,  and  in  this 
manner  teach  those  who  succeed  the  duties  that  have  been  performed 
by  those  who  went  before  them,  till  freedom  becomes  at  last  inter- 
woven with  the  general  habits  of  thinking  in  a  community,  and  may 
then  be  converted  into  the  effective  law  of  the  land. 

We  cannot  now,  as  I  have  just  observed,  trace  all  the  causes  of 
this  calamitous  alteration  in  the  prospects  of  France.  The  kingdom 
was  most  dreadfully  situated :  in  a  state  of  hostility  with  a  victorious 
enemy ;  troops  of  soldiers,  who  acknowledged  no  law  and  no  country, 
pillaging  Avhat  the  ravages  of  war  had  not  entirely  swept  away ;  and 
soon  after,  the  horrible  insurrection  of  the  Jacquerie,  described  by 
Froissart,  the  peasants  against  the  nobles  ;  all  uniting  to  complete  a 
combination  of  horrors  which  no  civilized  country  ever  before  or  since 
exhibited. 

That  the  deputies  from  distant  parts  should,  in  circumstances  like 
these,  be  unwilling  or  unable  to  meet  in  the  capital,  —  that  the 
moderate  and  the  good  should  no  longer  be  disposed  to  projects  of 
reform,  should  easily  fall  away  from  their  more  ardent  associates, 
should  even  be  wanting  in  their  duties  as  patriots  and  as  men,  should 
no  longer  piosecute  the  tasks  of  hope  amid  these  scenes  of  despair,  — - 
all  this  can  surely  be  surprising  to  no  one.  Nor  can  we  wonder,  in 
a  country  thus  situated,  at  the  failure  of  any  generous  experiment  for 
its  liberties,  when  such  experiments,  it  is  but  too^  erident,  must 
always  depend  for  their  success,  not  only  on  the  merit  of  those  who 
engage  in  them,  but  on  something  of  good  fortune  in  the  conjuncture 
of  circumstances  in  which  they  are  attempted. 


124  LECTURE  Vn. 

It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  read  this  particular  portion  of  the 
French  history  without  sensations  of  the  most  painful  kind.  How- 
ever imperfect  might  be  the  character  of  Marcel  and  his  associates, 
some  great  eifort  was  on  this  occasion  evidently  made  for  the  demo- 
cratic part  of  the  constitution  of  France.  It  failed  ;  and  as  we  read 
the  history,  we  are  left  with  an  impression  on  our  minds,  that  the 
French  sovereigns  will,  from  this  time,  endeavour  to  carry  on  the 
administration  of  the  government  without  the  assistance  of  any  repre- 
sentative assemblies,  that  is,  without  any  control  or  check  on  their 
own  power,  —  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  people'  are  henceforward 
to  be  oppressed,  and  the  sovereign  to  be,  by  his  very  situation,  cor- 
rupted :  a  state  of  things  disgraceful  to  both,  and  even  dangerous ; 
dangerous,  because,  whenever  any  system  of  policy  is  arranged  in  any 
manner  directly  opposed  to  the  reason  and  feelings  of  mankind,  it  can 
never  be  in  a  state  of  safety.  Nothing  is  really  secure  that  is  not  io 
harmony  with  the  great  and  established  moral  feelings  of  the  human 
heart.  The  shghtest  accident  may  give  occasion  to  the  most  violent 
efforts  for  its  overthrow ;  and  such  efforts  are  likely  to  be  attended 
with  the  destruction  of,  at  least,  all  those  who  were  too  exclusively 
benefited  by  a  disposition  of  things  in  itself  unnatural  and  unjust. 

Considerations,  indeed,  of  this  remote  and  contingent  nature,  I 
grieve  to  say,  are  little  likely  to  influence  the  rulers  of  mankind,  or 
the  higher  orders.  General  principles  like  these  may  slumber  (if  I 
may  be  allowed  the  expression)  for  centuries,  and  then  be  roused  into 
action  in  an  instant.  Mankind,  on  these  occasions,  stand  astonished 
at  what  has  been  long  foreseen  to  be  very  possible,  by  every  intelli- 
gent reasoner ;  just  as  they  stand  amazed  at  the  first  eruption  of  a 
volcano,  which  the  philosopher  has,  from  physical  appearances, 
always  predicted,  in  vain  protesting  against  the  erection  of  palaces 
and  villas  in  situations  w^here  they  are  every  moment  exposed  to  be 
buried  in  ashes  or  annihilated  by  lava. 

In  this  manner,  in  France,  the  great  national  bodies  which  had  ex- 
isted under  Charlemagne,  the  assembhes  of  the  fields  of  March  and 
May,  were  succeeded  by  no  adequate  representation  of  the  force  of 
the  community ;  and  the  States-General  that  were  convened  by 
Philip  le  Bel  and  the  house  of  Valois  were  but  imperfect  and  fading 
images  of  their  greatness. 

In  England,  on  the  contrary,  the  national  assemblies  never  lost 
their  importance ;  the  Witenagemotes  were  succeeded  by  Parlia- 
ments, these  by  assemblies  of  the  Lords  and  Commons  in  two  distinct 
houses,  and  the  civil  liberties  of  the  community  were  thus,  and  thus 
only,  saved  from  destruction. 

The  States-General  of  France  had  been,  as  we  have  already  inti- 
mated, resisted,  overcome,  and,  in  fact,  disposed  of  by  John  and  the 
Dauphin.  The  latter  mounted  the  throne  with  the  title  of  Charles 
the  Fifth.     In  consequence  of  the  late  contest,  every  thing  was  sub- 


FRANCE.  125 

mitted  to  his  will.  But  what  was  the  result  ?  What  use  did  he 
make  of  his  power?  Did  it  occur  to  him,  that  he  ought  to  be  a 
patriot  as  well  as  a  king ;  that  he  should  endeavour,  not  to  extin- 
guish, but  rather  to  modify,  the  power  of  the  States-General ;  that 
he  should  endeavour  to  establish,  by  a  proper  mixture  of  royal  and 
popular  authority,  the  glory  of  his  own  name  and  the  happiness  of 
his  subjects ;  that  he  should  labor  to  elevate  them  from  the  state  of 
ignorance  and  ferocity  in  which  they  were  evidently  sunk ;  that  he 
should  allow  them,  if  not  to  exercise  power  themselves,  to  delegate 
their  power  to  others  ;  that  he  should  teach  them  the  feelings  of\u- 
nianity,  by  admitting  them  to  the  exercise  of  the  rights  of  it  ?  Did 
considerations  of  this  reasonable  nature  occur  to  him  ?  Was  it  in 
this  manner  that  this  renowned  politician  was  employed,  from  his  first 
accession  to  power  ?  Far  otherwise.  His  wisdom  was  exclusively 
exerted  in  confirming  and  extending  the  prerogative  of  the  cro^vn,  in 
laboring  to  destroy  the  authority  of  the  States,  and  in  deceiving  his 
subjects  into  that  most  fatal  of  all  political  delusions,  that  "  whatever 
is  best  administered  is  best "  ;  in  persuading  them,  in  contriving  that 
they  should  persuade  themselves,  that  as  he  had  foiled  and  over- 
powered the  English  by  the  prudence  of  his  military  operations,  as 
he  had  swept  away  from  the  country  the  banditti  by  which  it  was  pil- 
laged, as  there  was  no  point  which  he  seemed  to  carry  by  cruelty-  or 
by  force,  that  therefore,  in  this  happier  state  of  things,  it  was  he,  the 
king,  who  was  assuredly  the  father  of  his  country  ;  and  that  it  was 
of  no  consequence  what  became  of  the  States-General,  the  right  of 
taxation,  the  principles  of  the  constitution,  or  any  other  right  or 
principle  whatever,  while  Marcel  and  his  Parisian  mob  were  not  de- 
stroying the  public  peace,  nor  the  English,  the  peasants,  or  the 
banditti,  the  public  prosperity,  —  while,  in  short,  all  the  efects  of  the 
happiest  form  of  government  and  the  most  legitimate  authority  were 
produced  by  the  easier  exercise  of  his  individual  wisdom  and  experi 
ence,  benevolence  and  justice. 

Let  no  nation  presume  to  blame  the  French  for  submitting  to  con. 
siderations  or  acquiescing  in  reasonings  like  these.  No  nation  has 
ever  risen  superior  to  delusions  so  natural  and  soothing.  It  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  say  that  Charles  succeeded  in  all  the  objects  of  his  ad- 
ministration ;  and  he  and  his  courtiers  contemplated,  no  doubt,  with 
the  most  sincere  complacency  and  applause,  the  dexterity  with  which 
he  wielded  the  minds  of  men  to  his  purposes,  and  the  gradual  decay 
of  all  those  forms  and  principles  in  their  government  which  were 
likely  to  be  offensive  or  troublesome  (as  they  would  have  called  it) 
to  the  influence  and  authority  of  the  wearer  of  the  crovra. 

Was  it,  however,  virtuous,  was  it,  after  all,  wise,  in  the  king  and 
his  courtiers,  thus  to  deceive  their  country  and  destroy  its  constitu- 
tion ?  The  history  of  the  succeeding  reign  is  no  testimony  in  their 
favor.     And  as  Charies  the  Wise  (for  such  he  was  denominated),  — 


126  LECTUIIE  VII. 

as  Charles  the  Wise  approached  that  melancholy  period  of  decay  and 
death,  when  worldly  wisdom  is  but  too  apt  to  appear  mistaken  folly, 
the  politician  discovered  that  his  son  was  a  minor,  that  the  princes 
of  the  blood  were  disunited  and  ambitious,  that  the  general  prosperity 
of  the  nation  and  of  his  royal  house  had  been  left  to  depend  totally 
on  his  own  personal  management  and  prudence,  and  that,  therefore, 
every  interest  that  was  dear  to  him,  as  a  father  or  a  king,  would,  in 
the  event,  be  thrown  into  a  situation  of  perplexity  and  danger,  from 
the  moment  that  he  himself  expired. 

With  what  sentiments  are  "we  to  see  him  summoning  his  brothers 
around  him,  portioning  out  his  authority  among  them,  laboring  to 
provide  for  the  welfare  of  his  child  and  his  kingdom,  by  the  vain  ex- 
pedient of  promises  and  oaths?  He  had  no  States-General,  no 
legislative  assemblies,  whom  he  had  familiarized  to  their  own  par- 
ticular duties,  whom  he  had  allowed  to  exercise  along  with  himself 
the  administration  of  the  public  happiness,  whom  he  had  taught  to  see 
in  the  royal  authority  the  best  security  and  protection  of  their  own,  — 
he  had  no  guardians  like  these  to  whom  he  could  intrust  his  son,  or 
the  helpless,  hopeless  expedients  of  oaths  and  promises  had  been  un- 
necessary. 

"  Charles,"  says  the  historian  Villaret,  "  charged  his  brothers  to 
abolish  the  impositions  he  had  laid  on  his  subjects,  and  signed  an 
order  for  the  purpose  the  very  day  that  he  died  ;  occupied,"  continues 
this  writer,  "  with  the  happiness  of  the  state  and  the  relief  of  his  peo- 
ple even  when  he  was  himself  on  the  confines  of  the  tomb  ! "  A 
base  or  shallow  panegyric,  this,  in  the  historian,  which  would  have 
been  better  deserved,  if  the  monarch  had  not  robbed  that  people  of 
their  right  to  tax  themselves  by  discontinuing  and  destroying  their 
national  assemblies. 

But  on  what  principle  was  it  that  Charles  thus  remitted  his  taxes 
when  sinking  into  the  grave  ?  Was  he  conscious,  when  too  late,  of 
the  injury  he  had  done  his  country  by  imposing  them  on  his  own  au- 
thority ?  Did  he  wish  in  this  manner  to  attach  the  people  to  his 
child  ?  On  either  supposition,  what  a  lesson  to  those  who  favor  the 
maxims  of  arbitrary  power  ! 

The  genius  of  Charles  had  been  devoted  to  the  establishment  of 
the  power  of  the  crown ;  and  the  nation  who  called  him  wise,  and  the 
prince  to  whom  he  was  a  father,  were  soon  to  reap  the  effects  of 
what  was  esteemed  his  policy,  in  seeing  their  country  without  order 
and  without  law,  destroyed  by  the  factions  of  the  royal  family,  and 
subdued  by  a  foreign  invader. 

The  next  reign  in  the  history,  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Sixth,  is 
ushered  in  by  Villaret  with  the  deepest  lamentations  over  the  miseries 
he  is  going  to  relate.  The  king,  yet  a  minor,  abandoned,  he  says, 
the  reins  of  government  to  the  princes  of  the  blood  by  turns,  — 
princes  whom  ambition,  he  says,  and  no  love  to  their  country,  im 


FRANCE.  12T 

polled  to  undertake  the  administration  of  government.  From  whom, 
it  may  be  asked,  were  they  to  have  learned  this  love  of  their  coun- 
try ?  From  the  deceased  monarch  ?  He  had  taught  no  lessons  but 
those  of  arbitrary  power.  From  the  free  constitution  of  their  coun- 
try ?  It  had  been  corrupted  till  it  was  unfit  for  the  production  of 
patriots.  — "  The  furious  people,"  says  the  historian,  "were  eager 
for  their  own  destruction,  and  as  little  under  the  coijtrol  of  reason  as 
their  unhappy  monarch."  What  efforts,  it  may  be  observed,  had 
ever  been  made  to  render  them  otherwise?  —  "The  corruption," 
says  the  historian,  "  was  deep  and  general."  It  is  ever  thus,  it  may 
be  answered,  in  an  arbitrary  government ;  and  a  frightful  spectacle 
is  always  presented,  whenever,  by  any  accident  or  calamity,  the  veil 
is  withdrawn.  — "  One  step  more,"  he  adds,  "  and  France  had  been 
lost,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  had  become  the  province  of  our 
eternal  rivals."  And  so  might  every  kingdom,  constituted  as  France 
then  was.  There  is  no  real  security  against  an  invading  enemy  but 
a  government  which,  by  its  equitable  laws  and  popular  forms,  has 
been  incorporated  with  the  habits  and  opinions  and  affections  of  the 
people. 

The  earlier  part  of  this  reign,  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Sixth, 
the  king  who  was  afflicted  with  temporary  fits  of  insanity,  is  interest- 
ing, like  that  of  his  renowned  father,  and  for  a  similar  reason,  a 
renewal  of  the  contest  between  the  crown  and  the  people.  The 
student  should  again  compare  the  narrative  of  Yillaret  with  the 
philosophic  estimate  of  Mably.  The  facts  are  in  both  the  same, 
yet  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  different  are  the  conclusions  which 
we  are  taught  to  draw  from  them  by  these  two  different  writers. 
The  one  conceives,  and  justly  conceives,  that  the  constitution  of  a 
great  kingdom  is  seen  in  these  transactions  to  pass  through  its 
changes  of  trial  and  settlement ;  the  other  finds  in  them  little  but 
the  insurrections  of  a  licentious  metropolis,  encountered  and  sub- 
dued by  its  lawful,  though  rapacious,  rulers. 

I  have  already  intimated  to  you  the  inference  that  is  to  be  drawn 
from  all  the  past  transactions  between  the  crown  and  the  people  of 
France.  The  same  is  the  inference  from  all  that  you  are  to  ap- 
proach :  the  difference  between  cunning  and  wisdom,  between  paltry 
policy  and  hberal  prudence,  between  mean,  jealous,  contracted, 
tricking  sagacity,  and  a  pure,  enlarged,  enlightened  benevolence,  — 
the  difference  between  these,  and  the  superiority  of  the  latter  to  the 
former,  even  upon  the  principles  of  mere  selfish  policy,  and  though 
the  calls  of  humanity  and  duty  had  no  claim  to  be  heard. 

Observe  the  conduct  and  views  of  all  the  different  actors  in  the 
scene,  at  the  period  that  is  n»w  coming  before  us. 

The  royal  counsellors,  the  princes  of  the  blood,  instead  of  con- 
forming to  the  will  of  the  late  monarch,  and  abolishing  the  imposi- 
tions, and  then  summoning  the   States-General,  in  order  to  obtain 


128  LECTURE  VII. 

a  constitutional  supply,  omitted  every  measure  of  this  salutary 
nature,  and  then  found  themselves  reminded  of  their  duty,  and  com- 
pelled to  the  performance  of  it,  by  .the  cries  and  insurrections  of  the 
people. 

The  States-General,  in  their  turn,  when  assembled,  instead  qf- 
granting  liberally,  and  teaching  the  crown  the  real  policy  of  apply- 
ing to  them,  —  ii\^tead  of  taking,  at  all  events,  the  opportunity  of 
making  some  efforts  to  regain  their  place  in  the  constitution,  appear 
to  have  been  totally  unconscious  of  their  situation,  and  neither  by 
their  kindness  to  the  crown,  nor  by  any  spirit  of  enterprise  for  the 
people,  to  have  made  the  slightest  attempt  to  approve  themselves 
worthy  of  their  trust. 

Again,  the  States  were  no  sooner  separated,  than  the  Duke  of 
Anjou  once  more  renewed  his  attempt  to  establish  arbitrary  imposi- 
tions, that  is,  once  more  exposed  himself  and  his  royal  house  to  the 
chances  of  tumult  and  insurrection.  He  was  in  consequence  obliged 
again  to  summon  the  States-General. 

Now  what  was  the  conduct  of  the  bailliages  that  were  to  return 
their  deputies  to  this  assembly  ?  Some  of  them  sent  no  deputies  at 
all,  supposing  that  they  shoidd  have  no  taxes  to  pay,  inasmuch  as 
they  had  not  consented  to  any ;  the  rest  declared,  that,  after  having 
consulted  with  their  constituents,  they  were  not  authorized  to  con- 
sent to  any,  and  were,  on  the  contrary,  ordered  to  announce  that 
they  would  rather  try  the  hazard  of  every  extremity.  In  other 
words,  the  people  of  France  could  not  see  that  the  only  way  to  be 
permanently  secure  from  unreasonable  taxation  was  to  tax  them- 
selves through  the  medium  of  their  representative  assembhes.  They 
could  not  discover,  that,  when  the  domains  of  the  crown  were  no 
longer  productive,  the  monarch  had  a  right  to  expect  some  assist- 
ance from  his  subjects.  They  were  occupied  only  with  the  care  of 
their  own  interests,  as  they  supposed,  —  with  their  own  narrow,  and 
therefore  mistaken,  views  of  selfish  cunning.  Some  of  these  baillia- 
ges could  not  discover  that  they  must  all  be  pillaged  and  ruined, 
unless  they  acted  in  concert,  and  unless  they  at  least  appeared 
together  in  the  shape  of  an  assembly ;  and  the  whole  country,  not- 
withstanding the  experience  of  the  last  reign,  could  not,  it  seems, 
understand  that  the  public  cause  would  thus  be  left  once  more  to 
the  insurrections  of  the  metropolis,  from  which  nothing  could  be 
expected  but  anarchy  the  most  savage,  if  triumphant,  or  slavery  the 
most  desperate,  if  unsuccessful. 

As  if  to  complete  the  sum  total  of  national  folly,  the  clergy,  from 
whom  better  might  have  been  expected,  considering  the  superiority 
of  their  education,  conceived  that  they  were  following  their  own 
interests  by  negotiating  with  the  crown  and  making  a  separate  bar  • 
gain. 

The  scene,  however,  soon  miserably  changed.  •  A  successful  ex- 


FRANCE.  129 

pedition  against  the  Flemings  and  a  victorious  anny  enabled  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy,  one  of  the  royal  council,  to  return  to  Paris  and 
to  settle  all  constitutional  discussions  by  the  sword.  Every  profes- 
sion and  promise  to  the  subject,  every  agreement  that  had  been 
made  with  the  States-General  at  any  former  period,  was  set  at 
naught,  Paris  treated  as  a  conquered  city,  its  citizens  drawn  out 
(some  of  the  most  respectable)  and  pubHcly  executed,  and  its 
calamities  held  out  as  an  example  to  every  other  description  of  the 
people,  to  prove  that  the  royal  authority  was  not  to  be  resisted,  and 
that  their  franchises,  their  customs,  and  their  rights  were  all  to  be 
of  no  account,  ^vhen  opposed  to  the  sovereign  will  of  the  prince. 

How  far  these  royal  counsellors  befriended  their  own  interests, 
how  far  they  thus  protected  themselves  from  the  consequences  of 
their  own  dissensions,  by  leaving  no  power  to  exist  which  they  re- 
spected, —  how  far  they  thus  allowed  the  people  to  be  even  worth 
their  pillaging,  by  depriving  them  of  the  rewards  of  industry, — how 
far  they  thus  enabled  the  country  to  resist  the  English,  and  how  far 
they  therefore  consulted  their  own  individual  consequence,  —  how 
far  they  acted  skilfully,  even  on  the  most  disgusting  principles  of 
selfishness  and  baseness,  to  say  nothing  of  their  duty  to  their  king, 
their  country,  their  Creator,  —  how  far  they  were  wise,  even  accord- 
ing to  their  own  unworthy  estimate  of  wisdom,  —  and  how  far  1:he 
late  monarch,  so  renowned  for  his  wisdom,  had  been  wise  also,  —  the 
student  will  have  ample  opportunity  of  considering,  when  he  comes 
to  survey  the  melancholy  scenes  w^hich,  in  the  history  of  France,  are 
now  opening  to  his  view. 

These  scenes  can  be  little  described  by  the  words  of  a  lecture ; 
they  cannot  be  conveyed  to  a  reader  even  by  an  historian.  They 
are  to  be  comprised,  indeed,  under  the  general  terms  of  "  The  dissen- 
sions between  the  rival  houses  of  Burgundy  and  Orleans  and  the  suc- 
cesses of  the  English."  But  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  such  was 
the  exasperation  of  these  two  great  parties  in  the  state,  and  such  the 
consequences  of  the  inroads  of  their  English  invaders,  that  men  seemed 
no  longer  to  retain  the  proper  characteristics  of  their  nature,  and  these 
annals  of  the  French  nation  present  only  a  continued  succession  of  assas- 
sinations, massacres,  and  executions ;  and  when  to  these  are  added  the 
coronation  of  a  foreign  enemy  (our  own  Henry  the  Fifth*),  the  long 
possession  of  France  by  the  English,  the  ravage,  the  desolation,  that 
were  the  attendants  of  such  domestic  and  foreign  war,  the  whole  forms 
together  a  darkened  scene,  which  no  human  being,  of  whatever  nation, 
can  now  contemplate  without  the  most  perfect  affliction  and  horror ;  the 
very  historian  might  adopt  the  words  of  our  great  dramatic  poet :  — 

"  Alas,  poor  country  s 
Almost  afraid  to  know  itself  I  —  where  nothing, 
But  who  knew  nothing,  was  once  seen  to  smile ; 

*  Henry  the  Sixth,  crowned  at  Paris,  December  1 7, 1431 .    L'Art  de  T^rifier  les  Djrtei 
(Paris,  1818),  Tom.  vi.  p.  89,  Tom.  vii.  p.  145.    See  also  the  historians  generaUy.  — tf. 

17 


IMh  LECTURE  Vn. 

Where  sighs,  and  groans,  and  shrieks  that  rent  the  air 
"Were  made,  not  marked,  —  the  dead  man's  knell 
Was  there  scarce  asked,  for  who  ;  and  good  men's  lives 
Expired  before  the  flowers  in  their  caps, 
Dying  or  ere  they  sickened." 

Tlie  lesson  of  the  whole  I  have  intimated  to  you,  and  I  proceed  to 
other  considerations.  —  Our  own  Henry  the  Fifth  had  been  crowned 
king  of  France  in  the  French  capital ;  yet  was  France  at  last,  after 
a<  bloody  conflict  of  thirty  years,  enabled  to  expel  the  English ;  and 
one  acceptable  conclusion  from  the  whole  may  at  length  be  drawn,^ 
—  that  a  country  is  never  to  be  despaired  of,  and  that  the  disadvan- 
tages of  invaders  are  so  permanent  and  irremediable,  that,  in  any 
tolerable  comparison  of  strength,  all  foreign  invaders  must,  sooner  or 
later,  meet  with  their  just  overthrow,  if  a  suffering  nation  can  but 
endure  its  trial.  From  such  sufferings,  however,  in  this  instance  of 
France,  there  was  one  result,  and  that  of  the  most  melancholy  na*? 
ture  :  the  constitution  of  France  was  lost. 

After  the  decease  of  the  unhappy  Charles  the  Sixth,  whom  we 
have  just  mentioned,  the  English  were  expelled  by  his  son,  Charles 
the  Seventh.  Charles  the  Seventh  is  the  monarch  who  was  crowned 
by  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  a  heroine  in  the  recital  of  whose  noble  and 
matchless  exploits  history  appears  to  be  converted  into  romance,  and 
whoSe  merits  were  so  great  as  to  be  thought  supernatural  by  her 
contemporaries.  But  the  enemies  of  France  were  no  sooner  driven- 
from  her  fields,  than  the  prerogatives  of  the  crown  were  necessarily 
strengthened,  and  a  far  more  fatal,  because  a  far  more  lasting,  en* 
emy  than  the  English  succeeded  in  the  person  of  the  sovereign 
himself,  in  the  person  of  Charles  the  Seventh.  Here  was  again 
another  instance  of  the  still  recurring  ill  fortune  of  the  constitution 
of  France.  How  was  the  nation  to  resist  a  prince  whom  they  had 
themselves  rescued  from  the  English,  and  whom  the^,  rather  than 
any  spirit  of  enterprise  in  his  own  nature,  had  enabled  to  win  his 
crown  ?  What  blessing  could  now  be  made  either  desirable  or  intel- 
ligible to  Frenchmen,  but  that  of  peace  and  repose  ?  What  could 
there  be  of  alarm  or  terror  in  the  prerogative  of  the  crown,  to  those 
who  had  seen  an  invader  on  the  throne  ?  Before  the  ministers  of 
the  power  of  Charles,  to  the  afflicted  imagination  of  the  French 
people,  must  have  walked  the  spectres  of  their  slaughtered  country- 
men, and  the  frowning  warriors  of  England ;  and  slavery  itself,  if  it 
was  not  foreign  slavery,  must  to  them  have  appeared  a  state  of  hap- 
piness and  triumph. 

That  fatal  measure,  fatal  for  the  liberties  of  His  country,  was  now 
taken  by  Charles  the  Seventh,  by  which  his  reign  must  be  for  ever 
distinguished,  —  the  establishment  of  a  military  force,  and  the  allot- 
ment of  a  perpetual  tax  for  the  support  of  it,  unchecked  by  any 
representative  assembly.  This  mihtary  force  and  tax  might  not  be 
foomdable  ia  their  first  appearance ;  but,  the  principle  once  admit* 


FRANCE.  m 

ted,  both  the  force  and  the  tax  were  easily  advanced,  step  by  step, 
to  any  extent  that  suited  the  views  of  each  succeeding  monarch. 
Excuses,  and  even  reasonable  considerations  (reasonable  to  those 
who  see  not  the  importance  of  a  precedent  and  a  principle),  can 
never  be  wanting  on  these  occasions:  they  were  not  wanting  on 
this. 

It  should  be  observed,  that  this  vital  blow  to  the  real  greatness  of 
France  was  introduced  as  a  reform.  If  any  of  those  who  were  livin'» 
at  the  time  had  spoken  of  the  probable  conseqttenees  of  such  a  prece- 
dent, and  had  insisted  upon  its  danger  to  the  best  interests  of  their 
country,  they  would  only  have  been  disregarded  or  suspected  of  dis- 
loyalty. But  no  stronger  instance  can  be  given,  if  any  were  neces- 
sary, of  the  importance  of  a  principle  at  all  times  ;  a  precedent  may 
no:  oe  often  carried  into  all  its  consequences,  when  favorable  to  the 
liberties  of  a  country,  but  it  always  is,  when  it  is  otherwise. 

Even  in  a  French  historian  like  Villaret,  the  detail  of  this  great 
measure  is  very  instructive.  It  is  very  instructive  to  see  the  manner 
in  which  a  nation,  from  a  sense  of  present  uneasiness,  forgets,  as  it 
is  always  disposed  to  do,  all  its  more  remote  and  essential  interests  ; 
and  the  more  this  memorable  transaction  could  be  examined,  the 
more  complete  and  striking  would,  no  doubt,  be  found  the  lesson 
which  it  affords. 

When  this  military  force  and  tax  had  been  once  established,  and 
both  removed  (which  is  the  important  pomt)  entirely  from  all  check 
and  control  by  any  other  legitimate  authority  in  the  state,  the  power 
of  the  crown  had  no  more  tempests  to  encounter ;  no  further  contest 
appears  in  the  succeeding  reigns ;  the  person  of  the  king  might  be 
insulted  or  endangered,  but  not  the  royal  authority.  We  hear  of  no 
more  struggles  for  the  privileges  of  the  people,  and  for  the  right  of 
taxation,  —  no  more  important  meetings  of  the  States-General ;  all 
hope,  at  least  all  assertion,  of  constitutional  liberty  was  at  an  end ; 
and  the  contentions  of  the  great,  who  were  alone  left  to  contend,  were 
directed  solely  to  the  questions  of  their  own  personal  ambition. 

If  any  hope  for  France  yet  remained,  it  expired  under  the  reign 
of  Louis  the  Eleventh,  the  son  and  successor  of  Charles.  This  prince 
was  of  all  others  the  most  fitted  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  his  coun- 
try: penetrating,  sagacious,  cautious,  well  Considering  the  propor- 
tion between  his  means  and  his  ends ;  a  finished  dissembler  of  liis 
own  interests  and  passions,  and  a  skilful  master  of  those  of  others ; 
decisive,  active,  and  entirely  devoid  of  principle  and  feeling.  The 
nobles  made  an  ineffectual  effort  to  retain  some  of  that  political 
power  which,  if  tihey  lost  it,  was  destined,  all  of  it,  to  fall  entirely 
into  the  possession  of  the  crown ;  and  this  eflbrt  was  made  in  the  ^\ar 
for  the  Public  Good,  as  they  affected  to  call  it.  But  Louis  contrived 
to  cajole,  overpower,  or  wield  to  the  purposes  of  his  ambition  the  king 
of  England,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  the  Swiss.    He  increased 


132  LECTURE  Vn. 

the  standing  army,  raised  the  taille  to  the  most  enormous  amount, 
made  this  tax  a  step  to  the  introduction  of  other  imposts,  reunited 
many  important  fiefs  to  the  crown ;  and,  if  men  could  acquire  glory 
by  the  successful  enterprises  of  ungenerous  ambition,  —  if  happiness 
could  be  the  consequence  of  cruelty  and  oppression,  deceit  and 
fraud,  —  if  any  treasures  or  any  possessions  could  be  compared  with 
the  consciousness  of  being  loved  and  respected,  —  then,  indeed,  Louis 
the  Eleventh  might  have  been  thought  the  renowned,  the  powerful, 
and  the  happy ;  and  this  detestable  tyrant  might  have  been  held  up 
by  courtiers  and  courtly  writers  as  the '  envy  of  all  succeeding 
monarchs.  A  different  conclusion  is,  however,  to  be  drawn  from,  the 
picture  of  his  hfe  and  character,  which,  fortunately,  has  been  exhibited 
to  us  by  Philip  de  Comines,  a  faithful  and  confidential  minister,  who 
knew  him  thoroughly,  and  who  appears  even  to  have  been  attached 
to  liis  person  and  memory,  in  defiance  of  his  better  judgment,  by  the 
influence  of  the  kind  treatment  which  he  had  personally  received 
from  him,  as  his  master. 

The  king,  it  seems,  successful  in  his  intrigues,  unresisted  in  his 
oppressions,  and  with  nothing  further  to  apprehend  from  his  rivals  or 
■  his  enemies,  was  at  last  admonished  of  the  frailty  of  all  human  grand- 
eur by  messengers  far  more  ominous  and  dreadful  than  the  couriers 
and  officers  that  announce  the  miscarriage  of  ambitious  projects  or 
the  defeats  of  invading  armies ;  he  was  seized  by  a  first  and  then  a 
second  fit  of  epilepsy,  so  violent  and  long,  that  he  lay  without  speech, 
and  apparently  without  hfe,  till  his  attendants  concluded  that  he  was 
no  more.  To  life,  indeed,  he  returned,  but  all  the  comforts  of  exist- 
ence were  gone  for  ever.  "  The  king  returned  to  Tours,"  says 
the  historian  Comines,  (I  quote  his  own  artless  words,)  "  and  kept 
himself  so  close,  that  very  few  were  admitted  to  see  him ;  for  he  was 
grown  jealous  of  all  his  courtiers,  and  afraid  they  would  either  de- 
pose or  deprive  him  of  some  part  of  his  regal  authority.  He  did 
many  odd  things,  which  made  some  beheve  his  senses  were  a  httle 
impaired ;  but  they  knew  not  his  humors.  As  to  his  jealousy,  aU 
princes  are  prone  to  it,  especially  those  who  are  wise,  have  many 
enemies,  and  have  oppressed  many  people,  as  our  master  had  done. 
Besides,  he  found  he  was  not  beloved  by  the  nobility  of  the  king- 
dom, nor  many  of  the  commons,  for  he  had  taxed  them  more  than 
any  of  his  predecessors,  though  he  now  had  some  thoughts  of  easing 
them,  as  I  said  before  ;  but  he  should  have  begun  sooner.  Nobody 
was  admitted  into  the  place  where  he  kept  himself  but  his  domestic 
servants,  and  his  archers,  which  were  four  hundred,  some  of  which 
kept  constant  guard  at  the  gate,  while  others  w^alked  continually 
about  to  prevent  its  being  surprised.  Round  about  the  castle  he 
caused  a  lattice,  or  iron  gate,  to  be  set  up,  spikes  of  iron  planted  in 
the  wall,  and  a  kind  of  crow's-feet,  with  several  points,  to  be  placed 
along  the  ditch,  wherever  there  was  a  possibility  for  any  person  to 


FRANCE.  188 

enter .^  Besides  which,  he  caused  four  watchhouses  to  be  made,  all  of 
thick  iron,  and  full  of  holes,  out  of  which  they  might  shoot  at  their 
pleasure,  in  which  he  placed  forty  of  his  crossbows,  who  were  to  be 
upon  the^  guard  night  and  day.  He  left  no  person  of  whom  he  had 
any  suspicion  either  in  town  or  country,  but  he  sent  his  archers  not 
only  to  warn,  but  to  conduct  them  away.  To  look  upon  him,  one 
would  have  thought  him  rather  a  dead  than  a  living  man.  No 
person  durst  ask  a  favor,  or  scarce  speak  to  him  of  any  thing. 
He  inflicted  very  severe  punishments,  removed  officers,  disbanded 
soldiers." 

Such  is  the  picture  of  the  historian.  The  tyrant  of  the  poet  13 
described  only  more  concisely :  — 

"  He  had  lived  long  enough :  his  way  of  life 
Was  fallen  into  the  sear,  the  yellow  leaf: 
And  that  which  should  accompany  old  age, 
As  honor,  love,  obedience,  troops  of  friends, 
He  could  not  look  to  have ;  but,  in  their  stead, 
Curses,  not  loud,  but  deep,  mouth-honor,  breath, 
Which  the  poor  heart  would  fain  deny,  but  dare  not." 

By  clothes  more  rich  and  magnificent  than  before,  —  by  passing 
his  time  in  subjecting  those  around  him  to  every  variety  of  fortune, 
to  the  changes  of  his  smile  and  of  his  frown,  —  by  filling  distant 
countries  with  his  agents,  to  purchase  for  him  rarities,  which,  when 
brought  to  him,  he  heeded  not,  —  by  every  strange  and  ridiculous 
expedient  that  his  uneasy  fancy  could  devise,  —  by  all  this  idle 
bustle  and  parade  of  royalty  and  power,  did  this  helpless,  wretched 
man  endeavour  to  conceal  from  the  world  and  himself  the  horrid 
characters  of  death  which  were  visible  on  his  frame,  the  fearful 
handwriting  which  had  told  him  that  his  kingdom  was  departing 
from  him.  In  vain  did  he  send  for  the  holy  man  of  Calabria,  and, 
on  his  approach,  "  fall  down,"  says  the  historian,  "  upon  his  knees 
before  him,  and  beg  him  to  prolong  his  life."  In  vain  was  the  holy 
vial  brought  from  Rheims,  the  vest  of  St.  Peter  sent  him  by  the 
Pope.  "  Whatever  was  thought  conducible  to  his  health,"  saja 
Philip  de  Comines,  "  was  sent  to  him  from  all  comers  of  the  world." 
"  His  subjects  trembled  at  his  nod,"  he  observes,  "  and  whatever  he 
commanded  was  executed."  But  it  was  in  vain.  He  could  indeed 
"command  the  beggar's  knee,"  but  not  "the  health  of  it";  and, 
suspicious  of  every  one,  —  of  his  son-in-law,  his  daughter,  and  his 
own  son  ;  having  turned  his  palace  into  a  prison  for  himself,  —  into  a 
cage,  not  unlike  those  which  in  his  hours  of  cruelty  he  had  made  for 
others ;  insulted  by  his  physician,  and  considered  by  Jiis  faithful 
minister  as  expiating,  by  his  torments  in  this  world,  the  crimes  which, 
as  he  says,  would  otherwise  have  brought  down  upon  him  the  pimisb- 
ments  of  the  Almighty  in  the  next,  this  poor  king,  for  such  we  are 
reduced  at  last  to  call  him,  expired  in  his  castle,  a  memorable  exam- 
ple, that,  whatever  be  the  station  or  the  success,  nothing  can  com- 

L 


IH  LECTURE  ym. 

pensate  for  the  want  of  innocence,  and  that,  amid  the  intrigues  of 
cunning  and  the  projects  of  ambition,  the  first  policy  which  is  to  be 
learned  is  the  policy  of  virtue. 


LECTURE   VIIL 


SPAIN,  ITALY,  GERMANY,  SWITZERLAND. 

In  my  last  lecture  I  endeavoured  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
constitutional  history  of  France.  I  did  so,  because  this  is  one  of  the 
first  objects  of  importance  in  the  history  of  Europe,  from  the  eflfects 
which  that  great  kingdom  has  always  been  fitted,  from  its  situation 
and  natural  advantages,  to  produce  upon  every  other.  Such  must 
always  have  been  the  influence  of  its  arms  and  its  example,  that  it  i« 
not  too  much  to  say,  that  the  history  of  the  civilized  world  would 
have  been  changed,  and  most  favorably  changed,  if  France  had  not 
)  jst  its  constitutional  fiber  ties,  and  sunk  into  an  arbitrary  monarchy. 

But  the  same  subject  is  of  great  interest  to  ourselves,  from  the 
illustration  which  it  affords  of  the  merits  and  the  good  fortune  of  our 
ancestors.  This  island  lost  not  its  liberties  in  Uke  manner,  because 
it  retained  its  pubfic  assembfies,  and  because  they  retained  the  right 
of  taxation. 

How,  therefore,  or  why,  arose  this  difference  in  the  fate  of  the  two 
kingdoms  ? 

It  is  this  question  that  I  am  so  anxious  that  you  should  bear  along 
with  you  in  your  thoughts,  while  you  read  the  annals  of  every  other 
country  of  Europe ;  and  the  more  strongly  to  impress  it  on  your 
minds,  I  pointed  out  to  you,  in  my  last  lecture,  a  mry  remarkable 
epoch  in  the  French  history,  during  which  there  was  evidently  some 
great  effort  made  for  the  constitution  of  France  by  the  members  of 
the  States-General,  and  particularly  by  the  thkd  estate,  and  by  Mar- 
cel and  the  Parisians.  I  next  alluded  to  those  parts  of  the  subse- 
quent reigns,  when  the  liberties  of  that  country  were  more  slowly 
undermined,  but  -not  less  fatally  attacked,  particularly  dui'ing  the 
times  of  Charles  the  Seventh  and  Louis  tlie  Eleventh 

De  Mably  will  always  apprise  you,  by  the  tone  and  nature  of  his 
observations,  what  are  the  transactions  and  what  the  periods  of  im- 
portance ;  and  these  you  should  examine,  tiirougk  all  their  detail,  ia 
some  of  the  great  French  liistorians :  I  have  found  the  History  of 
Yelly  the  moat  elaborate  and  complete.     I  must  remind  you,  that 


St»MN.  135 

the  constitutional  history  of  France  is  noticed  hj  RoTjertson,  in  his 
introduction  to  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  his  text  is  accompanied  by 
three  valuable  notes,  the  thirty-eighth,  thirtj-ninth,  and  fortieth. 

But  the  same  question  which  I  have  thus  reconimended  to  yoti, 
with  respect  to  France  and  England,  an  inquiry  into  their  constitu- 
tional histories,  may  he  extended  to  the  other  kingdoms  of  Europe ; 
and  we  have  hitherto  said  nothing  of  Spain,  a  country  which,  lilce 
England,  might  have  obtained  a  free  and  mixed  government,  as  the 
elements  of  its  constitution  w^ere  originally  similar  (monarchy,  feudal 
lords,  and  national  assemhlies),  but  which,  like  France,  from  various 
untoward  circumstances,  lost  its  liberties,  and  has  had  to  descend, 
through  different  stages  of  degradation,  at  last  almost  to  extinction 
and  ruin. 

I  must  repeat  to  you,  before  w^e  advert  to  Spain,  that  it  is  only  hy 
inquiries  of  this  sort  into  the  histories  of  other  countries  that  jou 
'can  learn  properly  to  understand  how  slowly  a  good  government  can 
he  formed,  —  by  what  attention  and  anxiety  it  can  alone  be  main- 
tained, —  what  are  the  exact  points  of  diihculty  in  the  formation  of 
a  good  government,  —  and  the  manner  (often  the  singular  and  un- 
expected manner)  in  which  these  difficulties  are  evaded,  or  modified, 
or  overcome,  more  particularly  in  your  own. 

But  to  allude,  as  we  have  proposed,  to  the  history  of  Spain.  —  In 
the  fifth  volume  of  Gibbon  may  be  found  an  account  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  Moors  into  that  country,  of  their  settlement  there,  and  of 
the  magnificence  of  their  caliphs  ;  and  to  him  I  refer.  An  estimate 
is  also  given  of  the  science  and  knowledge  of  this  remarkable  people ; 
and  at  first  we  might  be  tempted  to  conclude,  that,  in  the  general 
darkness  and  barbarity  of  Europe,  the  fight  of  civilization  and  learn- 
ing was  destined  to  issue  from  the  Mahometan  capital  of  Cordova. 
But  the  science  and  knowledge  of  these  Arabians,  when  more  nearly- 
examined,  lose  much  of  their  importance ;  and  the  nature  of  their 
government  was  httle  fitted,  however  accompanied  by  science  and  the 
arts,  to  build  up,  either  in  Spain  or  in  other  countries,  the  fabric  of 
human  happiness.  Unfortunately,  too,  it  happened  that  a  long  suc- 
cession of  bloody  struggles  was  to  ensue  between  the  Christians  and 
the  Moors ;  and  all  hope  that  the  progress  of  society  should  be  ex- 
emplified in  Spain  became  on  that  account  extremely  feeble.  There 
is  something  in  these  wars  between  the  Christians  and  the  Moors  that 
has  a  sound  of  heroism  and  romance,  well  fitted  to  awaken  our  inter- 
est and  curiosity.  But  I  know  not  that  these  sentiments  can  now  be 
gratified,  or  extended,  beyond  the  poetry  and  the  legends  by  which 
they  have  been  inspired.  ^, 

The  great  historian  of  Spain  is  Mariana,  who  "has  infused,  saya 
Gibbon,  "  into  his  noble  work  the  style  and  spirit  of  a  Roman  ch\ssic. 
After  the  twelfth  century,  his  knowledge  and  judgment  may,'  he  o^ 
serves,  "  be  safely  trusted ;  but  he  adopts  and  adorns  the  most  absurd 


136  LECTURE  VIII. 

of  the  national  legends,  and  supplies  from  a  lively  fancy  the  chasms 
of  historical  evidence."  Roderick  Ximenes  —  not  the  statesman, 
though  also  an  archbishop  of  Toledo  —  is  the  father  of  Spanish  his- 
tory ;  yet  he  did  not  live  till  five  hundred  years  after  the  conquest 
of  the  x\rabs  ;  and  the  earlier  accounts  are,  it  seems,  very  meagre. 
But  the  work  of  Mariana,  with  the  continuation  of  Miniana,  consists 
of  four  volumes,  foHo,  and  will  now  be  more  often  mentioned  than 
consulted,  and  consulted  than  read.  There  is  an  Enghsh  translation 
of  it. 

I  must,  therefore,  observe,  that  great  diligence  appears  to  have 
been  employed  on  this  portion  of  history  by  the  authors  of  the  Mod- 
em History  ;  and  the  Spanish  historians  Mariana,  Ferreras,  Roderick, 
and  others,  are  continually  referred  to.  The  student  may,  therefore, 
consider  the  subject  as  placed  within  his  reach  by  the  detail  which 
he  will  find  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  volumes  of  the  Modem 
History.  But  it  is  a  detail  which,  however  great  may  be  its  interest 
in  chivalry  and  romance,  he  will  never  read  ;  and  he  will  probably 
cast  over  it  that  passing  glance  with  which  we  may  consent  to  survey 
such  sanguinary  scenes  in  the  history  of  mankind.  In  Mr.  Gibbon's 
Outlines,  published  in  the  second  volume  of  his  Memoirs,  there  are  a 
few  notices  of  this  part  of  the  Spanish  history,  which  will  enable  the 
student  to  hasten  through  the  narrative  in  the  Modem  History  with 
the  least  possible  expenditure  of  his  time. 

In  the  eleventh  century,  the  Christian  princes,  who  had  fallen  back 
upon  the  most  northern  parts  of  the  kingdom,  advanced  southward. 
They  were  encouraged  by  the  intestine  divisions  of  the  Mahometans, 
who  had  now  for  a  few  centuries  exhibited  their  superiority  in  war 
and  their  magnificence  in  peace. 

The  siege  of  Toledo,  and  the  exploits  of  the  Spanish  general,  Don 
Rodrigo  Diaz  de  Bivar,  form  the  next  objects  of  attention.  Rod- 
rigo  is  the  Cid  whom  history,  and  still  more  the  muse  of  Corneille, 
have  consigned  to  immortality.  There  has  been  a  history  of  the  Cid 
lately  published  by  Mr.  Southey. 

The  great  battle  of  Tolosa,  from  which  the  Moors  never  recovered, 
and  their  subsequent  stand  in  the  kingdom  of  Granada,  are  the  next 
points  of  importance.  About  this  time,  also,  flourished  the  king  Al- 
phonso,  who  is  remembered  rather  for  his  taste  and  knowledge  of 
astronomy  than  for  the  superiority  of  his  talents  in  government. 

For  some  time  the  Mahometan  kingdom  of  Granada,  and  the  four 
Christian  monarchies  of  Castile,  Aragon,  Navarre,  and  Portugal, 
were  distinguished  from  each  other,  each  retaining  its  respective  laws 
and  limits ;  and  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  is  the  union  of  the  crowns 
of  Castile  and  Aragon  under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and  the  de- 
fence, capitulation,  and  expulsion  of  the  Moors. 

Both  the  Christians  and  Moors,  in  the  course  of  this  great  con- 
test, had  similar  advantages  and  impediments:   f/iends  and  aUies 


SPAIN.  137 

behind  tliem ;  intestine  divisions ;  personal  bravery  and  love  of  glory, 
and  the  animation  of  religious  and  political  rage.  But  the  north  of 
Spain  was  more  fitted  than  the  south  to  produce  active  and  hardy 
warriors.  Among  the  Christians,  the  warlike  ardor  of  chivalry  was 
advancing  or  at  its  height :  on  the  contrary,  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
followers  of  Mahomet  had  now  spent  itself  in  conquest,  and  die 
fiercer  passions  of  their  nature  were  lost  in  the  blandishments  of 
pleasure ;  riches  and  luxury  had  probably  abated  their  fierceness 
without  adding  proportionably  to  their  skill  in  the  science  of  war : 
and,  finally,  the  Spaniards  were  fighting  for  a  country  of  which  they 
must  have  considered  themselves  as  the  rightful  possessors. 

The  narrative  of  Gibbon  and  the  detail  of  the  authors  of  the  Mod- 
em History  will  gradually  conduct  the  student  to  the  observations  of 
Dr.  Robertson  in  his  introductory  volume  to  the  History  of  Charles 
the  Fifth.  From  the  researches  of  this  excellent  historian,  he  will 
find,  that,  notwithstanding  the  conquests  of  the  Moors  and  the  lono" 
struggles  which  had  followed,  a  situation  of  things  obtained  similar  to 
what  he  has  observed  in  other  parts  of  Europe,  and  therefore  con- 
taining some  promise  of  subsequent  prosperity  and  freedom.  The 
Gothic  manners  and  laws  still  survived,  from  the  tolerance  of  the 
Moorish  conquerors ;  the  provinces  of  Spain,  having  been  slowly 
wrested  from  the  Moors,  were  divided  among  mihtary  leaders  ;  and 
the  feudal  lord  in  no  country  appeared  more  powerful  and  inde- 
pendent. 

The  same  causes  which  gave  rise  to  the  cities  in  other  parts  of  Eu- 
rope were  assisted  in  Spain  by  circumstances  peculiar  to  itself;  — 
these  are  well  explained  by  Robertson ;  —  and  in  this  manner  we 
arrive  at  the  same  great  distinctions  of  policy,  —  a  limited  monarch, 
feudal  lords,  the  Cortes  or  national  assembly,  and  of  that  assembly 
the  towns  making  a  constituent  part.  The  spirit  of  the  people  was 
high,  and  the  love  of  liberty  great ;  and  they  who  have  a  pleasure  in 
seeing  the  democratic  part  of  a  mixed  government  strongly  predomi- 
nant may  consider  the  very  remarkable  institution  of  the  Justiza  or 
the  supreme  judge  of  Aragon ;  they  may  see,  at  the  same  tune,  the 
high  prerogatives  which  the  Aragonese  Cortes  possessed  ;  —  so  that 
in  this  manner  was  realized  all  that  could  well  be  proposed  in  theory 
by  those  who  are  disposed  to  rest  a  government  very  much  on  a 
popular  basis.  * 

The  justiza  was  in  reality  the  guardian  of  the  people,  and,  when 
necessary,  the  controller  of  the  prince ;  and  every  precaution,  as  far 
as  we  can  now  judge,  seems  to  have  been  adopted,  the  better  to  con- 
trol in  his  turn  the  justiza  himself,  and  to  provide  against  the  powers 
of  this  singular  representative  of  the  general  interests  of  the  com- 
munity. The  Aragonese  Cortes  themselves  were  also  as  proud  m 
principle  and  as  strong  in  power  as  could  be, wished  by  the  most 
popular  reasoner.  The  compact,  for  instance,  between  the  king  and 
18  I* 


138  LECTUKE  VHL 

his  barons  is  supposed  to  have  been  thus  expressed:  —  "  "We,  who 
are  each  of  us  as  good,  and  who  are  altogether  more  powerful  than 
you,  promise  obedience  to  your  government,  if  you  maintain  our 
rights  and  liberties  ;  if  not,  not."  Finally,  it  must  be  observed,  that 
the  attachment  of  the  Aragonese  to  this  singular  constitution  of  gov- 
ernment is  said  to  have  approached  to  superstitious  veneration,  and 
to  have  reconciled  them  to  their  consciousness  of  poverty,  and  to  the 
barrenness  of  their  country. 

It  were  to  be  wished  that  more  information  could  be  procured  with 
respect  to  these  remarkable  institutions  and  their  eflfects.  It  should 
seem,  however,  that  the  obvious  difficulties  occurred.  It  is  easy  to 
dispose  of  power,  but  not  therefore  easy  to  make  a  good  govern- 
ment, not  therefore  to  render  power  so  disposed  either  salutary  or 
even  harmless.  The  justiza  might  be  made  the  supreme  judge  of 
the  concerns  both  of  the  king  and  of  the  nobles  ;  but  who,  then, 
was  to  appoint  the  justiza,  —  who  afterwards  to  censure  or  control 
him  ?  Or  the  nobles  might  be  supreme  ;  but  by  whom,  then,  were 
the  nobles  to  be  restrained  ?  And  how  was  it  to  be  expected,  that, 
in  either  case,  the  monarch  either  could  or  ought  to  be  contented  and 
at  rest  ?  "What,  after  all,  seems  to  have  been  the  result  ?  A  con- 
tinued struggle,  open  or  concealed. 

In  1264,  the  nobles  insisted  that  the  king  should  not  nominate  the 
justiza  without  their  consent.  This  was,  in  fact,  to  assume  the  whole 
power  to  themselves  ;  for  he  whose  consent  is  necessary  to  an  ap- 
pointment appoints.  Before  this  time  the  justiza  had  been  nominated 
by  the  choice,  and  held  his  office  at  the  pleasure,  of  the  king  ;  but 
this  last  circumstance  was  to  make  the  justiza  not  a  Httle  useless,  and 
to  give  the  real  power  to  the  crown.  The  power  of  the  king  was, 
however,  to  be  corrected,  it  seems,  by  the  prerogative  which  the 
nobles  enjoyed,  of  what  was  called  "  the  union,"  or  of  confederating 
formally  and  legally  to  give  law  to  the  king.  This  was,  however, 
only  to  constitute  two  powers  which  were  to  be  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
collision  with  each  other.  Afterwards  this  privilege  of  the  nobles 
was  abolished,  as  too  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  society ;  and  then 
the  justiza  was  continued  in  office  for  life.  But  this  was  to  render 
him  the  monarch,  in  the  apprehension  of  the  wearers  of  the  crown ; 
and  therefore  attempts  were  perpetually  made  by  the  kings  to  remove 
such  justizas  as  were  obnoxious  to  them.  Subsequently,  in  1442, 
the  Cortes  ordained  that  the  justiza  should  not  be  removed  but  at 
their  pleasure.  Again,  so  late  as  1461  contrivances  were  adopted  to 
form  a  tribunal  before  whom  the  justiza  was  to  appear  and  answer  for 
his  conduct. 

But  all  these  expedients,  and  all  expedients  of  the  kind,  are  only 
the  efforts  of  men  who  are  struggling  with  a  difficulty  which  it  is  im* 
possible  entirely  to  remove.  Events  such  as  we  have  thus  briefly 
collected  from  Robertson  —  and  the  history  itself  would,  no  doubt, 


SPAIN.  189 

furnlsli  many  more,  if  it  had  been  philosophically  written  by  the 
Spanish  historians  —  partake,  in  fact,  of  the  nature  of  revolutions, — 
the  varying  triumphs  of  contending  principles  of  government ;  con- 
tests which,  however  natural  they  may  be  in  any  elementary  state  of 
society,  or  however  tolerable  among  those  who  are  accustomed  to 
violence  and  bloodshed,  are  the  great  evils  to  be  avoided,  if  men  are 
to  be  rendered  happy  by  the  institutions  of  government,  or  are  sup- 
posed to  exist  in  any  state  of  civilization  and  improvement.  To  tlirow 
the  power  decidedly  into  the  hands  of  one  great  magistrate,  or  of  <yae 
great  body  of  nobles,  or  of  one  great  assembly  of  the  people,  is  to 
cut  the  knot,  not  to  loose  it ;  it  is  to  face  and  despise  all  the  evila 
which  are  most  deserving  of  our  alarm  and  avoidance. 

I  must  observe,  that  evils  and  difficulties  like  these  show  the  value 
.of  any  constitution  already  estabhshed,  where  these  elementary  prin- 
ciples of  rivalship  are  tolerably  well  improved,  and  the  unspeakable 
value  of  any  like  our  own,  where  they  are  on  the  whole  well  com- 
posed. 

Among  the  Castilians,  from  what  Httle  can  now  be  collected  of  their 
laws  and  constitution,  the  interests  of  mankind  had  a  better  prospect. 
The  Cortes  consisted  of  three  estates,  and  possessed  powei*s  analo- 
gous to  those  of  our  Parliaments  in  England.  But  everywhere  in 
Spain,  as  in  other  parts  of  Europe  (with  the  exception  of  England), 
the  powers  of  the  crown  were  too  limited ;  the  barons  enjoyed  pre- 
rogatives inconsistent  with  the  order,  peace,  and  prosperity  of  the 
community.  These  it  was  impossible  for  the  monarchs  to  endure. 
A  constant  struggle,  secret  or  avowed,  was  the  consequence ;  and 
the  question  here,  as  elsewhere,  was  only, —  What  was  to  be  the  re- 
sult ?  How  was  the  power  to  be  hereafter  shared  ?  Were  the  peo- 
ple, or  the  monarchs,  or  the  nobles,  to  predominate,  and  to  what 
extent  ? 

Inquiries  of  this  nature  must  be  followed  up  through  the  pages  ol 
Robertson,  and  Watson  in  his  History  of  PhiHp  the  Second,  throu^ 
the  reigns  of  Ferdinand,  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  Philip  the  Second. 
I  cannot  here  enter  into  such  inquiries.  I  have  pointed  them  out  to 
you. 

It  is  many  years  since  I  wrote  this  lecture,  and  there  has  lately 
appeared  a  work  by  Mrs.  Calcott,  a  popular  History  of  Spain,  in  two 
octavo  volumes.  It  may  be  recommended  to  the  student,  for  the 
author  has  made  every  thing  of  the  subject  that  was  possible.  But 
the  truth  is,  that  the  subject  is  impracticable.  There  are  so  many 
Moorish  dynasties  and  Christian  dynasties,  and  the  whole  is  such  an 
intermingled  scene  of  eternal  confusion  and  bloodshed,  the  heroes 
and  great  personages  concerned  so  constantly  come  like  shadows  and 
so  depart,  that  the  student  can  scarcely  be  required  to  endeavour  to 
remember  the  events  and  the  characters  that  he  reads  of,  for  any 
such  attempt  would  be  impossible.   He  must  turn  over  the  pages,  one 


140  LECTURE  Vm, 

after  another ;  he  will  observe  many  interesting  scenes  of  a  dramatic 
nature,  but  he  must  look  more  attentively  at  those  subjects  which, 
from  what  he  has  read  in  Gibbon,  and  heard  on  diflferent  occasions, 
he  may  be  aware,  deserve  consideration.  Every  thing  is  done  by 
Mrs.  Calcott  that  can  be  done  by  good  sense  and  good  principles  of 
civil  and  rehgious  liberty,  and  by  commendable  diligence  in  the  col- 
lection and  display  of  the  materials  which  her  subject  supplied  ;  and 
the  student  will  see  the  main  points  presented  to  his  view,  and  rea- 
sonable observations  made,  and  on  the  whole  feel  his  mind  left  in  a 
state  of  sufficient  repose  and  satisfaction  with  respect  to  this  portion 
of  his  course  of  historical  reading.  But  it  is  impossible  that  his  orig- 
inal expectations  from  this  part  of  history  can  be  gratified,  more  par- 
ticularly if  he  is  a  person  of  poetical  temperament,  and  has  got  his 
imagination  excited  by  all  the  enchanting  dreams  that,  by  means  of 
ballads,  romances,  histories,  and  dramas,  are  for  ever  associated  with 
this  renowned  land  of  magnificence,  chivalry,  and  love. 

Spain  has  now  been  added  to  our  former  enumeration  of  Italy  and 
Germany,  of  France  and  England.  To  what  country  shall  we  next 
advert  ?  We  cannot  but  feel  a  melancholy  interest  in  the  ruins  of 
ancient  greatness,  in  Constantinople  and  in  the  Empire  of  the  East ; 
it  is  natural,  it  is  fit,  that  we  should  cast  our  eyes  on  this  celebrated 
city ;  and  if  we  have  recourse  to  the  History  of  the  Dechne  and  Fall, 
we  shall  find  that  the  genius  of  the  historian  survives,  while  the  maj- 
esty of  his  subject  has  expired.  It  is  in  vain  that  we  turn  to  Greece 
while  we  are  inquiring  after  the  hopes  or  the  interests  of  the  human 
race.  The  Eastern  Empire  is  at  this  period  sinking  deeper  into  de- 
chne with  each  succeeding  age.  Without,  are  new  barbarians,  of  a 
strange  aspect  and  hostile  rehgion,  pressing  forward  to  accomphsh  its 
destruction ;  within,  are  enemies  still  more  formidable,  slavery,  dis- 
sension, and  licentiousness  ;  and  no  benefit  can  be  expected  to  be 
derived  to  mankind  from  an  empire,  a  nation,  a  city,  thus  gradually 
reduced,  enfeebled,  and  destroyed,  —  capable  of  no  generous  effort 
or  permanent  defence,  and  every  moment  descending  to  a  final  and 
merited  extinction. 

From  Constantinople,  the  Empire  of  the  East,  we  may  turn  once 
more  to  Rome,  so  long  the  capital  of  the  Empire  of  the  West.  We 
may  turn  to  the  sixty-ninth  and  seventieth  chapters  of  Gibbon ;  these 
are  very  accessible,  and  appear  to  me  sufficient.  In  these  chapters 
the  historian  casts  a  last  look  on  the  original  object  of  his  labors,  the 
Boman  city,  declined  and  fallen  from  her  height,  and  no  longer  mis- 
tress of  the  world  ;  yet  interesting  from  the  monuments  which  she 
still  retained  of  heroism  and  genius,  and  from  the  melancholy  contrast 
of  present  degradation  with  ancient  glory  and  renown.  In  these 
chapters  he  reviews  the  state  and  revolutions  of  Rome  till  she  finally 
acquiesced  in  the  absolute  power  of  the  Popes  ;  and  from  these  pages 
we  are  enabled  to  collect  very  sufficient  information  on  those  points 
"wrhich  are  more  immediately  deserving  of  our  attention. 


ITALV.  141 

But  since  I  wrote  this  lecture,  the  work  of  Mr.  Sismondi,  his  ITis- 
torj  of  the  Italian  Republics,  has  appeared,  and  the  work  which  I 
have  so  often  alluded  to  of  Mr.  Hallam.  Along  with  the  chapters 
of  Mr.  Gibbon,  therefore,  I  must  now  propose  to  you  the  two  chap- 
ters of  Mr.  Hallam  on  Italy,  which  should  be  diligently  read.  la 
his  note,  which  you  will  find  very  valuable,  you  will  see  him  speak 
of  the  work  of  Sismondi,  and  in  the  following  terms :  —  "  The  pub- 
lication of  M.  Sismondi's  Histoire  des  Republiques  Italienncs  has 
thrown  a  blaze  of  light  around  the  most  interesting,  at  least  in 
many  respects,  of  European  countries  [Italy]  during  the  Middle 
Ages.  I  am  happy  to  bear  witness,  so  far  as  my  o^vn  studies  have 
enabled  me,  to  the  learning  and  diligence  of  this  writer :  qualities 
which  the  world  is  sometimes  apt  not  to  suppose,  where  they  per- 
ceive so  much  eloquence  and  philosophy."  Mr.  Hallam  then  goes 
on  to  state  why  he  considers  Sismondi  as  having  almost  superseded 
the  Annals  of  Muratori,  from  the  twelfth  century  at  least,  and  only 
thinks  it  pK)per  to  observe,  in  the  way  of  criticism,  that,  "  from  too 
redundant  details,  and  sometimes  from  unnecessary  reflections,  M. 
Sismondi  has  run  into  a  prolixity  which  will  probably  intimidate  the 
languid  students  of  our  age."  This,  he  says,  "  is  the  more  to  be 
regretted,  because  the  History  of  Italian  Repubhcs  is  calculated  to 
communicate  to  the  reader's  bosom  some  sparks  of  the  dignified 
philosophy,  the  love  for  truth  and  virtue,  which  lives  along  its 
eloquent  pages."  This  is  very  high  praise  from  Mr.  Hallam,  no 
very  ready  or  profuse  panegyrist  at  any  time ;  and  my  hearer  must 
therefore  turn  to  the  volumes  that  have  won  such  important  approbar 
tion.  I  shall  not  be  surprised,  however,  if  he  should  find  himself, 
after  a  sight  and  trial  of  these  fifteen  volumes,  ready  to  sink^  into 
the  class  of  the  languid  students  of  "the  age  ;  and  I  sincerely  A\-ish  I 
could  provide  a  little  against  a  circumstance  which,  in  the  present 
state  of  literature  and  of  the  world,  I  do  not  consider  as  altogether 
unnatural. 

You  will  observe,  then,  that  on  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire, 
during  the  first  six  ages,  the  Barbarians  and  degenerate  Italians 
were  mixed  together,  and  from  this  sort  of  union  was  to  arise  a  new 
nation  to  succeed  to  the  Romans.  Different  republics  appeared  in 
different  parts  of  Italy.  To  these  we  are  not  a  little  indebted  for 
the  preservation  of  the  treasures  of  antiquity,  and,  as  Sismondi  con- 
tends, it  was  in  these  republics  that  were  laid  the  foundations  of  all 
the  subsequent  glory  and  intellectual  eminence^  of  Europe.  You 
see,  then,  at  once  the  subject  and  the  interest  of  it. 

In  brief,  Italy  before  the  twelfth  century  was  subjected  to  the 
Franks,  then  to  the  Germans,  and  then  came  four  centuries  of  grand- 
eur and  glory ;  during  which  four  centuries,  from  1100  to  lodU, 
Italy  gave  instruction  to  the  rest  of  Europe  in  every  art,  science, 
and  species  of  knowledge  ;  but  in  1530,  Italy  was  overpowered  by 


142  LECTURE  Tin. 

Charles  the  Fifth,  and  total  insignificance  has  been  the  result.  That 
is,  in  the  course  of  the  twelfth  century,  Italy  acquired  its  liberties, 
enjoyed  them  during  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth,  and  lost  them 
soon  after  the  close  of  the  fifteenth.  The  sixteenth,  seventeenth, 
and  eighteenth  have  since  been  centuries  of  slavery,  indolence, 
effeminacy,  oblivion. 

On  the  whole,  as  far  as  the  subject  of  republics  is  concerned,  you 
will  find  your  general  conclusions,  drawn  from  the  example  of  these 
Italian  repubhcs,  much  what  you  would  have  expected  them  to  be 
from  your  classical  reading,  from  your  perusal  of  the  annals  of  the 
Grecian  republics  and  of  Rome :  that  they  reward,  and  therefore 
awaken,  the  faculties  of  the  human  mind  and  the  energies  of  the 
human  character  ;  but  that  storms,  and  dissensions,  and  revolutionsf- 
are  the  necessary  result.  This  is  confessed  by  Sismondi  himself. 
The  fearful  calamities,  the  dreadful  price  that  is  paid  for  the  produc- 
tion of  men  of  great  talents  !  By  such  men,  it  may  be  added,  such 
forms  of  government  are  naturally  favored,  as  affordiftg  them  a 
theatre  on  which  such  talents  may  be  displayed ;  but  w^hether  the 
general  happiness  is  thus  best  consulted  is  quite  another  question. 

Such,  then,  is  the  subject  of  Sismondi's  History,  —  the  history  of 
these  republics  between  the  fall  of  the  Romans  and  the  establish- 
ment of  the  power  of  Charles  the  Fifth.  The  age  of  merit  un- 
known,— for  the  history  is  unknown,  —  because  it  has  never  been 
written  in  any  general  or  summary  way,  and  it  is  impossible  to  read 
the  particular  details  of  it. 

Now  I  fear  this  impossibility  neither  is,  nor  ever  can  be,  escaped. 
Mr.  Sismondi  has  himself  attempted  it.  He  has  made  a  small  vol- 
ume, published  by  Lardner,  and  it  is  a  failure.  I  must  venture  to 
say,  that  even  now,  notwithstanding  Mr.  Sismondi's  eloquence  and 
skill,  his  love  of  liberty,  and  his  learning,  it  is  very  well  for  his^ 
work  that  there  is  a  good  index  everywhere  accompanying  the  orig- 
inal volumes ;  and  I  would  advise  my  hearers,  and  more  particularly 
the  languid  students,  to  read  and  consider  well  the  two  chapters  of 
Hallam,  and  then  turn  to  Sismondi,  making  full  use  of  his  index, 
which  the  prior  perusal  of  Hallam  will  enable  him  to  do. 

I  must  be  content  in  this  unworthy  manner  to  dismiss  this  subject 
of  Italy,  and  the  work  of  Sismondi ;  but  originally  I  drew  up  many 
pages  on  the  subject  of  both,  particularly  of  the  latter:  they,  how- 
ever, began  to  assume  the  bulk  and  appearance  of  a  separate  lec- 
ture ;  and  I  now  think  it  best  to  leave  the  student,  as  I  have  done^ 
to  his  own  exertions. 

Certainly  every  thing  regarding  Italy  and  the  character  of  the 
Italians  is  most  interesting.  They  appear  to  me,  even  as  we  now 
see  them,  to  have  intelligence  and  talents  equal  to  any  study ;  a 
versatility  that  would  fit  them  at  once  for  music  and  painting,  for 
politics  and  war;  an  imagination  which  enables  them  still  to  retain 


GERMANY.  14^ 

the  empire  of  the  fine  arts ;  gentleness  of  manuera,  in  other  coun- 
tries found  only  in  the  upper  ranks  of  society ;  a  sobriety  which 
keeps  them  safe  from  any  vulgar  excess ;  and  on  the  whole,  such 
gifts  and  qualities  as  would  insure  greaij  national  superiority  and 
individual  excellence,  if  proper  opportunities  could  but  be  aiforded 
them,  —  opportunities  which  never  were  or  could  be  afforded  them, 
from  the  division  of  their  country  into  repubhcs,  or  separate  govern- 
ments, and  the  impossibility  of  rescuing  them  from  their  iiiierited 
antipathies  and  rivalships. 

At  the  peace  of  Aix-larGhapelle,  in  1748,  Italy  might  indeed  be 
left  to  repose,  but  to  repose  on  the  supposition  of  existing  without 
freedom  and  national  spirit.  No  provision  was  made  for  her  liber- 
ties and  independence.  Italy  is,  therefore,  now  only  a  vast  museum, 
where  the  monuments  of  the  genius  of  the  dead  are  presented  to  the 
admiration  of  the  hving.  No  one  asks  what  the  princes  and  people 
of  Italy  are  doing ;  an  iron  sceptre  is  extended  over  them.  The^ 
intelligent  Italian  feels  that  he  has  no  country,  and  mingles  his  sighs 
and  regrets,  his  indignation  and  his  anguish,  with  the  sublime  lamen- 
tations of  the  poet  of  England. 

We  must  now  turn  to  Germany.  I  must  leave  Pfeffel  to  conduct 
you  from  the  accession  of  Rodolph  to  the  opening  of  the  History 
of  Robertson.  His  work  may  be  read  with  more  or  less  attention, 
according  to  the  varying  importance  of  the  subject-matter.  But  the 
first  observation  that  occurs  is,  that  from  this  era  the  history  of  Ger 
many  assumes  a  double  aspect,  and  that  our  attention  must  be 
directed,  not  only  to  the  Empire  itself,  but  to  the  rise,  growth,  and 
subsequent  predominance  of  the  house  of  Austria.  A  work  has 
lately  been  pubhshed,  executed  with  every  appearance  of  diligence 
and  precision,  by  Mr.  Coxe,  (Coxe's  History  of  the  House  of  Aus- 
tria,) and  furnishing  the  English  reader  with  a  complete  account  of 
the  political  history  of  that  celebrated  family.  By  his  labors,  and 
those  of  Pfeffel  and  Robertson,  we  may  consider  ourselves  as  fur- 
nished with  information  which  we  must  otherwise  have  extracted 
with  great  pain  and  labor,  if  at  all,  from  those  documents  and^  his- 
torians in  different  languages  to  which  they  refer.  These  writers 
will  be  found  to  illustrate  each  other  and  may  be  read  together,  — 
Pfeffel,  Robertson,  and  Coxe. 

Among  several  details  and  particulars  that  belong  to  tliis  portion  of 
history,  and  which  may  be  perused,  I  conceive,  somewhat  slightly, 
there  are  some  which  should  be  considered  more  attentively:  the 
gradual  settiement  of  the  constitution  of  the  Empire,  as  it  is  noted 
by  Pfeffel,  and  more  especially  the  Golden  Bull  of  Charies  the 
Fourth.  This  Golden  Bull  was  the  first  among  the  fundament^ 
laws  of  the  Empire,  and  was  pubhshed  by  the  emperor,  it  is  to  be  ob- 
served,  with  the  consent  and  concurrence  of  tiie  electors,  prmces, 
counts,  nobility,  and^oi^ws  imperial. 


144  LECTURE  vin. 

But  by  this  famous  bull,  as  by  all  the  prior  regulations  of  the 
Germanic  constitution,  the  emperor  was  still  left  the  elective,  the 
limited,  and  almost  the  inefficient  head  of  an  aristocracy  of  princes, 
each  of  whom  seems  to  have  remained  the  real  monarch  in  his  own 
dominions ;  and  the  vast  strength  and  resources  of  Germany,  dis- 
sipated and  divided  among  a  variety  of  interests,  could  at  no  time, 
even  by  the  most  able  princes  of  the  house  of  Austria,  be  combined 
and  wielded  against  the  enemies  of  the  Empire  with  their  proper  and 
natural  effect. 

Apparently,  indeed,  and  on  great  public  occasions,  the  majesty  of 
the  emperor  was  sufficiently  preserved  and  displayed.  The  princes 
and  potentates  of  Germany  officiated  as  his  domestics :  the  Count- 
Palatine  of  the  Rhine,  as  his  steward,  placed  the  dishes  on  his  table ; 
the  Margrave  of  Brandenburg,  as  his  chamberlain,  brought  the 
golden  ewer  and  basin  to  wash ;  the  king  of  Bohemia,  as  his  cup- 
bearer, presented  the  wine  at  his  repast ;  and  each  elector  had  his 
appropriate  duty  of  apparent  servility  and  homage. 

Such  are  the  whimsical  and  contradictory  scenes  of  arrogance 
and  debasement,  of  ostentation  and  meanness,  of  grave  folly  and 
elaborate  inanity,  which  are  produced  among  manldnd,  when  in  a 
state  of  civilized  society,  by  the  intermingled  operation  of  the  vari- 
ous passions  of  our  nature.  History  is  full  of  them ;  and  private 
life,  as  well  as  public,  presents  the  same  motley  exhibition  of  com- 
pliments paid  by  which  no  one  is  to  be  flattered,  trouble  undertaken 
by  which  no  one  is  to  be  benefited,  and  artifices  practised  by  which 
no  one  is  to  be  deceived. 

But  we  now  approach  one  of  the  most  interesting  portions  of  his- 
tory, and  one  that  is  connected  with  Germany,  and  more  particularly- 
the  house  of  Austria,  —  the  formation  of  the  Helvetic  Confederacy, 
the  growth  and  establishment  of  the  independence  and  pohtical  con- 
sequence of  Switzerland. 

The  historians  you  are  to  read  are  Planta,  and  Coxe  in  his  House 
of  Austria.  There  is  a  history  by  Naylor,  who  is  more  ardent  than 
either  in  his  love  of  liberty,  but  seems  less  calm,  and  less  likely  to 
attract  the  confidence  of  his  reader. 

Switzerland  is  a  name  associated  with  the  noblest  feelings  of  our 
nature,  and  we  turn  with  interest  to  survey  the  rise  and  progress  of 
countries  which  we  have  never  been  accustomed  to  mention  but  with 
sentiments  of  respect.  In  the  history  of  the  world,  it  has  been  the 
distinction  of  three  nations  only  to  be  characterized  by  their  virtue 
and  their  patriotism,  —  the  early  Romans,  the  Spartans,  and  the 
Swiss.  We  speak  of  the  splendor  of  the  Persians,  of  the  genius  of 
the  Athenians  ;  but  we  speak  of  the  hardy  discipline  and  the  inflex- 
ible virtue  of  Sparta,  and  of  ancient  republican  Rome,  —  "the  un- 
conquerable mind,  and  freedom's  holy  flame."  So,  in  modern  times, 
we  speak  of  the  treasures  of  Peru,  of  the  luxuries  of  India,  of  the 


SWITZERLAND.  145 

commerce  of  Venice  or  of  Holland,  and  of  the  arts  of  France ;  but 
it  15  to  Switzerland  that  we  have  been  accustomed  to  turn,  when,  as 
philanthropists  or  moralists,  we  sought  among  mankind  the  unbought 
charms  of  native  innocence,  and  the  sublime  simplicity  of  severe 
and  contented  virtue. 

More  minute  examination  might  possibly  compel  us  to  abate  some- 
thing of  the  admiration  which  we  have  paid  at  a  distance ;  yet  our 
admiration  must  ever  be  due  to  the  singular  people  of  Switzerland ; 
and  it  must  always  remain  a  panegyric  of  the  highest  kind,  to  owe 
renown  to  merit  alone,  —  to  have  earned  their  independence  by 
valor,  and  to  have  maintained  their  prosperity  by  virtue,  —  to  be 
quoted  as  examples  of  those  qualities  by  which  men  may  be  so  enno 
bled,  that  they  are  respected,  even  amid  their  comparative  poverty 
and  rudeness, —  to  be  described  as  heroes  who,  though  too  few  to  be 
feared  by  the  weak,  were  too  brave  to  be  insulted  by  the  strong. 
The  student,  while  he  reads  the  history  of  Switzerland,  finds  him- 
self, on  a  sudden,  restored  to  his  earliest  emotions  of  virtuous  sym- 
pathy, and  he  will  almost  believe  himself  to  be  once  more  sur- 
rounded by  the  objects  of  his  classical  enthusiasm,  —  the  avengers 
of  Lucre tia,  and  the  heroes  of  Thermopylae.  Insolence  and  brutal- 
ity he  will  see  once  more  resisted  by  the  manly  feelings  of  indignant 
nature.  A  few  patriots  meeting  at  midnight,  and  attesting  the  jus- 
tice of  their  cause  to  the  Almighty  Disposer  of  events,  the  God  of 
equity  and  mercy,  the  Protector  of  the  helpless ;  calm  and  united, 
proceeding  to  the  delivery  of  their  country ;  overpowering,  dismissing, 
and  expelling  their  unworthy  rulers,  the  agents  and  representatives 
of  the  house  of  Austria,  without  outrage  and  without  bloodshed  ;  re- 
taining all  the  serene  forbearance  of  the  most  elevated  reason,  amid 
the  energies  and  the  fury  of  vindictive  right ;  and  magnanimously  re- 
serving the  vengeance  of  their  arms  for  those  of  their  rulers  who 
should  dare  to  approach  them  in  the  field,  with  the  instruments  of 
war  and  the  bloody  menaces  of  injustice  and  oppression. 

Such  a  trial,  indeed,  awaited  them ;  but  these  inimitable  peasants, 
these  heroes  of  a  few  valleys,  were  not  to  be  dismayed.  They  united 
and  confirmed  their  union  by  an  oath ;  and  if  their  enemy,  as  he  de- 
clared, was  determined  to  trample  the  audacious  rustics  under  his 
feet,  they  would  unawed  (they  said)  await  his  coming,  and  rely  on 
the  protection  of  the  Almighty.  Their  enemy  came  ;  and  he  came, 
according  to  his  language  in  his  council  of  war,  to  take  some  by  sur- 
prise, to  defeat  others,  to  seize  on  many,  to  surround  them  all,  and 
thus  infallibly  extirpate  the  whole  nation.  Three  separate  attacks 
were  prepared,  and  the  Duke  Leopold  himself  conducted  the  main 
army ;  but  he  was  met  at  the  straits  of  Morgarten  by  this  band  of 
brothers.  Like  one  of  the  avalanches  of  their  mountains,  they  de- 
scended upon  his  host,  and  they  beat  back  into  confusion,  defeat,  and 
destruction,  himself,  his  knights,  and  his  companions,  the  disdainful 
19  M 


146  LECTURF,  VIII. 

chivalry,  who  had  httle  considered  the  formidable  nature  of  men  who 
could  bear  to  die,  but  not  to  be  subdued,  —  men  whom  Nature  her- 
self seemed  to  have  thrown  her  arms  around,  to  protect  them  from 
the  invader,  bj  encompassing  them  with  her  inaccessible  mountains, 
her  tremendous  precipices,  and  all  her  stupendous  masses  of  eternal 
winter. 

The  Three  Forest  Cantons,  five-and-twenty  years  after  the  asser- 
tion of  their  own  independence,  admitted  to  their  union  a  fourth  can- 
ton; eighteen  years  after,  a  fifth ;  and  soon  a  sixth,  seventh,  and  an 
eighth.  These  eight  ancient  cantons,  whose  union  was  thus  gradually 
formed  and  perfected  in  the  course  of  half  a  century  from  1307,  were 
afterwards  joined  by  five  other  cantons ;  and  the  Helvetic  Confed- 
eracy was  thus,  in  the  course  of  two  centuries,  finally  augmented  t§  a 
union  of  thirteen. 

But  many  were  the  difficulties  and  "dangers  through  which  the  can- 
tons had  to  struggle  for  their  independence,  and  the  strength  of  the 
oppressor  was  more  than  once  collected  to  overwhelm,  in  the  earlier 
periods  of  its  existence,  this  virtuous  confederacy.  Seventy-one 
years  after  the  defeat  at  Morgarten,  another  Duke  of  Austria,  a 
second  Leopold,  with  a  second  host  of  lords  and  knights,  and  their 
retainers,  experienced  once  more  a  defeat  near  the  walls  of  Sempach. 
But  the  battle  was  long  suspended.  These  Austrian  knights  were  un- 
wieldy, indeed,  from  their  armour,  but  they  were  thereby  inaccessible 
to  the  weapons  of  the  Swiss ;  and  as  they,  too,  were  brave,  and  de- 
served a  better  cause,  they  were  not  to  be  broken.  "  I  will  open  a 
passage,"  said  the  heroic  Arnold,  a  knight  of  Unterwalden :  "  pro- 
vide for  my  wife  and  children,  dear  countrymen  and  confederates ; 
honor  my  race."  At  these  words,  he  threw  himself  upon  the  Aus- 
trian pikes,  buried  them  in  his  bosom,  bore  them  to  the  ground  with 
his  own  ponderous  mass,  and  his  companions  rushed  over  his  expiring 
body  into  the  ranks  of  the  enemy  ;  a  breach  was  made  in  this  wall  of 
mailed  warriors,  and  the  host  was  carried  by  assault. 

Such  were  long  the  patriots  of  Switzerland ;  such  they  continued 
to  the  last.  They  received  privileges  and  assistance  from  the  Empire, 
while  the  Empire  was  jealous  of  the  house  of  Austria.  The  paucity 
uf  their  numbers  was  compensated  by  the  advantages  of  their  Alpine 
country.  Their  confederacies  were  artless  and  sincere,  their  lives 
rural  and  hardy,  their  manners  simple  and  vii-tuous ;  eternally  i-e- 
minded  of  the  necessity  of  a  common  interest,  every  pea^nt  was  a 
patriot,  and  every  patriot  a  hero.  Human  prosperity  must  always  be 
frail,  human  virtue  imperfect ;  yet  we  can  long  pursue  their  history, 
though  with  some  anxiety  and  occasional  pain,  on  the  whole,  with  a 
triumph  of  virtuous  pleasure. 

The  most  disagreeable  characteristic  of  the  people  of  Switzerland 
is  their  constant  appearance,  as  mercenaries,  in  the  armies  of  foreign 
countries.     In  excuse  of  the  Swiss  from  the  natural  reproaches  of 


SWITZERLAND.  14T 

the  reasoners  and  moralists  of  surrounding  nations,  it  may  be  ob- 
served, that  in  a  poor  country  emigration  is  the  natural  resource  of 
every  man  whose  activity  and  talents  are  above  the  ordinary  leve^ , 
that  the  profession  of  arms  was  the  obvious  choice  of  those  who  could 
pretend  to  no  superiority  but  in  the  qualities  that  constitute  the  mili- 
tary character ;  that,  with  respect  to  the  Swiss  magistracies,  they 
could  have  no  right  to  prevent  their  youth  from  endeavouring  to  better 
their  condition ;  and  that,  while  part  of  the  population  was  employed 
in  the  service  of  the  different  monarchies  of  Europe,  —  a  part  which 
could  always  be  recalled  on  any  urgent  occasion,  —  Switzerland  sup- 
ported, in  fact,  at  the  expense  of  those  monarchies,  not  at  its  own, 
the  disciplined  troops  which  were  necessary  to  its  security  and  might 
otherwise  have  been  dangerous  to  its  liberties.  It  may  be  added, 
that  their  fellow-citizens  who  remained  at  home  were  thus  saved 
from  all  the  vices  and  calamities  which  resulj  from  the  redundant 
population  of  every  bounded  community. 

No  great  legislator  ever  appeared  in  Switzerland.  The  speculatist 
will  find  no  peculiar  symmetry  and  grace  in  their  systems,  and  may 
learn  not  to  be  too  exclusive  in  his  theories.  Times  and  circum- 
stances taught  their  own  lessons ;  civil  and  religious  establishments 
were  imperfectly  produced,  roughly  moulded,  and  slowly  improved  ; 
and  whatever  might  be  their  other  merits,  they  were  perfectly  ade- 
quate to  dispense  the  blessings  of  government  and  religion  to  a  brave 
and  artless  people.'  The  great  difficulty  with  the  inhabitants  of 
Switzerland  was,  at  all  times,  no  doubt,  to  judge  how  far  they  were 
to  mix,  on  the  principles  of  their  own  security,  with  the  politics  of 
their  neighbours  ;  a  second  difficulty,  to  keep  the  states  of  their  con- 
federacy from  the  influence  of  foreign  intrigue  and  private  jealousy ; 
a  third,  to  make  local  and  particular  rights  of  property  and  prescrip- 
tion conform  to  the  interests  of  the  whole  ;  and  finally,  to  preserve 
themselves  simple  and  virtuous ;  —  in  a  word,  publicly  and  privately 
"  to  do  justly  and  to  love  mercy,"  and  again,  "  to  keep  themselves 
unspotted  from  the  world."  This  was,  indeed,  a  task  which  perfectly 
to  execute  was  beyond  the  compass  of  human  virtue.  But  with  all 
their  frailties  and  mistakes,  their  faults  and  folHes,  they  existed  for 
nearly  five  hundred  years  in  a  state  of  great  comparative  independ- 
ence and  honor,  security  and  happiness ;  and  they  perished  only 
amid  the  ruthless  and  unprincipled  invasions  of  revolutionary  France, 
and  the  general  ruin  of  Europe. 

I  must,  in  my  next  lecture,  turn  to  the  great  event  of  modern  his- 
tory, the  Reformation ;  but,  before  I  do  so,  I  must  again  remind  my 
hearer,  that,  since  I  wrote  the  lectures  I  have  just  delivered,  several 
works  have  appeared  which  he  must  consider  with  the  greatest 
attention,  particularly  the  work  of  Mr.  Hallam  on  the  Middle  Ages. 
All  the  subjects  that  have  been  glanced  at  in  these  earlier  lectures 
are  there  thoroughly  considered  by  this  author  with  all  the  patience 


148  LECTURE  VIII. 

of  an  antiquaiian  and  tlie  spirit  and  sagacity  of  a  philosopher ;  the 
French  history,  —  the  feudal  system,  —  the  history  of  Italy,  —  the 
history  of  Spain,  —  the  history  of  Germany,  —  of  the  Greeks  and 
Saracens,  —  the  history  of  exjclesiastical  power,  —  the  constitutional 
history  of  England,  —  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  Anglo-Norman,  — 
afterwards  to  the  end  of  the  civil  wars  between  the  Roses,  —  with  a 
concluding  dissertation  on  the  state  of  society  during  the  Middle 
Ages.  I  should  have  been  saved  many  a  moment  of  fatigue,  some 
almost  of  despair,  if  these  volumes  had  appeared  before  I  began  my 
lectures. 

In  like  manner  I  have  since  read,  and  should  have  been  most 
happy  to  have  read  before,  the  first  volume  of  the  History  of  Eng- 
land by  Sir  James  Mackintosh.  The  volume,  though  it  may  not  be 
what  the  common  reader  may  have  expected,  is  totally  invaluable  to 
those  who  have  read  and  thought  on  the  subject  before,  and  who, 
therefore,  can  duly  e^imate  the  value  of  the  comprehensive  esti- 
mates of  an  enlightened  and  superior  understanding.  The  same,  I 
doubt  not,  will  be  the  character  of  the  volumes  that  are  to  follow. 

I  have  since,  too,  looked  over  the  three  volumes  of  the  History  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons  by  Mr.  Turner.  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  for 
the  student  to  read  every  part  with  equal  attention,  or  some  parts 
with  any ;  but  there  is  good  information  to  be  found  in  the  book, 
such  as  he  cannot  well  procure  for  himself,  and  may  be  grateful  to 
Mr.  Turner  for  offering  him  so  completely  and  so  agreeably :  what  can 
now  be  known  of  Alfred, — more  particularly  of  the  sea-kings  and 
sea-banditti  of  the  North,  —  of  the  laws,  languages,  and  manners 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  so  connected  with  our  own,  —  their  religion 
and  their  superstitions,  —  the  constitution  of  their  government, — 
their  kings,  —  their  Witenagemote,  —  their  offices,  —  their  aristoc- 
racy and  population, —  their  poetry,  hterature,  and  arts.  These  are 
all  subjects  very  interesting,  and  can  now  be  exhibited  to  a  student 
only  by  an  antiquarian,  whose  merits  he  may  not  be  disposed  to 
emulate,  and  should  therefore  gratefully  acknowledge. 

I  have  also  looked  at  the  first  volume  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  History 
by  Palgrave,  which,  though  interspersed  with  some  trivial  remarks, 
may  be  read  with  entertainment  and  advantage.  The  second  vol- 
ume, on  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Enghsh  constitution,  will  proI> 
ably  be  well  worthy  attention,  coming,  as  it  does,  from  so  celebrated 
an  antiquarian. 

For  the  History  of  Switzerland  I  have  referred  to  Planta ;  but 
there  has  been  lately  published  a  work  by  Mr.  Naylor.  Mr.  Naylor 
writes  with  a  much  more  lively  sensibility  to  the  value  of  popular 
privileges ;  but  in  his  work  I  have  been,  on  the  whole,  disappointed. 
His  preface  is  unsatisfactory ;  he  gives  no  reasons  for  writing  a  new 
history  of  the  Helvetic  Confederacy,  or  statement  of  the  deficiency 
to  be  supplied,  or  the  new  representations  that  are  to  be  offered  of 


THE  REFORMATION.  149 

events  and  cnaracters.  Mr.  Najlor,  however,  must  have  been 
aware  that  the  value  both  of  his  own  History  and  that  of  Mr.  Planta 
must  arise  from  the  difficulty  of  reading  the  original  authors.  The 
dramatic  manner,  also,  it  must  be  observed,  in  which  Mr.  Naylor 
writes,  is  not.  fitted  to  induce  the  reader  to  withdraw  his  confidence 
from  the  more  regular  and  sober  History  of  Mr.  Planta.  Mr.  Nay 
lor's  work,  wkiich  reaches  down  to  the  peace  of  Westphaha,  must,  no 
doubt,  be  contrasted  with  Planta's,  when  any  particular  transaction 
is  inquired  into  ;  for  it  is  written  on  more  popular  principles.  But^ 
for  the  general  purposes  of  historical  information,  I  must  still  refer 
to  Planta,  who  seems  sufficiently  animated  with  proper  sentiments  of 
patriotism  and  independence,  at  least  while  he  is  describing  the 
origin  of  the  Helvetic  Confederacy ;  and  his  distaste  to  popular  feel- 
ings and  forms  of  government  may  be  suffered  to  evaporate  in  notes 
and  observations  on  the  French  Revolution,  when  it  is  considered 
how  atrocious  has  been  the  interference  of  the  French  rulers  and 
their  emissaries  in  the  concerns  of  his  native  country. 


LECTURE   IX. 


THE   REFORMATION. 


The  subjects  to  which  we  adverted  in  the  course  of  the  last  lecture 
would  be  found,  if  examined,  immediately  to  introduce  us  to  others 
of  such  general  importance,  that  the  particular  histories  of  the  dif- 
ferent states  of  Europe  can  now  no  longer  be  separately  surveyed. 
These  new  subjects  of  such  general  and  extraordinary  importance 
are  the  Revival  of  Learning  and  the  Reformation.  For  the  present, 
therefore,  we  must  leave  these  particular  histories  of  England,  of 
France,  and  Germany,  and  endeavour  to  familiarize  the  student  to 
those  general  remarks  which  constitute  the  philosophy  of  history, 
and,  above  all,  to  induce  him  to  fix  his  view  very  earnestly  on  the 
events  I  have  just  mentioned,  the  greatest  of  modern  history,  —  the 
Revival  of  Learning  and  the  Reformation. 

A  few  preliminary  observations  may,  however,  be  suggested  to 
you.  In  the  course  of  your  reading,  as  you  come  do^vn  from  the  his- 
tory of  the  Middle  Ages,  you  will  be  brought  down  to  the  history  of 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  and  this  era,  you  will  per- 
ceive, was  the  era  of  inventions  and  discoveries.  I  allude  more 
particularly  to,  1st,  the  art  of  turning  linen  into  paper ;  2d]y,  the 

M* 


150  LECTURE  IX. 

art  of  printing;  Sdly,  the  composition  and  tlie  application  of  gun 
powder,  more  especially  to  the  purposes  of  war ;  4thly,  the  discov 
ery  of  the  strange  property  of  the  magnetic  needle,  or  at  least  its 
general  application  to  the  purposes  of  navigation.  The  importance 
of  such  discoveries  will  be  sufficiently  obvious  to  your  o^vn  reflec- 
tions. 

To  each  of  these  inventions  and  discoveries  belongs  an  appropriate 
history  highly  deserving  of  curiosity,  —  of  more  curiosity,  indeed, 
than  can  now  be  gratified,  —  and  each  strongly  illustrative  of  the 
human  mind ;  creeping  on  from  hint  to  hint,  like  the  Portuguese 
mariner  from  cape  to  cape,  owing  something  to  good  fortune,  but  far 
more,  and  even  that  good  fortune  itself,  to  enterprise  and  persever- 
ance. You  will  see  some  notice  taken  of  these  inventions  and  dis- 
coveries in  Koch. 

As  the  study  of  the  Dark  Ages  conducts  us  to  the  ages  of  inven- 
tions and  discoveries,  so  do  these  last  to  the  era  which  was  marked 
by  the  revival  of  learning  and  the  Reformation.  All  these  periods 
mingle  with  each  other,  the  prior  with  the  succeeding  one,  and  no 
line  of  demarcation  can  be  traced  to  separate  or  define  them ;  yet 
may  they  be  known,  each  by  its  more  prevailing  characteristic  of 
darkness,  discovery,  and  progress ;  and  as  we  are  now  supposed  to 
have  passed  through  the  first  two,  we  must  next  proceed  to  the  last, 
the  era  of  the  revival  of  learning  and  the  Reformation. 

To  this  era  we  shall  be  best  introduced  by  adverting  to  the  gen- 
eral situation  of  Europe,  more  particularly  by  turning  to  the  eastern 
portion  of  it ;  for  we  shall  here  be  presented  with  a  train  of  events 
which,  if  we  could  but  transport  ourselves  in  imagination  to  this 
fearful  period,  would  almost  totally  overpower  us,  by  appearing  to 
threaten  once  more,  as  in  the  irruption  of  the  Barbarians,  the  very 
civilization  of  society.  For  what  are  we  here  called  to  witness? 
The  progress  of  the  Turks  ;  the  terror  of  Bajazet ;  the  danger  of 
Constantinople  ;  and  then,  again,  the  unexpected  appearance  of  sav- 
ages still  more  dreadful  than  the  Turks,  —  Tamerlane  and  his  Tai^ 
tars ;  the  extraordinary  achievements  of  these  tremendous  conquer- 
ors ;  afterwards,  the  revival  of  the  Ottoman  power ;  and  at  last,  tho 
destruction  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  of  Constantinople  itself. 

This  series  of  memorable  events  has  been  detailed  by  Mr.  Gibbon 
with  that  spirit  and  knowledge  of  his  subject,  that  compression  and 
arrangement,  which  so  particulariy  distinguish  those  chapters  of 
his  work  where  his  theme  is  splendid  or  important,  and  which  render 
them  so  inexhaustible  a  study  to  his  more  intelligent  readers.  I 
must  refer  you  to  the  work,  making,  however,  in  the  mean  time,  a 
few  observations. 

In  contemplating  the  final  extinction  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  it 
may  be  some  consolation  to  us  to  think  that  Constantinople  did  not 
fall  without  a  blow ;  that  the  city  was  not  surrendered  without  a  de- 


THE  REFORMATION.  .  151 

fence  which  was  worthy  of  this  last  representative  of  human  great- 
ness ;  that  the  emperor  was  a  hero,  and  that,  amid  the  general  base- 
ness and  degeneracy,  h.%  could  collect  around  him  a  few,  at  least, 
wh©m  the  Romans,  whom  the  conquerors  of  mankind,  might  not 
have  disdained  to  consider  as  their  descendants. 

Some  melancholy  must  naturally  arise  at  the  termination  of  this 
memorable  siege,  —  the  extinction  of  human  glory,  the  distress,  the 
sufferings,  the  parting  agonies  of  this  mistress  of  the  world.  But 
such  sentiments,  though  in  themselves  neither  useless  nor  avoidable, 
it  is  in  vain  entirely  to  indulge.  The  Grecian  as  well  as  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  Constantinople,  the  last  image  of  both,  must  for  ever 
remain  amongst  the  innumerable  instances  presented  by  history  to 
prove  that  it  is  in  vain  for  a  state  to  expect  prosperity  in  the  absence 
of  private  and  public  virtue ;  and  that  every  nation,  where  the  hon- 
orable qualities  of  the  human  character  are  not  cultivated  and  re- 
spected, however  fortified  by  ancient  renown,  prescriptive  veneration, 
or  established  power,  sooner  or  later  must  be  levelled  with  the  earth 
and  trampled  under  the  feet  of  the  despoiler. 

The  fall  of  Constantinople  became,  when  too  late,  a  subject  of  the 
most  universal  terror  and  afiliction  to  the  rest  of  Europe.  Yet  such 
is  the  intermingled  nature  of  all  good  and  evil,  that  some  benefit  re- 
sulted to  the  world  from  the  calamities  of  the  Empire.  Constantino- 
ple had  always  been  the  great  repository  of  the  precious  remains  of 
ancient  genius.  The  Greeks  had  continued  to  pride  themselves  on 
their  national  superiority  over  the  Barbarians  of  the  West,  and  they 
celebrated,  as  exclusively  their  own,  the  great  original  masters  of 
speculative  wisdom  and  practical  eloquence,  the  dramatists  who 
could  awaken  all  the  passions  of  the  heart,  and  the  poets  who  could 
fire  all  the  energies  of  the  soul,  —  Plato  and  Demosthenes,  Sopho- 
cles and  Euripides,  Pindar  and  Homer.  But  though  they  admired, 
they  could  not  emulate,  the  models  4hich  they  possessed.  Century 
after  century  rolled  away,  and  these  inestimable  treasures,  however 
Talued  by  those  who  inherited  them,  were  lost  to  mankind. 

Yet,  as  the  ft)rtune3  of  the  Greek  Empire  declined,  the  intercourse 
between  Constantinople  and  the  rest  of  Europe  long  contributed  to 
the  improvement  of  the  latter ;  and  the  splendor  of  the  Greek  learn- 
ing and  philosophy,  even  as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century,  had 
touched  with  a  morning  ray  the  summits  of  the  great  kingdoms  of 
the  West.  In  the  public  schools  and  universities  of  Italy  and  Spain, 
France  and  England,  distinguished  individuals,  like  our  own  Bacon 
of  Oxford,  applied  themselves  with  success  to  the  study  of  science, 
and  even  of  the  Grecian  literature.  In  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
generous  emulation  of  Petrarch  and  his  friends  gave  a  distinct  prom- 
ise of  the  subsequent  revival  of  learning.  While  the  Turks  were 
encircling  with  their  toils  and  closing  round  their  destined  prey,  the 
scholars  of  the  East  were  continually  escaping  from  the  terror  of 


152  LECTURE  IX. 

their  arms  or  their  oppression,  and,  after  the  destruction  of  ti:ie  me- 
tropolis of  the  East,  it  was  in  the  West  alone  thej  could  find  either 
freedom  or  affluence,  either  dignity  or  leisurt. 

In  the  sack  of  Constantinople,  amid  the  destruction  of  the  li'Sra- 
ries,  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  manuscripts  are  said  to  have 
disappeared ;  but  the  scholars,  and  such  of  the  manuscripts  as  es- 
caped, were  transferred  to  a  new  sphere  of  existence,  —  to  nations 
that  were  excited  by  a  spirit  of  independence  and  emulation,  and  to 
states  and  kingdoms  that  were  not  retrograde  and  degenerating,  as 
was  the  Empire  of  the  Greeks.  The  result  was  favorable  to  the 
world.  Like  the  idol  of  a  pagan  temple,  the  city  of  the  East, 
though  honored  and  revered  by  succeeding  generations,  was  still  but 
an  object  of  worship  without  life  or  use ;  when  overthro^vn,  however, 
and  broken  into  fragments  by  a  barbarian  assailant,  its  riches  were 
disclosed,  and  restored  at  once  to  activity  and  value. 

This  great  event,  the  revival  of  learning,  is  a  subject  that,  from 
its  importance  and  extent,  may  occupy  indefinitely  the  liberal  inquiry 
of  the  student.  There  has  been  an  introduction  to  the  subject,  or  a 
history  of  the  more  early  appearance  of  the  revival  of  leafiiing,  pub- 
lished in  1798,  at  Cadell's,  which  seems  written  by  some  author  of 
adequate  information,  and  which  is  deserving  of  perusal.  I  shall, 
however,  more  particularly  refer  you  to  the  notices  of  Robertson,  in 
his  introduction  to  Charles  the  Fifth ;  to  those  of  Mosheim,  in  his 
State  of  Learning  in  the  Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Centuries  ; 
above  all,  to  the  latter  part  of  the  fifty-third  and  of  the  sixty-sixth 
chapters  of  Gibbon ;  and  to  the  Lives  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  and  Leo 
the  Tenth,  by  Mr.  Roscoe.  The  observations  and  inquiries  of  writ- 
ers like  these  will  leave  little  to  be  sought  after  by  those  who  con- 
sider this  great  event  only  in  connection  with  other  events,  and 
attribute  to  it  no  more  than  its  relative  and  philosophic  importance. 
Those  who  wish  to  do  more  Avill,  in  the  references  of  these  eminent 
historians,  find  original  authors  and  guides  very  amply  sufficient  to 
occupy  and  amuse  the  whole  leisure  even  of  a  literary  life. 

The  leading  observations  on  this  subject  will  not  escape  your  re- 
flections :  that  Constantinople  was  attacked  by  the  Arabs  in  the 
seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  and  might  have  been  swept  away  from 
the  earth  by  any  of  the  various  Barbarians  that  infested  it  at  an 
earlier  time,  when  her  scholars  and  her  manuscripts  could  have  had 
no  effect  on  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  when  the  seeds  of  future  im- 
provement would  have  fallen  on  a  rocky  soil,  where  no  flower  would 
have  taken  root  and  no  vegetation  quickened.  It  is  not  easy  to 
determine  how  long  the  darkness  of  Europe  might  in  this  case  have 
continued,  and  how  little  we  might  have  known  of  the  sages,  the 
poets,  and  the  orators  of  antiquity.  Even  the  Latins  themselves, 
after  besieging  and  capturing  Constantinople  at  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  were  in  possession  of  the  city,  and  of  all  that  it 


THE  REFORMATION.  153 

could  boast  and  display,  for  sixty  years,  and  in  vain.  Their  rude 
and  martial  spirits  were  insensible  to  any  wealth  which  glittered  not 
in  their  garments  or  on  their  board  ;  and  warriors  like  these  could 
little  comprehend  the  value  of  those  intellectual  treasures  that  can 
give  tranquillity  to  the  heart  and  enjoyment  to  the  understanding. 
But  at  a  still  later  period,  when  the  same  city  was  once  more  and 
finally  subdued  by  the  Turks,  the  same  western  nations  had  been 
prepared  for  the  due  reception  of  what  had  to  no  purpose  been  placed 
within  the  reach  of  their  more  uncivilized  forefathers  ;  and  then  fol- 
lowed what  has  been  justly  denominated  the  revival  of  learning.  We 
may  congratulate  ourselves  that  the  fall  of  the  Empire  was  postponed 
so  long,  and  observe  on  this,  as  on  other  occasions,  how  different  is 
the  effect  of  the  same  causes  and  events  at  different  periods  of  society. 

Again,  we  may  observe  with  admiration  and  with  gratitude  the 
curiosity  and  zeal  of  the  human  mind  at  this  interesting  era.  The 
munificence  of  the  patron  and  the  labor  of  the  scholar,  the  w^ealth  of 
the  great  and  the  industry  of  the  wise,  could  not  then  have  been 
more  usefully  directed ;  and  if  the  readers  of  manuscripts  are  now 
more  rare,  if  the  rivals  of  the  great  scholars  of  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries  now  seldom  appear,  and  if  our  late  Greek  professor, 
the  celebrated  Person,  for  instance,  could  no  longer  see  the  princes 
and  potentates  of  the  earth  contending  for  the  encouragement  of  his 
genius,  it  must  be  remembered,  that,  though  men  hke  these  can  never 
be  without  their  use  or  their  admiration,  much  of  the  service  which 
they  offer  to  society  has  been  already  rendered,  —  that  their  office 
has  been  already,  to  a  considerable  degree,  performed,  —  that  we 
have  been  for  some  time  put  in  possession  of  the  great  classical  au- 
thors, of  the  models  of  taste  and  the  materials  of  thought,  —  and  that 
we  must  now  labor  to  emulate  what  sufficiently  for  our  improvement 
we  already  understand.  We  must  reflect,  that,  were  mankind  not 
to  exercise  their  unceremonious  and  often  somewhat  unfeeling  criti- 
cism upon  merit  of  every  description,  and  applaud  it  precisely  to  the 
extent  in  which  it  contributes  to  'their  benefit,  Society  would  soon  be 
retrograde,  or  at  best  but  stationary,  and  each  succeeding  age  would 
no  longer  be  marked  by  its  own  appropriate  enlargement  of  the 
boundaries  of  human  knoAvledge. 

A  concluding  observation  seems  to  be,  that  an  obvious  alteration 
has  been  made  in  the  situation  of  men  of  genius.  They  need  no 
longer  hang  upon  the  smiles  of  a  patron ;  they  need  no  longer  debase 
the  Muses  or  themselves ;  the  progress  of  human  prosperity  has 
given  them  a  public  who  can  appreciate  and  rew^ard  their  labors  ;  and 
even  from  that  public,  if  too  slow  in  intellect  or  too  poor  in  virtue, 
an  appeal  has  been  opened  to  posterity  by  the  invention  of  printmg ; 
and  a  Locke  may  see  his  volumes  stigmatized  and  burnt,  or  a  Newton 
the  slow  progress  of  his  reasonings,  with  that  tranquillity  wliich  is 
the  privilege  of  genuine  merit,  and  with  that  confident  anticipation 
20 


154  LECTURE  IX. 

.of  tihe  future  whicli  may  now  be  the  enjoyment  of  all  those  who  are 
conscious  that  they  have  labored  well  and  that  they  deserve  to  be 
esteemed  the  benefactors  of  mankind. 

But  you  mil  not  long  be  engaged  in  the  histories  I  have  r:.3ntioned, 
before  you  will  perceive,  that,  at  the  opening  of  the  sixte?nth  cen- 
tury, a  new  and  indeed  fearful  experiment  was  to  be  made  upon  man- 
kind ;  a  spirit  not  only  of  literary  inquiry,  but  of  religious  inquiry, 
was  to  go  forth  ;  the  minds  of  men  were  everywhere  to  be  agitate! 
on  concerns  the  most  dear  to  them ;  and  the  Church  of  Rome  was  to 
be  attacked,  not  only  in  its  discipline,  but  in  its  doctrine,  not  only  in 
its  practice,  but  in  its  faith. 

Opposition  to  the  Papacy  in  these  points,  or  what  was  then  called 
heresy,  had,  indeed,  always  existed.  The  student  will  be  called  upon, 
its  he  reads  the  preceding  history,  to  notice  and  respect  the  more  ob 
vious  representatives  of  this  virtuous  struggle  of  the  human  mind 
—  the  Albigenses,  our  own  Wickhffe  and  the  Lollards,  as  well  as  th* 
Hussites  in  Bohemia.  But,  as  it  was  in  vain  that  the  works  of  litera- 
ture were  placed  within  the  reach  of  the  Franks,  who  first  captured 
Constantinople,  so  the  doctrines  of  truth  and  the  rights  of  religioua 
inquiry  were  to  little  purpose  presented  to  the  consideration  of  tho 
nations  of  Europe  by  the  more  early  Reformers  ;  "the  light  shone  m 
the, darkness,  but  the  darkness  comprehended  it  not."  At  the  open 
ing,  however,  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  condition  of  Europe  wae 
in  some  respects  essentially  improved  ;  and  it  now  seemed  possible 
that  they  who  asserted  the  cause  of  the  human  mind  in  its  dearest 
interests  might  at  least  obtain  attention,  and  probably  see  their  lauda- 
ble exertions  crowned  with  success. 

But  whatever  might  be  the  virtues  or  the  success  of  distinguished 
individuals  in  establishing  their  opinions,  it  was  but  too  certain  that 
a  reformation  in  the  doctrines  of  religion  could  not  be  accomplished 
without  the  most  serious  evils  ;  these  might  be,  indeed,  entirely  over- 
balanced by  the  good  that  was  to  result,  but  the  most  afflicting  con- 
sequences must  necessarily  in  the  fifst  place  ensue. 

In  discussing  this  great  subject  of  the  Reformation, —  too  vast  to 
be  properly  treated  but  in  a  distinct  work  for  the  purpose,  —  I  shaft 
first  endeavour  briefly  to  show  why  these  serious  evils  were  to  be 
expected,  and  then  what  was  the  benefit  which" it  was  probable  might 
also  accrue.  In  the  next  place,  I  shall  endeavour  to  point  out  such 
particular  transactions  in  the  history  of  the  Reformation  as  illustrate 
the  representations  which  I  shall  thus  make.  That  is,  if  I  may  ven- 
ture, for  the  purposes  of  explanation,  to  adopt  language  so  assuming, 
I  shall,  in  the  remainder  of  this  lecture,  propose  to  your  considera- 
tion the  theory  of  the  events  of  the  Reformation ;  and  in  the  next, 
I  shall  endeavour  to  show  how  this  theory  and  the  facts  correspond. 
Lastly,  I  shall  mention  such  books  and  treatises  as  may  be  sufficient 
to  furnish  you  with  proper  information  on  every  part  of  this  momen- 
tous subject. 


THE  REFORMATION.  135 

Now  the  great  reason  why  the  most  serious  and  extensive  evils 
were  to  be  expected*  from  the  breaking  out  of  the  Reformation  was, 
first,  the  natural  intolerance  of  the  human  mind.  But  this  is  so  im- 
portant a  principle  in  every  part  of  the  history  of  the  Reformation, 
and  the  whole  is  so  unintelligible,  unless  this  principle  be  first  thor- 
oughly understood,  that  I  must  consider  it  more  at  length  than  I 
could  wish,  or  than  might  at  first  sight  appear  necessary.  It  is 
necessary,  however  ;  for  no  human  mind,  in  its  sound  state  of  rea 
sonableness  and  humanity,  can  possibly  conceive  the  scenes  that  took 
place  in  the  times  of  the  Reformation,  and  even  in  those  that  pre- 
ceded and  followed  them ;  and  it  is  quite  a  problem  in  the  science 
of  human  nature  to  account  for  the  astonishing  barbarity  and  even 
stupidity  of  which  men  on  these  occasions  proved  themselves  to  be 
capable .  ^ 

A  celebrated  author,  Adam  Smith,  in  the  most  delightful  of  all 
philosophical  books,  has  referred  the  origin  of  all  our  moral  sentiments 
to  sympathy.  Without  presuming  to  decide  how  far  such  a  solution 
is  complete,  it  will  be  readily  allowed  that  he  has  fully  shown  how 
powerful  is  the  principle  itself,  how  early  and  how  universal.  It 
would  be  strange,  if  it  afiected  not,  as  it  certainly  does,  the  opinions 
we  form  and  the  sentiments  we  utter. 

Suppose  a  person  to  have  taken  the  same  view  of  a  subject  with 
ourselves,  how  pleased  are  we  to  observe  this  concurrence  with  our 
own  decisions !  Does  he  speak  ?  how  agreeable  is  his  manner !  Does 
he  reason  ?  how  sohd  are  his  arguments !  We  admire  the  reasoning, 
we  love  the  reasoner ;  his  thoughts  are  like  our  thoughts,  his  feelings 
like  our  feelings  ;  throughout  there  is  a  pleasure,  for  throughout  there 
is  a  S3Tiipathy.  Such  a  man  has  a  claim  on  our  attention,  our  kind- 
ness, our  friendship  ;  we  applaud  and  honor  him  ;  we  wish  every  one 
to  hsten  to  him,  and  imbibe,  like  ourselves,  sentiments  which  we  are 
now  more  than  ever  convinced  should  be  entertained  by  all  men. 

But  reverse  the  supposition,  and  how  different  is  the  picture !  How 
unmeaning  are  the  observations,  how  poor  the  arguments,  of  him  who 
is  an  advocate  for  a  cause  which  we  disapprove !  We  listen,  and  we 
can  hear  only  inadmissible  statements,  intolerable  assertions,  through- 
out, —  nothing  but  mistake,  declamation,  and  delusion.  The^  rea- 
soner, it  seems,  finds  no  longer  an  echo  in  our  bosoms,  and,  giving 
us  no  pleasure,  we  declare  it  to  be  a  loss  of  time  to  Hsten  to  him. 
We  question  his  information,  his  ability  ;  proceed,  perhaps,  to  suspect 
his  motives  ;  suspect,  indeed,  any  thing,  but  an  error  in  our  own 
judgment.  It  is  indeed  a  pity,  we  cry,  that  such  fallacies  should  be 
heard  ;  they  may,  after  all,  if  repeated,  gain  ground  ;  men  should 
not  be  suffered  to  propagate  such  false  opinions.  Surely,  we  con- 
clude, the  cause  of  propriety  and  truth  is  of  some  consequence  to  thd 
world,  and  ought  by  all  wise  and  good  men  to  be  vindicated.    ^ 

From  beginnings  like  these,  to  what  extent  may  not  the  mmd  be 


156  LECTURE  IX. 

carried  b;^  contest  and  collision  !  When  men  spea^  Jt  write,  and  at 
every  word  there  is  a  discord,  and  pain  at  e"^rj  mxnent  given  or 
received,  how  soon  is  dispute  converted  into  dislike,  hardened  into 
hatred,  exasperated  into  rage  !  What  folly  and  what  outrage  may 
not  be  expected  to  ensue  ! 

But  any  effect  thus  described  is  proportionally  accelerated  and  in- 
creased, whenever  the  object  of  discussion  either  really  is  or  can  be 
supposed  to  be  interesting  and  important.  Now  it  must  be  observed, 
that  every  thing  becomes  interesting  and  important  that  can  be 
brought  into  any  alhance  with  the  religious  principle.  ,  This  religious 
principle  is  in  itself  so  natural,  so  just,  and  so  respectalle,  that  it  can 
transfer  its  own  respectabihty  to  every  thing  which  by  any  workings 
of  the  reason  or  of  the  imagination  it  can  be  made  to  Eyoproach.  All 
the  powerful  and  laudable  feelmgs  of  our  hearts  are  lere  instantly 
engaged.  The  opinion  we  adopt,  the  rite  we  perform,  we  conceive 
to  be  acceptable  to  the  Almighty,  and,  being  so,  it  is  no  longer  within 
the  proper  province  of  the  discussions  of  reason ;  it  is  piety  to  retain, 
sinfulness  to  abandon  it ;  it  is  our  first  duty,  it  is  ouj:*  best  happiness, 
to  propagate  it,  to  extend  to  others  that  favor  of  the  Deity  which  it 
procures  for  ourselves ;  but  to  hear  it  questioned,  contradicted,  or 
despised  is  to  submit  not  only  to  falsehood,  but  to  impiety,  to  be  in- 
different to  the  truth,  to  be  recreant  to  our  most  solemn  obhgations, 
to  refuse  to  vindicate  the  cause  of  heaven  and  of  our  God. 

Every  motive  here  conspires  to  exasperate  our  sympathy  and  our 
judgment,  our  feelings  and  our  reason,  to  extravagances  the  most 
unhmited ;  the  natural  propensities  of  the  human  mind  to  intolerance 
are  here  so  influenced  by  an  idea  in  which  every  other  must  be  ab- 
sorbed, the  idea  of  the  Supreme  Being,  that  all  the  common  and  reg- 
ular movements  of  the  passions  are  overpowered,  all  the  more  ordi- 
nary suggestions  of  the  understanding  at  an  end  ;  and  the  man  with 
his  faculties  yet  sound  and  awake,  with  his  heart  still  beating  in  his 
bosom,  sees,  without  shuddering,  a  being  like  himself,  for  some  differ- 
ence in  his  religious  creed,  racked  on  a  wheel  or  agonizing  in  flames, 
and  yet  can  suppose  that  he  is  thus  discharging  an  act  of  duty  to  his 
Creator  and  of  benevolence  to  his  fellow-creatures,  —  that  he  is  con^ 
forming  to  the  precepts  of  rehgion,  and  approving  himself  an  accepta- 
ble servant  to  the  God  of  mercy ! 

Is  human  nature,  then,  it  will  be  said,  so  totally  without  aid  and 
direction  ?  Is  the  duty  of  toleration  so  unintelligible  ?  Is  the  truth 
on  this  subject  so  diSicult  to  be  discovered  ?  —  The  duty  of  toleration 
is  very  intelligible  ;  it  is  founded  on  the  great  axiom  of  all  morality, 
that  we  are  to  do  to  others  as  we  should  think  it  just  should  be  done 
to  ourselves.  There  is  no  want  of  evidence  in  this  truth  ;  it  instantly 
finds  admission  to  the  understanding ;  but  truths  must  do  much  more 
than  find  admission  to  the  understanding,  or  the  conduct  will  oot  be 
•effected. 


THE  REFORMATION.  167 

The  history  of  mankind  has  been  a  continual  illustration  of  the 
natural  intolerance  of  the  human  mind.  I  shall  mention  a  few  ex- 
amples. 

The  most  memorable  instance  of  suffering  from  intolerance  is  that 
of  our  Saviour  himself  It  was  in  vain  that  Pilate  asked  the  Jews, 
"  Why,  what  evil  hath  he  done?  "  The  only  answer  that  could  be 
obtained  was,  "  Crucify  him  !  crucify  him  !  "  A  true  picture  of  the 
nature  of  the  human  mind  on  these  subjects  at  all  times. 

"  Which  of  the  prophets  have  not  your  fathers  persecuted  ?"  said 
the  martyr  Stephen,  in  his  last  moments  of  peril.  To  the  death  of 
this  innocent  man  was  Paul  consenting,  and  he  stood  unmoved  by  the 
spectacle  of  his  faith  and  sufferings.  The  same  Paul  was  still  exhib- 
iting the  natural  workings  of  the  human  mind,  he  was  still  "  breathing 
out  threatenings  and  slaughter"  against  the  disciples,  when  it  pleased 
the  Almighty,  by  a  particular  interposition  of  his  power,  to  check  the 
unrighteous  labors  of  his  ardent  mind,  and  to  purify  for  his  service  a 
man  worthy  of  a  better  cause,  and  destined  to  be  the  apostle  of  benev- 
olence and  truth. 

The  subsequent  sufferings  of  the  disciples  and  the  early  Christians 
attested,  indeed,  the  sincerity  of  their  own  faith,  but  show  too  forci- 
bly the  intolerance  of  the  rest  of  mankind.  The  very  evidence  of 
our  religion,  in  one  point  of  view,  is  thus  measured  by  the  measure 
of  human  intolerance,  and  might  serve,  if  any  thing  could  serve,  as 
an  eternal  warning  to  those  who  presume  to  offer  violence  to  the  re- 
ligious opinions  of  their  fellow-creatures. 

When  the  younger  Pliny  was  governor  of  Bithynia,  the  Christians 
were  brought  before  him  as  men  who  would  not  conform  to  the  rites 
and  ceremonies  of  the  national  worship.  Two  remarkable  letters 
passed  between  him  and  the  good  Trajan  on  the  subject,  —  letters 
well  known  to  those  who  have  considered  the  evidences  of  their  re- 
ligion, and  which  exhibit  a  very  valuable  picture  of  the  first  sugges- 
tions of  the  human  mind  in  concerns  of  this  particular  nature.  The 
result,  however,  was,  that  Pliny  ordered  the  Christians  to  be  led  out 
to  execution  :  he  had  no  objection,  nor  had  the  Romans,  to  their 
worship  of  Christ ;  but  when  the  Christians  refused  to  pay  homage, 
in  like  manner,  to  the  gods  of  Rome,  this  sort  of  perverseness,  says 
Pliny,  was  evidently  a  crime,  and  deserving  of  condign  punishment ; 
that  is,  when  the  religious  opinions  of  the  Christian  appeared  to  be 
m  direct  opposition  to  his  own,  these  opinions  were  to  be  put  down  by 
force.  ' 

The  ancients  have  been  sometimes  represented  as  tolerant,  but  this 
is  lightly  said ;  they  were  never  put  to  any  trial  of  the  kind ;  from 
the  nature  of  their  polytheism,  they  never  could  be.  Had  Pliny  been 
questioned  at  the  time  by  a  man  more  enlightened  than  himself,  he 
would,  no  doubt,  have  made  the  answer  which  others,  with  less  excuse 
than  Pliny,  have  but  too  frequently  offered :  that  it  was  one  thing  to 

N 


168  LECTURE  IX. 

frilbw  the  Christians  to  sacrifice  to  Christ,  and  another  thing  to  allonv 
them  to  contradict  the  religion  of  the  state ;  that  he  was  ready  to 
permit  them  to  worship  the  Deity  according  to  their  own  notions, 
but  that  it  was  impossible  to  suffer  them  to  destroy  the  faith  of  others ; 
and. that  he  could  see  a  clear  distinction  between  toleration  in  religion 
and  indifference  to  true  religion. 

The  necessity  of  free  inquiry,  as  a  means  of  attaining  to  truth,  — • 
the  equal  eye  with  which  the  great  Creator,  it  must  be  presumed, 
will  survey  the  sincere,  though  varying,  efforts  of  his  creatures  in 
pursuit  of  it, — 'the  injustice  of  doing  to  the  Christians  what  he,  as  a 
Christian,  would  think  unreasonable  and  cruel,  —  topics  of  this  ob- 
vious nature  would  have  been  offered  to  the  consideration  of  Pliny, 
probably,  with  the  same  ill  success  which  has  aecompanied  them  on 
every  occasion,  when  the  rights  of  religion  and  humanity  have  been 
pleaded. 

Can  two  contradictory  opinions,  says  the  pious  man,  be  equally 
true  ?  —  May  they  not,  it  may  be  answered,  may  they  not  be  equally 
accepted  by  the  Almighty  Father,  if  offered  to  him  with  equal  sin- 
cerity and  humility  of  spirit,  and  after  the  same  petitions  for  his 
grace  and  assistance  ?  But,  at  all  events,  it  is  not  for  human  beings 
to  attempt  to  propagate  truth  by  force. 

From  the  time  of  Pliny  to  the  establishment  of  Christianity  under 
Constantino,  from  Constantino  to  the  establishment  of  the  Papal 
power,  from  that  fatal  event  to  the  destruction  of  Constantinople,  the 
Christian  world  was  rent  into  divisions,  each  in  its  turn  persecuting 
the  other.  The  student  may  see  in  the  pages  of  Gibbon  the  dis- 
graceful and  often  bloody  hostilities  of  contending  sects  ;  and  he  will 
much  more  easily  comprehend  the  guilt  of  the  rival  disputants  than 
the  subjects  of  their  unchristian  animosity. 

I  do  not  detain  you  with  any  allusions  to  particular  passages  in 
Gibbon,  in  Mosheini,  or  in  any  other  ecclesiastic  historian.  You  will 
read  them  yourselves ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  many  occasions  that 
will  occur  in  the  delivery  of  these  lectures,  where  I  am  obUged  to  de- 
spatch in  a  single  sentence  a  mass  of  reading  that  may  afterwards 
very  properly  occupy  you  for  many  days  and  weeks.  It  is  sufficient 
for  me,  at  present,  that  I  may  safely  assume  the  general  fact,  that 
the  specimens  of  the  natural  intolerance  of  the  human  mind  to  be 
found  in  such  writers  are  perfectly  innumerable. 

We  have  hitherto  spoken,  first,  of  the  intolerance  of  the  Jews  to 
the  early  Christians  ;  afterwards,  of  the  pagans  to  the  followers  of 
Christ ;  lastly,  of  the  Christians  to  each  other.  But  as  we  descend 
through  the  history  of  Europe,  we  shall  next  have  to  observe 
how  lamentable  and  totally  unrelenting  have  been  the  persecutions 
which  the  Christians  have  in  their  turn  exercised  upon  the  Jews.  To 
speak  literally  and  without  a  figure,  this  unhappy  race  seems  not  to 
have  been  considered  by  our  ancestors  as  within  the  pale  of  hu- 


^  THE  EEFORMATION.  159' 

manitj;  and  our  great  poet,  who  drew  mankind  just  as  he  found 
them,  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Shy  lock  a  train  of  reasoning  that  pro- 
ceeds upon  this  dreadful  supposition  :  —  "  Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes  ?  hath 
not  a  Jew  hands?"  &c.,  &c.  "  Fed  with  the  same  food,  warmed 
and  cooled  by  the  same  winter  and  summer,  as  a  Christian  is  ?  " 

As  we  descend  to  times  a  little  later,  we  at  length  perceive  even 
a  regular  tribunal  created  for  the  avowed  purposes  of  persecution, — 
the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition.  And  who,  let  us  ask,  was  amono^  its 
earliest  approvers  ?  Louis  the  Ninth  of  Prance,  the  most  generous 
and  just  of  men. 

And  here  I  pause ;  it  cannot  be  necessary  that  I  should  proceed 
any  farther.  Calling,  therefore,  to  mind  what  we  have  passed 
through  in  this  brief  review,  and  what  we  before  endeavored  to 
show,  I  may  now  finally  observe,  that  such  appear  to  me,  in  the 
first  place,  the  explanation  and  the  theory  of  the  natural  intolerance 
of  every  human  mind  on  every  subject,  and  more  particularly  on 
religious  subjects;  and  such,  in  the  second  place,  the  leading  facts 
of  history  to  exemplify  ,this  last  intolerance  on  religious  subjects, 
prior  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  At  that  epoch,  therefore,  man- 
kind had  very  fully  exhibited  their  real  nature ;  and  it  was  very 
evident,  if  differences  in  religious  opinions  were  to  -arise,  how  afflict- 
ing would  be  the  consequences. 

But  it  must  have  been  clear,  in  the  next  place,  that  such  differ- 
ences must  arise  ;  for  the  spirit  of  religious  inquiry  was  to  be  called 
into  action ;  and  upon  what  was  it  to  be  exercised  ?  Upon  the 
Scriptures  themselves,  and  upon  the  works  of  the  Fathers, —  writ- 
ings composed  in  what  to  the  inquirers  were  dead  languages. 

Now,  whenever  the  human  mind  exercises  its  powers  with  free- 
dom, different  men  will  take  different  views  of  the  same  subject; 
they  will  draw  different  conclusions,  even  where  the  materials  pre- 
sented to  their  judgment  are  the  same.  Not  only  this,  but  in  points 
of  religious  doctrine,  from  the  very  awfulness  of  the  subject,  the 
mind  scarcely  presumes  to  exercise  its  faculties ;  and  in  these  dis- 
quisitions men  have  no  longer  the  chance,  whatever  it  may  be,  which 
they  have  on  other  subjects,  of  arguing  themselves  into  agreement. 

Again,  the  evidence  which*  the  Reformers  had  to  produce  to  each 
other  for  their  respective  opinions  was  their  respective  interpretation 
of  one  or  many  different  texts  of  Scripture,  of  one  or  many  different 
passages  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers.  Now,  of  all  such  evidence 
it  must  be  observed,  that  it  never,  from  the  very  nature  of  it,  could 
be  demonstrative.  In  mathematical  questions,  where  the  relations 
of  quantity  are  alone  concerned,  a  dispute  can  be  completely  termi- 
nated ;  because  from  wrong  premises  or  false  reasoning  a  contradic- 
tion can  be  at  last  shown  to  result ;  some  impossibility  appears, — 
the  greater  is  equal  to  the  less,  or  the  less  to  the  greater.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  many  parts  of  the  sciences  ;  because  a  question 


160  LECTURE  IX.  f 

can  here  always  be  asked  wMch  admits  of  a  precise  answer,  and  is, 
at  the  same  time,  decisive  of  the  contest,  —  What  is  the  fact  ?  — 
what  says  the  experiment  ? 

But  when  a  question  is  to  depend  on  the  interpretation  of  texts 
and  passages  in  Scripture,  the  case  is  totally  altered ;  for,  of  the 
different  meanings  that  can  be  affixed,  no  one  can  be  shown  to  be, 
strictly  speaking,  impossible.  They  may  be  shown  to  be  more  or 
less  reasonable,  but  no  more :  the  scale  of  evidence  here  is  reason- 
ableness ;  metaphysically  speaking,  is  probability.  Men  cannot  be 
proved  in  these,  as  in  mathematical  disquisitions,  to  be  totally  right 
or  totally  wrong ;  they  cannot  be  left  at  once  without  an  argument 
or  without  an  opponent.  A  reasoner  on  such  subjects  mtiy,  from 
inferiority  of  judgment,  or  what  is  called  perversity  of  judgment,  or 
any  other  cause,  adopt  that  meaning  which  is  the  less  sound  and  just 
of  any  two  that  may  be  proposed  to  him ;  but  if  he  does,  he  can 
never,  by  any  consequent  impossibility,  be  absolutely  compelled  to 
admit  the  more  reasonable  opinion  of  his  opponent. 

It  is  very  true  that  this  probable  evidence  is  sufficient  for  men  to 
reason  and  act  upon ;  but  it  is  not  sufficient  to  preclude  the  possibil- 
ity of  dispute  ;  and  this  is  all  that  is  here  contended  for.  When  the 
nature  of  the  evidence  is  this  of  probability,  the  varying  powers  of 
judgment  and  the  ready  passions  of  mankind  have  full  liberty  to 
interfere  ;  men  may  be  more  or  less  reasonable,  as  these  causes 
direct.  No  such  interference  is  possible  in  discussions  that  concern 
matters  of  experiment  and  fact,  and  the  relations  of  quantity.  We 
have,  therefore,  no  sects  or  parties  in  mathematics,  but  they  abound 
in  every  other  department  of  human  opinion. 

We  have  now,  therefore,  to  present  to  the  consideration  of  the 
student  two  observations ;  they  are  these :  not  only,  in  the  first 
place,  that  the  human  mind  was  naturally  intolerant ;  but  that,  in 
the  second  place,  the  evidence  that  could  be  laid  before  it  never, 
from  the  nature  of  it,  could  be  demonstrative ;  and  that,  therefore, 
this  intolerance  had  full  opportunity  to  act. 

But  there  is  yet  another  observation  to  be  made.  It  was  not  only 
that  disputes  could  not  be  necessarily  terminated,  even  when  exer- 
cised upon  the  great  and  proper  topics*  of  debate,  but  it  was  clear, 
both  from  the  nature  of  the  human  mind  and  from  the  testimony  of 
history,  that  men,  when  awakened  to  the  consideration  of  rehgious 
subjects,  would  assuredly  engage  in  the  most  subtile  metaphysical 
inquiries,  and,  by  their  vain  efforts  to  know  and  to  teach  more  than 
the  Scriptures  had  taught  them,  or  than,  it  may  be  presumed,  the 
Almighty  Creator  intended  their  faculties  to  comprehend,  would 
involve  themselves  and  their  followers  in  disputes  which  it  would  be 
more  than  ever  impossible  to  set  at  rest  by  reasoning,  and  which,  on 
that  very  account,  would  be  only  the  more  calculated  to  exasperate 
their  .passions. 


THE  REFORMATION.  16L 

In  addition  to  these  considerations,  there  is  another:  we  must 
reflect  on  the  situation  of  the  world  at  this  particular  epoch.  Europe 
had,  no  doubt,  improved  during  several  of  the  preceding  centuries, 
and  was  even  rapidly  improving  at  the  time.  But  it  must  still  be 
noted,  that  literature  had  made  as  yet  little  progress,  science  still 
less ;  men  had  not  been  softened  by  the  fine  arts,  and  the  peaceful 
pleasures  which  they  afford  ;  they  had  not  been  humanized  by  much 
intercourse  with  each  other ;  martial  prowess  was  their  virtue  ;  super- 
stitious observances  their  religion.  In  this  situation,  they  vvere  on  a 
sudden  to  have  their  passions  roused  and  their  intellectual  talents 
exercised  upon  subjects  which  require  to  their  adjustment  all  the 
virtues  and  all  the  improvement  of  which  the  human  character  is 
capable.  On  these  accounts  the  prospect  for  mankind  on  the  opening 
of  the  Reformation  was  very  awful ;  it  was  evident  much  misery  must 
result  from  the  natural  intolerance  of  the  mind,  from  the  materials 
with  which  that  intolerance  was  now  to  be  suppHed,  and  from  the 
general  ignorance  and  rudeness  of  society. 

But  there  was  yet  another  consideration  to  be  taken  into  account. 
We  have  hitherto  endeavoured  to  estimate  the  evils  to  which  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Reformation  would  give  occasion,  by  stating  its 
more  natural  and  appropriate  effects  upon  the  human  mind  ;  but  the 
religious  principle  which  was  thus  to  be  awakened  was  sure  to  inter- 
mingle itself  in  all  earthly  concerns ;  it  was  sure  to  give  names  to 
parties,  to  multiply  afresh  the  causes  of  irritation  and  offence,  and  to 
add  new  restlessness  and  motion  to  the  politics  of  the  world. 

Again,  there  was  even  an  inherent  and  inevitable  difficulty  in  the 
subject,  by  whatever  unexpected  influence  of  moderation  and  reason 
mankind  had  chosen  to  be  controlled.  The  Roman  hierarchy  were 
the  spiritual  instructors  of  the  people,  and  as  such  had  ecclesiastical 
revenues.  But  it  was  evident,  that,  if  there  arose  a  set  of  men  who 
disputed  the  doctrines  of  that  hierarchy,  these  last  would  no  longer 
think  it  reasonable  that  such  revenues  should  be  so  applied ;  they 
would  represent  them  as  devoted  only  to  the  unrighteous  purposes  of 
superstition  and  error ;  they  would  insist  upon  at  least  a  share,  if  not 
the  whole,  for  the  support  of  themselves,  while  engaged  in  the  propa- 
gation of  truth  and  genuine  Christianity.  The  established  teachers 
would,  therefore,  be  disturbed  in  their  possessions,  deprived  of  their 
benefices,  some  perhaps  thrown  naked  and  defenceless  into  the  world 
at  advanced  periods  of  age  and  infirmity.  Such  mutations  o^  prop- 
erty, it  was  but  too  clear,  could  neither  be  attempted  nor  executed 
without  violence ;  and  violence,  so  exercised,  could  not  but  be  at- 
tended by  the  most  furious  animosities,  disturbance,  and  calamity. 

Again,  when  these  revenues  had  been  converted  to  the  support  of 

the  first  reformed  preachers,  these  were  likely  to  be  in  their  turn 

opposed  by  new  and  succeeding  descriptions  of  rehgious  inquirers ; 

the  same  reasoning  would,  therefore,  again  be  urged,  the  same  strug 

21  •  N* 


162  LECTURE  IX. 

gle  be  repeated,  the  same  force  be  employed.  On  the  whole,  there- 
fore, statesmen  and  princes  and  warriors  were  sure,  from  the  first, 
to  be  engaged  in  all  these  disputes,  and  to  kindle  in  the  general 
flame  ;  and  the  controversies  of  religion  were  sure  to  be  decided,  like 
the  ordinary  contests  of  mankind,  by  the  sword,  —  by  the  sword, 
indeed,  but  amid  a  conflict  of  passions  rendered  more  than  ever  blind 
and  sanguinary  from  the  materials  which  were  now  added  of  more 
than  human  obstinacy,  intrepidity,  and  rancor. 

Such  were  the  evils  that  were  to  be  expected  at  the  breaking  out 
of  the  Reformation,  from  the  intolerance  of  men,  from  the  nature  of 
the  evidence  that  could  be  produced  to  them  in  their  new  subjects  of 
dispute,  from  the  particular  metaphysical  turn  which  these  disputes 
would  probably  take,  from  the  unimproved  state  of  society  in  Europe, 
from  the  intermixture  of  the  earthly  politics  of  the  world  with  religious 
concerns,  and  from  the  inevitable  and  difiicult  question  of  the  disposal 
of  the  ecclesiastical  revenues. 

But  what  was,  then,  the  benefit  that  mankind  were  hkely  to  receive 
which  might  compensate  for  the  evils  to  which  they  were  to  be  thus 
exposed  ?  The  benefit  that  it  was  probable  would  result  was  above 
all  price ;  it  was  this :  that  they  who  disputed  the  doctrines  of  the 
Romish  Church,  however  they  might  for  a  time  appeal  to  the  Pope 
or  general  councils,  must  at  length  appeal  to  the  Bible  itself;  that 
the  sacred  text  would  be,  therefore,  examined,  criticized,  and  under- 
stood ;  that,  however  violent  or  unjust  the  force  which  the  hierarchy 
or  the  civil  magistrate  might  attempt  to  exercise,  still,  as  the  human 
mind  was  capable  of  the  steadiest  resistance,  when  animated  by  the 
cause  of  truth,  —  as  men  were  equal  to  the  contempt  of  imprison- 
ment, tortures,  or  death,  for  the  sake  of  their  religious  opinions,  — 
as  history  had  borne  sufficient  testimony  to  the  exalted  constancy  of 
our  nature  in  these  respects,  —  that,  therefore,  the  Reformers  must 
in  all  probability  succeed  in  establishing  a  purer  faith,  and  must  at 
all  events  contribute  to  improve  both  the  doctrines  and  the  conduct 
of  their  opponents ;  that,  from  the  general  fermentation  which  would 
ensue,  it  could  not  hut  happen  that  the  Bible  ivould  he  opened,  —  that 
doctrines  would  no  longer  be  taken  upon  authority,  —  that  religion 
would  no  longer  consist  so  much  in  vain  ceremonies  and  passive  igno- 
rance,—  that  devotion  would  become  a  reasonable  sacrifice,  —  and 
that  the  Gospel  would,  in  fact,  be  a  second  time  promulgated  to  an 
erring  and  sinful  world. 

Now '  what  further  benefit  might  attend  this  emancipation  of  the 
human  mind  from  its  spiritual  thraldom  it  might  have  been  difficult 
at  the  time  properly  to  estimate.  But  this  new  gift  of  Christianity 
to  mankind  was  a  blessing  in  itself  sufficient  to  outweigh  all  temporal 
calamities,  of  whatever  extent.  To  be  the  humble  instruments,  under 
Divine  Providence,  of  imparting  such  a  benefit  to  the  world  was  the 
virtuous  ambition,  the  pious  hope,  of  the  early  Reformers.     It  waa 


THE  REFORMATION.  163 

this  that  gave  such  activity  to  their  exertions,  such  inflexibility  to 
their  fortitude.  This  sacred  ardor,  this  holy  energy,  in  the  cause  of 
religious  truth,  is  the  remaining  principle  which,  in  conjunction  with 
those  I  have  mentioned,  will  be  found  to  have  actuated  mankind  dur- 
ing the  ages  we  are  now  to  consider.  As  the  principles  before  men- 
tioned gave  occasion  to  all  that  was  dark  and  afflicting  in  the  scene, 
so  did  the  principle  noto  mentioned  give  occasion  to  all  that  was  bright 
and  cheering  and  elevating  to  the  soul ;  united,  they  may  serve,  when 
followed  up  through  their  remote  as  well  as  immediate  effects,  to  ex- 
plain, as  I  conceive,  the  events  of  the  Reformation,  and  for  some  ages 
all  the  more  important  part  of  the  history  of  Europe. 


LECTUEE   X. 


THE   REFORMATION. 


I  ENDEAVOURED  in  my  last  lecture  to  describe  the  evils  to  which 
mankind  would  probably  be  exposed  by  any  attempts  to  produce  the 
reformation  of  religion,  and  the  benefits  by  which  such  evils  were 
likely  to  be  overbalanced.  I  must  now  consider  how  far,  in  point  of 
fact,  such  evils  and  such  benefits  were  really  experienced. 

And  here  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  remind  you  of  one  of  the  diffi- 
culties which  I  announced  to  you  in  my  introductory  lecture,  as  more 
particularly  belonging  to  all  lectures  on  history,  —  the  impossibility 
that  a  lecturer  must' find  of  presenting  to  his  hearer  all  that  has 
passed  in  review  before  his  own  mind,  and  the  blank  that  must  there- 
fore be  left,  till  the  subsequent  diligence  of  the  student  has  furnished 
him  with  the  same  materials  of  judgment  which  the  lecturer  had  be- 
fore him.  Thus,  in  the  present  instance,  the  opinions  which  were 
presented  to  your  reflection  in  the  lecture  of  yesterday  were  sug- 
gested by  a  vast  assemblage  of  facts,  an  assemblage  which  in  reahty 
constitutes  the  history  of  the  Reformation.  How,  then,  are  these  to 
be  presented  to  you  ?  The  history  cannot  be  given  here,  nor  any 
part  of  it ;  a  few  allusions  and  references  are  all  the  expedients  I  can 
have  recourse  to.  These  will  at  present  convey  to  your  minds  Httle 
that  can  operate  upon  them  in  the  way  of  evidence,  but  you  must 
consider  them  as  specimens  of  evidence ;  you  must  recollect  that 
nothing  more  can  be  now  attempted,  and  you  must  be  contented  with 
expecting  to  find,  as  you  certainly  will  find  hereafter,  when  you  come 
to  read  the  history  for  yourselves,  that  the  general  import  of  the  fectsr 


164  LECTURE  X. 

has  not  been  misrepresented,  and  that  the  theories  I  have  proposed 
might  have  been  very  amply  illustrated,  if  the  proper  incidents  and 
transactions  could  have  been  conveniently  exhibited  to  your  consider- 
ation. 

Thus,  first,  with  respect  to  the  effects  which  I  conceived  could  not 
but  result  from  the  natural  intolerance  of  the  human  mind.  Of  this 
the  proof  will  hereafter  appear  to  you  but  too  complete.  It  will  be 
even  visible  to  a  considerable  degree  in  the  lectures  which  I  shall 
have  next  to  dehver,  on  the  religious  wars,  —  the  wars  that  accom- 
panied and  followed  the  progress  of  the  Reformation.  But  in  the 
mean  time,  I  can  only  refer  you  to  the  testimony  of  the  historians 
who  remark  upon  this  particular  point,  while  writing  under  the  im- 
mediate impression  of  all  the  transactions  which  they  have  had  occa- 
sion to  relate.  I  shall  produce,  as  one  of  the  most  unobjectionable 
that  can  be  mentioned,  the  judgment  that  has  been  delivered  by 
Robertson. 

"  The  Roman  Catholics,"  says  Robertson,  "  as  their  system  rested 
on  the  decisions  of  an  infallible  judge,  never  doubted  ftiat  truth  was 
on  their  side,  and  openly  called  on  the  civil  power  to  repel  the  im- 
pious and  heretical  innovators  who  had  risen  up  against  it.  The 
Protestants,  no  less  confident  that  their  doctrine  was  well  founded, 
required,  with  equal  ardor,  the  princes  of  their  party  to  check  such 
as  presumed  to  impugn  or  to  oppose  it.  Luther,  Calvin,  Cranmer, 
Knox,  the  founders  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  their  respective  coun- 
tries, inflicted,  as  far  as  they  had  power  and  opportunity,  the  same 
punishments  which  were  denounced  against  their  own  disciples  by  the 
Church  of  Rome,  upon  such  as  called  in  question  any  article  in  their 
creeds.  To  their  followers,  and  perhaps  to  their  opponents,  it  would 
have  appeared  a  symptom  of  diffidence  in  the  goodness  of  their  cause, 
or  an  acknowledgment  that  it  was  not  well  founded,  if  they  had  not 
employed  in  its  defence  all  those  means  which  'it  was  supposed  truth 
had  a  right  to  employ," 

This  passage  from  Robertson  I  conceive  to  be  in  the  main  just, 
though  I  think  Luther  might  have  been  favorably  distinguished  from 
Calvin  and  others.  There  are  passages  in  his  writings,  with  regard 
to  the  interference  of  the  magistrate  in  religious  concerns,  that  do 
him  honor  ;  but  he  was  favorably  situated,  and  lived  not  to  see  the 
temporal  sword  at  his  command.     He  was  never  tried. 

The  language  of  other  historians  is  similar  to  that  of  Robertson, 
but  in  general  more  strong.  I  need  not  detain  my  hearers  with  de- 
tailing to  them  those  passages  in  their  account  which  must  necessarily 
be  met  with  in  the  course  of  any  regular  perusal  of  their  narratives. 
I  shall,  however,  enumerate  a  few  instances  taken  from  diiferent 
periods  and  diiferent  countries. 

One  of  the  most  early  and  noted  of  the  Reformers  Avas  Iluss.  He 
was  burnt  to  death  by  the  Nominalists  at  the  council  of  Constance. 


THE  REFORMATION,  165 

But  it  must  be  observed,  that,  when  he  had  been  himself  "  dressed 
in  a  little  brief  authority,"  he  had  persecuted  the  Nominalists  to  the 
utmost  of  his  power,  because  he  was  himself  a  Reahst.  These  terms 
are  known  to  those  who  have  engaged  in  metaphysical  inquiries,  and 
to  those  only ;  and  if  explained,  would  show,  what  need  not  be 
shown,  that  intolerance  is  never  at  a  loss  for  materials. 

By  the  execution  of  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague,  the  heroic 
Ziska  had  been  driven  into  such  paroxysms  of  indignation  and  gloom, 
that  he  was  at  last  observed  by  Wenceslaus,  and  encouraged  to  ex- 
cite his  countrymen  to  resist  and  punish  these  unprincipled  persecu- 
tors and  destroyers  of  their  fellow-creatures.  But  a  few  years  after- 
wards we  find  from  Mosheim  that  he  himself  fell  upon  the  Beghards, 
a  miserable  set  of  fanatics,  putting  some  to  the  sword,  and  condemn 
ing  the  rest  to  the  flames,  because  he  gave  full  credit,  probably  mth- 
out  any  proper  examination,  to  the  charges  that  had  been  brought 
against  them  of  some  immoral  practices.  Yet  must  Ziska  be  con- 
sidered as  a  hero,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  and  memorable  in 
history  for  virtue  as  well  as  talents  and  intrepidity. 

Calvin,  too,  must  be  thought  a  man  of  religion  and  goodness,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  melancholy  notions  of  religion  and  goodness.  Yet 
could  this  celebrated  Reformer,  as  is  well  known,  cause  Servetus  to 
be  condemned  to  death  for  heresy ;  and  because  the  unhappy  man 
had  reiterated  his  shrieks,  when  condemned,  at  the  very  idea  of  the 
fire  in  which  he  was  to  perish,  Calvin  could  find,  when  writing  in  the 
retirement  of  his  closet,  a  subject  not  only  for  his  comment,  but  his 
censure,  and  even  his  ridicule  (at  least,  his  contempt),  in  these 
afilicting  agonies  of  afirighted  nature. 

Francis  the  First,  who  united  all  the  softer  virtues,  at  least,  to  all 
the  honorable  and  gallant  feehngs  of  a  gentleman  and  a  soldier, 
could,  however,  declare,  in  a  pubhc  assembly  (I  quote  the  words  of 
the  historian),  "  that,  if  one  of  his  hands  were  infected  with  heresy, 
he  would  cut  it  off  with  the  other,  and  would  not  spare  even  his  own 
children,  if  found  guilty  of  that  crime"  ;  and  immediately  after,  six 
of  his  subjects  who  had  libelled  the  Roman  Church  were  publicly 
burnt,  "  with  circumstances,"  says  the  historian,  "  of  the  most  shock- 
ing barbarity  attending  their  execution."  Francis,  it  will  be  said,  was 
no  religionist ;  yet  he  lived  upon  the  applause  of  men  generous  and 
intrepid  like  himself ;  he  prided  himself  upon  his  sincerity,  and  what 
he  said  must  have  been  the  genuine  effusion  of  his  own  mind,  and 
equally  the  echo  of  the  general  sentiment. 

Men  like  these  may  be  thought  warm  and  impetuous  in  their 
nature ;  but  what  are  we  to  say  of  our  own  Sir  Thomas  More  ? 
What  man  so  amiable  in  his  manners,  so  invincible  in  his  integrity, 
so  gentle,  so  accomplished?  Yet  does  this  man  take  his  place 
among  the  persecutors  who  disgrace  the  pages  of  history.  In  Fox's 
Book  of  Martyrs  he  leads  up  the  ranks  where  Bonner  and  othei 


166  LECTURE  X. 

dreadful  men  are  afterwards  so  distinguished.  "  As  soon  as  More 
came  into  favor,"  says  Burnet,  in  his  History  of  the  Reformation, 
"  he  pressed  the  king  much  to  put  the  laws  against  heretics  in  ex- 
ecution, and  suggested  that  the  court  of  Rome  would  be  more 
wrought  upon  by  the  king's  supporting  the  Church  and  defending 
the  faith  vigorously  than  by  threatenings." 

The  most  eminent  person  who  suffered  about  this  time  was  Thomas 
Bilney.  "  More,"  says  Burnet,  "  not  being  satisfied  to  have  sent 
the  writ  for  his  burning,  studied  also  to  defame  him."  In  Decem- 
ber, one  John  Tewksbury  was  taken  and  tried  in  Sir  Thomas  More's 
house,  where  sentence  was  given  against  him  by  Stokesley,  the 
Chancellor's  assistant  in  this  work  of  blood,  and  he  was  burnt  in 
Smithfield.  "  James  Bainham,  a  gentleman  of  the  Temple,  was 
carried,"  says  Burnet  (I  quote  his  words),  "  to  the  Lord  Chancel- 
lor's house,  where  much  pains  was  taken  to  persuade  him  to  dis- 
cover such  as  he  knew  in  the  Temple  who  favored  the  new  opinions ; 
but,  fair  means  not  prevaiHng,  More  made  him  be  whipped  in  his  own 
presence,  and  after  that  sent  him  to  the  Tower,  where  he  looked  on 
and  saw  him  put  to  the  rack."  At  last  he  was  burnt  in  Smithfield. 
"  There  were  also  some  others  burnt,"  says  Burnet,  "  a  little  before 
this  time,  of  whom  a  particular  account  could  not  be  recovered  by 
Fox,  with  all  his  industry.  But  with  Bainham,  More's  persecution 
ended ;  for  soon  after,  he  laid  down  the  great  seal,  which  set  the 
poor  preachers  at  ease."     Such  are  the  words  of  Burnet. 

The  lectures  that  you  are  now  hstening  to,  on  the  Reformation, 
were  drawn  up  by  me  more  than  twenty  years  ago.  Lately  there 
has  been  published  a  Life  of  Sir  Thomas  More  by  Sir  James  Mack- 
mtosh.  It  is  very  consoling. to  think  that  Sir  James  has  been  able 
to  rescue  the  fame  of  More  from  any  charge  of  positive  cruelty,  and 
even  from  materially  forgetting  the  sentiments  of  mercy  and  justice 
which  nature  and  reflection  had  implanted  in  his  bosom.  More  says 
positively,  in  his  Apology,  "  Of  all  that  ever  came  in  my  hand  for 
heresy,  as  help  me  God,*  had  never  any  of  them  any  stripe  or  stroke 
given  them,  so  much  as  a  fillip  on  the  forehead" ;  and  again,  that 
he  never  did  examine  any  with  torments.  The  date  of  the  work  in 
which  More  denies  the  charge  wa^  1533, "  after  that  he  had  given  over 
the  office  of  Lord  Chancellor,"  and  was  in  daily  expectation  of  being 
committed  to  the  Tower.  The  book  is  entitled,  "  The  Apology  of 
Sir  Thomas  More."  Defenceless  and  obnoxious  as  he  was,  no  one 
disputed  its  truth.     Fox  was  the  first  who,  thirty  years  afterwards, 

*  Professor  Smyth  quotes,  not  directly  from  More  himself,  but  from  his  biographer, 
Sir  James  Mackintosh,  who  here  omits  a  qualifyinj^  clause,  which  may  be  rep;ardcd, 
perhaps,  as  of  some  importance.  The  entire  passage  in  the  original  is  as  follows  :  — 
"And  of  al  that  euer  came  in  my  hand  for  hercsye,  as  hclpe  me  God,  saui7iif  as  I  said 
the  sure  keeping  of  them,  and  yet  not  so  sure  neither,  but  that  George  Costatine  could 
stele  awaye :  els  had  ncuer  any  of  the  any  stripe  or  stroke  giue  the,  so  muche  as  a. 
fylvppe  on  the  forehead."  Worker  of  Sir  Thomas  More  (folio,  Loudon,  1557),  pp.  901, 
902.  — N, 


THE  REFORMATION.  l6t 

ventured  to  oppose  it  in  statements  which  we  know  to  be  in  some 
respects  inaccurate.  His  charges  are  copied  by  Burnet,  and,  with 
considerable  hesitation,  by  Strype.  Burnet  never  could  have  seen 
Sir  Thomas  More's  Apology.  As  More  died  to  maintain  his  veraci- 
ty, his  assertion  must  be  believed. 

Of  all  the  Reformers,  the  most  exemplary  for  the  mildness  of  his 
temperament  was  Melancthon ;  yet  Melancthon  could  approve  and 
justify  the  conduct  of  Calvin  in  his  atrocious  punishment  of  Servetus. 

What  man,  all  his  difficulties  considered,  more  estimable  —  at 
least,  what  man  less  fitted^by  nature  for  intolerance  —  than  Cran- 
mer  ?  Yet,  when  Joan  of  Kent  had  pronounced  some  opinion  which 
was  judged  heretical,  concerning  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation, 
she  was,  by  the  sentence  of  a  commission  where  Cranmer  presided, 
adjudged  a  heretic,  and  "  delivered  over,"  as  it  was  called,  "  to 
'the  secular  power," — that  is,  sent  to  be  murdered  at  the  stake  by  fire. 

The  youth  of  the  king,  Edward  the  Sixth,  had  not  as  yet  admit- 
ted of  a  sufficient  progress  in  the  doctrines  of  intolerance.  He 
could  not  be  prevailed  on  to  sign  the  warrant.  "  He  thought  it," 
says  the  historian,  "  a  piece  of  cruelty  too  like  that  which  they  had 
condemned  in  Papists,  to  burn  any  for  their  consciences."  Cranmer 
was  employed  to  reas(5n  away,  if  possible,  the  sentiments  of  mercy 
and  justice.  He  argued"  and  refined,  and  produced  his  authorities  ; 
but  his  reasons,  says  Burnet,  "  did  rather  silence  than  satisfy  the 
young  king,  who  still  thought  it  a  hard  thing  (as  in  truth  it  was)  to 
proceed  so  severely  in  such  cases  ;  so  he  set  his  hand  to  the  warrant 
with  tears  in  his  eyes,  saying  to  Cranmer,  that  if  he  did  wrong,  since 
it  was  in  submission  to  his  authoritj^,  he  should  answer  for  it  to  God." 
The  archbishop  paused ;  he  might  well  pause.  Some  effect  had  been 
produced  by  the  humane  terror  and  artless  sensibility  of  his  youthful 
sovereign,  and  the  horror  of  the  scene  that  was  to  ensue  had  been 
presented  to  the  imagination  at  least,  if  not  to  the  understanding,  of 
Cranmer.  The  sentence  was  delayed,  was  suspended  for  a  year ; 
but  was  at  last  executed. 

It  is  surely  remarkable,  that,  under  such  favorable  circumstances, 
the  principles  of  toleration  seem  never  to  have  occurred  either  to 
Cranmer  or  to  Ridley.  They  sent  for  the  unfortunate  woman  imme- 
diately after  the  conference  with  the  king,  not  to  dismiss  her  with 
their  advice,' but  to  persuade  her  to  recant,  —  to  save  her,  if  possi- 
ble, from  being  the  proper  object,  as  they  conceived,  of  their  pun- 
ishment. Their  humanity  and  good  sense,  for  they  possessed  both, 
could  see  no  farther  into  this  subject ; ,  and  as  the  woman  was  not 
less  attached  to  what  she  thought  the  truth  than  they  were  them- 
selves, it  is  probable  that  they  conceived  there  was  no  alternative 
but  to  put  her  to  death. 

Two  years  after,  one  George  Van  Pare,  being  accused  for  some 
*  heretical   opinion   concerning   another  of*  the  mvsteries,  was  con 
deurned  in  the  same  manner,  and  burnt  in  Smith6<5ld. 


168  LECTURE  X. 

The  Papists  observed,  says  the  historian,  "  that  the  Reformers  were 
only  against  burning  when  they  were  in  fear  of  it  themselves.'*  Cran- 
mer  was  said  by  them  to  have  consented  to  the  death  both  of  Lam« 
bert  and  Anne  Askew.  These  instances  were  appealed  to  in  Queen 
Mary's  time  to  justify  a  retaliation  of  persecution,  —  to  justify  a  rep- 
etition of  proceedings  that  are  as  degrading  for  their  stupidity  as 
they  are  horrible  for  their  cruelty.  It  is  even  contended,  though 
unnecessarily,  that  Edward  the  Sixth  was  himself  thinking  only  of 
the  eternal  happiness  of  the  unhappy  woman  who  was  to  be  burnt, 
which  he  thought  would  be  endangered,  if  she  died  a  heretic ;  and 
that  he  was  not  thinking  of  her  earthly  sufferings.  But  if  so,  if  even 
his  gentle  and  youthful  nature  could  be  insensible  to  the  claims  of 
humanity  in  its  practical  application  to  this  hfe,  how  much  stronger 
is  the  general  reasoning  now  insisted  upon  ! 

Now,  to  forget  for  a  moment  all  the  pages  of  ecclesiastical  his-v 
tory,  —  to  mention  neither  the  persecution  of  the  Christians  by  the 
heathens,  nor  of  the  Christians  by  each  other,  —  not  to  anticipate 
what  remains  yet  to  be  told  of  Philip  the  Second  and  Catherine  de 
Medicis,  or  of  minor  instances  of  persecution,  such  as  the  deprivation 
of  benefices,  and  the  imprisonment  and  exile  of  each  sect  in  its  turn, — 
let  the  student  pause  and  meditate  on  the  nature  of  such  men  as  have 
been  mentioned :  Pliny,  Louis  the  Ninth,  before  the  Reformation,  — 
Melancthon,  and  Cranmer,  and  Ridley,  after  the  Reformation.  If 
there  be  any  characters  in  history  that  in  every  other  respect  but 
this  of  intolerance  are  the  ornaments  of  their  nature,  they  are  these. 
If  these  are  not  favorable  specimens  of  mankind,  none  can  be  found : 
vigorous  in  their  understandings,  cultivated  in  their  minds,  gentle  in 
their  nature,  conversant  with  the  world  and  its  business,  refined,  and 
pure,  and  perfect,  as  far  as  in  this  sublunary  state  perfection  can  be 
found.     These  are  certainly  most  awful  lessons. 

I  cannot  enter  into  any  discussion  of  the  different  degrees  of  in- 
tolerance which  different  sects  have  exhibited.  It  is  possible,  it 
might  naturally  be  expected,  that  the  Protestant  would  be  less  deeply 
criminal  than  the  Roman  Catholic,  or  rather  the  Papist ;  but  I  can- 
not now  stay  to  appreciate  this  relative  criminality,  or  point  out  its 
causes.  I  speak  of  the  guilt  of  all,  —  of  mankind,  of  human  nature, 
of  the  inherent  intolerance  of  the  human  heart,  be  the  bosom  in  which 
it  beats,  of  whatever  character  or  description,  Pagan  or  Christian, 
Protestant  or  Roman  Catholic. 

Much  improvement  has,  no  doubt,  taken  place  in  society  on  this 
momentous  subject,  —  much  since  the  first  breaking  out  of  the  Refor- 
mation. As  in  the  solitude'  of  the  prophet  Elijah,  the  Lord  passed 
by,  and  a  great  and  strong  wind  rent  the  mountains,  but  he  was  not 
in  the  wind ;  and  after  the  wind  an  earthquake,  but  the  Lord  was  not 
iji  the  earthquake  ;  and  after  the  earthquake  a  fire,  but  the  Lord  was 
not  in  the  fire ;  and  after  -the  fire  a  still  small  voice,  and  the  Lord 


THE  REFORMATION.  169 

was  in  that  voice :  so  in  the  solitude  of  the  human  mind,  from  the 
moment  that  the  spirit  of  rehgious  inquiry  had  reached  it,  and  the 
Lord  had  passed  by,  the  visitations  of  intolerance  succeeded,  and 
there  has  been  the  dispute  of  the  polemic,  and  the  embattled  field  of 
the  warrior,  and  the  stake  of  the  persecutor,  —  the  wind,  and  the 
earthquake,  and  the  fire,  —  and  the  Lord  was  not  in  these  ;  and  at 
last  the  mild  and  benevolent  precepts  of  the  Gospel,  the  still  small 
voice,  has  been  slowly  heard,  and  it  is  perceived  that  the  Lord  is  in 
that  voice.  Blessed  be  the  God  of  mercy,  that  thus  far  an  advance- 
ment in  religion,  a  new  reformation,  has  been  at  length  accomplished  ! 
It  is  no  longer  supposed  that  to  persecute  is  to  please  God ;  the 
rights  of  conscience  are  acknowledged  at  least,  and  there  is  here 
some  hope  and  some  victory  over  the  powers  of  darkness. 

The  misfortune  still  is,  that  men  honor  the  doctrines  of  toleration 
with  their  lips,  while  they  seem  not  aware  that  their  heart  is  far  from 
them.  The  principles  of  intolerance,  that  is,  the  principles  of  their 
nature,  still  maintain  their  hold,  though  they  may  be  awed,  and 
tamed,  and  civilj^ed,  and  reduced  to  assume  forms  less  frightful  and 
destructive,  in  these  later  ages.  Uncharitable  insinuations,  mutual 
accusations,  mutual  contempt  and  ignorance  of  the  arguments  and 
tenets  of  each  other,  these,  in  both  the  superior  and  inferior  sects, 
have  supplied  the  place  of  the  virulence  and  fury  of  earlier  times ; 
and  unnecessary  exclusions,  penal  laws,  and  civil  disabilities  are  now 
the  milder  representatives  of  their  horrible  predecessors,  the  dungeon 
and  the  stake. 

These  paragraphs  were  written  twenty  years  ago,  and  a  most  im- 
portant amelioration  of  the  situation  of  inferior  sects  has  been  since 
accomphshed.  • 

I  must  now  recur  to  the  second  observation  which  I  proposed  to 
your  consideration.  It  was  this  :  not  only  that  disputes  would  neces- 
sarily arise  from  the  particular  constitution  of  the  human  mind,  but 
that,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  evidence  on  which  points  of  doctrine 
must  necessarily  rest,  they  never  could  be  expected  to  appear  exactly 
terminated ;  that  this  evidence  could  never,  as  in  mathematical  sub- 
jects, be  demonstrative  ;  that  it  might  be  fitted  to  convince  a  candid 
inquirer  after  truth,  but  could  never  bear  down  the  mind  and  insuper- 
ably extort  conviction.  The  history  of  the  Reformation,  like  all  prior 
ecclesiastical  history,  confirms  this  remark. 

No  efforts  of  princes  or  divines  could  ever  produce  a  uniformity  of 
religion.  The  contrariety  of  opinion  even  between  Luther  and  Zuin- 
glius,  the  great  Swiss  Reformer,  was  found  irremediable.  In  vain 
were  these  venerable  men  (surely  no  ordinary  inquirers  after  truth) 
brought  together  to  accommodate  their  differences,  and  accompanied 
by  the  most  eminent  of  their  followers.  After  a  conference  of  four 
days,  "  their  dissension,"  says  Mosheim,  "  concerning  the  mani*  r  of 
Christ's  presence  in  the  Eucharist  still  remauied,  nor  could  eitl  of 
22  0 


170  LECTURE  X. 

fcliG  contending  parties  be  persuaded  to  abandon  or  even  to  modify 
their  opinion  of  that  matter."  (Mosh.,  Vol.  TV.  p.  76.)  —  The  real 
fact  was,  that  Luther  even  hazarded,  as  far  as  human  conduct  could 
hazard,  the  success  of  the  Reformation  itself,  because  he  could  not 
be  brought  to  comprehend  within  the  general  confederacy  the  follow- 
ers of  Zuinglius  and  Bucer.  —  Vol.  IV.  p.  98. 

Again,  at  the  diet  of  Augsburg,  the  Reformers  exhibited  the 
articles  of  their  faith,  to  which  the  Romanists  rephed.  "  Various 
conferences,"  says  Mosheim,  "  were  held  between  persons  of  emi- 
nence, piety,  and  learning ;  nothing  was  omitted  that  might  have  the 
least  tendency  to  calm  the  animosity,  heal  the  divisions,  and  unite 
the  hearts  of  the  contending  parties  ;  but  all  to  no  purpose,  since  the 
difference,"  says  the  historian,  "  between  their  opinions  was  too  con- 
siderable and  of  too  much  importance  to  admit  of  a  reconcihation." 
(Vol.  IV.  p.  96.)  —  It  is  possible  that  the  difference  might  be  con- 
siderable and  important,  as  the  historian  here  describes ;  but  the  re- 
sult would  have  been  the  same,  had  it  been  otherwise. 

Again,  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth  published  a  system,  called 
the  Interim,  which  he  fondly  imagined,  as  being  a  medium  between 
the  two  parties,  might  be  acceded  to  by  both.  The  Pope  was  sur- 
prised that  a  man  who  knew  the  world  like  Charles  should  indulge 
for  a  moment  so  vain  a  delusion ;  and  observed,  that  it  was  unneces- 
sary to  disturb  himself  about  the  success  of  a  project  which,  not  be- 
longing to  any  party,  would  be  neglected  by  all,  and  soon  forgotten : 
and  such,  indeed,  was  the  event. 

Again,  at  a  conference  at  Worms,  between  persons  of  learning 
and  piety,  Eckius  and  the  excellent  Melancthon  disputed  during 
the  space  of  three  days ;  Kut  this  conference,  says  Mosheim,  pro- 
duced no  other  effect  than  a  reference  to  a  general  council.  —  Vol. 
IV.  p.  107. 

The  student,  as  he  peruses  the  volumes  of  Mosheim  on  the  prog- 
ress of  the  Reformation  through  different  countries,  will  see  instan- 
ces like  these  only  multiplied  as  he  proceeds  ;  and  it  will  be  natural 
for  him  to  conclude  that  a  fate  not  very  dissimilar  mil  attend  the 
efforts  of  learned  men,  whenever  they  are  employed,  not  in  contend- 
ing, as  were  the  first  Reformers,  for  the  opening  of  the  Bible  and  the 
freedom  of  religious  opinion,  but  for  the  particular  doctrines  by  which 
their  sects  and  churches  are  distinguished.  An  unprejudiced  in- 
quirer may  be  convinced  by  their  reasonings,  but  their  reasonings 
will  be  lost  upon  each  other.  The  celebrated  History  of  the  Council 
of  Trent,  by  Father  Paul,  may  be  referred  to ;  the  book  is  now 
valuable  chiefly  on  this  very  account.  Let  the  student  open  it 
wherever  he  chooses ;  let  him  consider  the  nature  of  such  subjects, 
and  the  nature  of  the  human  mind,  —  the  abstrusencss  of  the  one,  and 
the  manner  in  which  the  operations  of  the  other  are  always  prompted, 
or  at  least  modified,  by  the  influence  of  the  feelings ;  and  he  will  then 


THE  REFORMATION.  171 

no  longer,  like  tlie  vulgar,  stand  amazed  to  see  tliat  tlie  learned  and 
the  wise  can  dispute  so  much  and  decide  so  little. 

Mv  third  observation  was,  that  it  might  be  expected  that  the  dw- 
putes  of  mankind  would  immediately  involve  them  in  the  most  mcx- 
tricable  labyrinths  of  metaphysical  subtilty,  and  that  most  serious 
evils  must  inevitably  be  the  consequence. 

Before  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  the  religious  animosities  of  man- 
kind had  always  turned  on  speculative  points  of  doctrine  ;  they  did  so 
afterwards.  The  first  Reformers  had  scarcely  attacked  with  success 
such  doctrines  and  corruptions  of  the  Church  of  Rome  as  were  more 
or  less  destructive  of  morality  and  real  religion,  but  they  plunged 
into  discussions  of  the  most  mysterious  and  impenetrable  nature. 
This  will  be  but  too  obvious  to  those  who  read  even  the  history  of  the 
Reformation ;  it  will  be  only  the  more  obvious  to  those  who  make  them- 
selves acquainted  with  the  theological  writings  of  the  Reformers. 

The  celebrated  book  written  by  Father  Paul,  the  History  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  may  be  again  referred  to ;  it  may  serve  as  a  gen- 
eral specimen  of  this  part  of  the  subject.  It  may  not  be  possible  to 
read  the  whole  of  it,  but  of  the  eight  books  which  constitute  the 
work,  the  second  more  particularly,  and  the  latter  part  of  the  eighth, 
should  at  least  be  read.  Observation  sht)uld  be  made  on  the  nature 
of  those  Protestant  tenets  which  were  drawn  out  for  examination,  or 
rather  for  condemnation,  by  the  Roman  Cathohc  Fathers.  Their 
abstruse  nature  will  be  very  apparent,  and  the  reader  cannot  but  be 
reminded  of  the  controversial  discussions  that  he  has  before  seen  in 
ecclesiastical  history.  The  tendency,  therefore,  of  theological  inqui- 
ries and  disquisitions  to  run  into  the  speculations  of  metaphysical  di- 
vinity is  thus  visible,  both  before  and  after  the  Reformation,  and  may 
now  be  considered  as  quite  a  characteristic  of  the  human  mind. 

I  observed,  too,  that  disputes  of  this  nature  were  not  the  more 
likely,  on  account  of  their  real  difficulty,  to  be  treated  with  calm- 
ness and  pronounced  upon  with  hesitation,  but  that  the  contrary 
would  be  the  event ;  and  that  these  very  points  of  difficulty  were 
those  for  which  men  would  contend  with  the  greater  fury,  and  on 
which  they  would  decide  with  the  more  ready  dogmatism. 

Now,  on  looking  at  the  history  of  the  Reformation,  abundant 
evidence  will  be  found  to  substantiate  this  assertion.  By  whatever 
mysterious  abstractions,  by  whatever  controversial  subtilties,  by 
whatever  unaccountable  observances  and  ceremonies  the  faith  of  any 
sect  was  distinguished,  followers  were  never  wanting  to  glory  in 
those  particular  characteristics  of  discipline  or  doctrine,  —  for  the 
sake  of  them  to  submit  to  any  privations,  to  inarch  to  battle,  to  lan- 
guish in  imprisonment,  or  to  expire  in  the  flames. 

The  great  orator  of  Rome  was  compelled  to  sigh  over  the  inanity 
of  all  human  contentions.  Something  of  a  similar  sentiment  may, 
perhaps,  pass  across  the  mind,  when  we  survey  the  volumes  of  the 


172  LECTURE  X. 

Council  of  Trent,  the  monument  of  the  unavailmg  warfare  of  the 
learning  and  ability  of  the  times ;  but  we  may  sigh  more  deeply, 
when  we  consider,  that,  among  the  thousands  and  the  ten  thousands 
that  suffered  persecution  and  death,  most  of  them  were  guilty  only 
of  some  supposed  error  in  speculative  doctrine,  of  taking  the  literal 
or  figurative  sense  of  some  passages  in  Scripture,  of  interpreting  a 
text  in  a  manner  different  from  its  accepted  sense,  or  of  dramng 
from  a  comparison  of  several  texts  a  different  conclusion  from  that 
which  they  were  imderstood  to  warrant.  The  real  presence  in  the 
Eucharist,  for  instance,  was  the  great  point  on  which  the  hves  of 
men  depended.  The  student  should  by  all  means  turn  to  Fox's 
Book  of  Martyrs ;  let  him  look  at  the  doctrines,  for  the  affirmation 
or  denial  of  which,  men,  and  even  women,  were  thrown  into  the* 
flames ;  particularly,  let  him  look  at  the  disputation  held  before 
Henry  the  Eighth ;  and  again  by  Cranmer,  Latimer,  and  Ridley,  at 
Oxford :  he  will  see,  and,  if  he  is  inexperienced  in  such  subjects, 
he  will  see  with  astonishment,  the  preposterous  manner  in  which 
logic  and  metaphysics  were  made  the  ceremonies  that  preceded  the 
execution  and  agonies  of  these  eminent  martyrs.  Let  him  consider, 
again,  what  were  the  reasons  for  which  Cranmer  himself  had  before 
tied  his  victims  to  the  stak«.  I  do  not  detail  the  points  upon  which 
the  prelate  disputed,  or  the  reasons  for  which  he  put  an  unhappy 
woman  and  an  inoffensive  foreigner  to  death.  They  are  to  be  found, 
the  first  in  Fox,  the  second  in  Burnet.  I  cannot  detail  to  you  par- 
ticulars of  this  nature. 

Indeed,  one  of  the  difficulties  I  encounter  at  this  moment,  and  in 
many  other  parts  of  this  lecture,  is  the  impropriety  of  quoting,  in 
any  manner,  however  concise,  any  portion  of  the  records  or  books  to 
which  I  allude.  The  reason  is  this  :  — In  the  course  of  such  trans- 
actions as  I  have  to  mention,  the  most  mysterious  terms  of  our  re- 
ligion were  brought  forward,  examined,  analyzed,  and  made  the  sub- 
jects of  the  most  subtile  and  perplexing  disquisitions  and  disputes. 
This  was,  indeed,  the  very  manner  in  which  the  piety  of  our  ances- 
tors unfortunately  displayed  itself  during  these  singular  ages.  A  due 
sense  of  religion  with  us  takes  a  different,  and  surely  a  more  reason- 
able direction ;  and  the  awful  reserve  which  it  prescribes,  in  every 
public  allusion  to  such  sacred  subjects,  and  to  the  mysteries  of  our 
faith,  —  the  Incarnation,  for  instance,  —  it  can  be  no  wish  of  mine, 
even  for  a  moment,  or  however  innocently,  to  violate  or  offend. 

But  to  return.  Men,  it  will  be  said,  are  not  now  tormented,  or 
deprived  of  life,  for  metaphysical  distinctions  in  divinity.  It  may  be 
so :  we  shall,  however'-,  do  well  to  note,  as  I  have  before  observed, 
w^hat  the  nature  of  the  human  mind  really  is.  Thus  much  may  be 
certainly  affirmed,  —  that  there  never  was,  and  there  never  will  be, 
a  time  when  the  multitude  will  not  suppose  that  all  these  questions 
are  perfectly  intelligible.     The  real  and  matured  scholar,  indeed, 


THE  REFORMATION.  173 

may  hesitate.  wWle  he  assents  to  particulaj* .points,  but  the  multitude 
have  no  difficulties  :  the  mazes  which  look  intricate  and  dark  to  the 
man  of  sense  and  learning  are  to  them  without  a  thorn,  and  even 
arrayed  in  all  the  sunshine  of  heaven. 

Such  was,  indeed,  the  spectacle  sometimes  displayed  during  the 
progress  of,  and  long  after  and  before,  the  Reformation,  Erasmus 
might  distinguish  and  refine ;  the  excellent  Chillingworth  might  de- 
bate and  decide,  decide  and  debate  again,  and  lose  and  disquiet 
himself  in  the  shifting  and  uncertain  shadows  of  his  learning  ;  St. 
Augustin  might  confess  with  what  labor,  with  what  sighs,  the  truth 
could  be  at  last  elicited.  No  such  unintelhgible  embarrassments 
disquieted  the  vulgar,  or  men  who  were  like  the  vulgar ;  to  be  dog- 
matic, it  was  only  necessary  ilien^  as  it  is  now^  to  be  sufficiently  igno- 
rant or  unfeeling ;  and  Europe  everywhere  exhibited  a  proof,  which 
will  on  every  occasion  be  repeated,  that  the  mass  of  mankind,  though 
they  understand  not  the  controversies  of  theologians,  can  easily  be 
inflamed  about  them,  can  readily  seize  upon  badges  of  distinction, 
and  invent  terms  of  reproach  for  the  purposes  of  mutual  hostility,  — 
find  no  difficulty  in  associating  with  their  own  vindictive  passions  the 
cause  of  the  Most  High,  and,  in  this  frightful  state  of  presumption 
and  blindness,  stand  prepared  for  any  outrage  that  can  be  proposed 
to  them,  and  bid  defiance  ahke  to  every  expostulation  of  reason  and 
precept  of  religion. 

It  is  on  these  accounts  that  the  statesmen  of  the  world  are  always 
so  justly  alarmed,  when  they  foresee  the  interference  of  the  religious 
principle  in  the  concerns  over  which  they  preside,  and  the  true 
Christian  is  more  than  ever  compelled  to  examine  the  religious  spirit 
and  the  practical  precepts  of  any  denomination  of  Christians  by  the 
great  criterion  of  their  consistence  with  morality ;  and  if  he  once 
discerns  that  this  spirit  and  these  precepts  oppose  themselves  to  our 
moral  feelings,  to  that  great  religion  which  the  Almighty  has,  from 
the  first,  written  upon  the  hearts  of  all  men,  that  great  original  code 
of  mercy  and  justice*  to  which  our  Saviour  himself  so  constantly 
appeals  in  his  parables  and  discourses,  —  if  he  once  discovers  that 
there  are  any  speculative  or  practical  conclusions  which  clash  wT^th 
these  great  laws  of  the  Moral  Governor  of  the  world,  such  conclu- 
sions will  need  with  him  no  further  refutation  ;  he  will  be  at  no  loss 
to  determine,  from  their  very  nature,  that  they  must  be  derived 
from  some  misapprehension,  or  some  exaggeration,  or  some  exclu- 
sive consideration  of  particular  passages  in  Scripture,  and  that, 
assuredly,  they  are  not  sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  revela- 
tion. 

I  have,  in  my  lecture  of  yesterday,  next  observed,  that  great  evils 
were  to  be  expected  from  the  mixture  that  would  necessarily  take 
place,  of  the  politics  of  the  world  with  the  more  spiritual  concerns 
of  the  religious  principle ;  and  more  particularly,  that  the  question 

0* 


174  LECTURE  X. 

of  the  ecclesiastical  patronage  could  not  fail  to  produce  the  most 
afflicting  animosities  and  irremediable  confusion. 

These  observations  will  be  found  but  too  well  illustrated  by  those 
parts  of  the  history  of  Europe  which  we  are  next  to  advert  to.  To 
prove  the  truth  of  them  would  be  to  relate  the  transactions  which  you 
are  now  immediately  to  read,  —  the  civil  and  religious  wars  in  France, 
the  wars  in  Germany,  down  to  the  peace  of  Westphalia,  the  wars  in 
the  Low  Countries,  and  even  in  our  own  island.  Everywhere  you  will 
see  the  ordinary  motives  of  contest  and  ambition  acting  and  reacted 
upon  by  the  religious  principle,  and  all  the  more  theoretical  causes 
for  contention  and  rage  continually  exasperated  and  perpetuated  by 
the  more  practical  considerations  of  the  disposal  of  the  ecclesiastical 
revenues.  I  need  not  further  insist  on  this  point ;  the  history  will 
show  you  what  you  may  already  easily  conceive. 

I  have  now  arrived  at  the  last  of  the  observations  which  I  proposed 
to  your  consideration,  —  that,  to  compensate  for  these  evils,  particu- 
lar benefits  might  probably  result  to  mankind  from  the  rise  and  prog- 
ress of  the  Reformation. 

On  recurring  to  the  history  and  to  the  facts,  these  benefits  will  be 
found  such  as  might  have  been  expected,  such  as  have  been  already 
described  as  likely  to  ensue.  The  Bible  was  opened ;  those  particu- 
lar pretensions  and  doctrines  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  which 
were  so  destructive  of  the  morality  and  religion  of  mankind  were 
successfully  combated ;  the  chain  of  authority  was  broken,  and  the 
appeal  was  transferred  from  Popes  and  general  councils  to  the  Scrip- 
tures themselves. 

Such  were  the  immediate,  the  invaluable,  blessings  that  resulted. 
But  a  distinction  is  now  to  be  made  between  those  good  effects  that 
more  immediately  and  those  that  more  remotely  followed  the  Refor- 
mation, —  between  those  that  Luther  and  the  first  Reformers  meant 
to  produce,  and  saw  produced,  and  those  which  they  did  not  see,  and 
might  not  perhaps  mean  to  produce.  Now  the  first  we  have  already 
mentioned,  —  the  opening  of  the  Bible,  —  the  establishment  of  a 
purer  faith.     We  must  therefore  next  advert  to  the  latter. 

The  first  Reformers,  while  they  were  struggling  to  deliver  them- 
selves and  mankind  from  the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  as- 
serted the  right  of  private  judgment.  When  this  emancipation  from 
the  authority  of  the  Pope  was  once  effected,  it  was  natural  for  them 
to  lay  down,  in  their  turn,  what  they  believed  to  be  the  doctrines  of 
rehgious  truth.  It  Avas  natural  for  them  to  conceive,  that  those  who 
opposed  their  new  creeds,  so  evidently  deduced,  as  they  thought, 
from  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  misused,  and  dangerously  misused,  that 
right  of  private  judgment  which  had  thus  been  procured.  It  was 
natural  for  them  to  call  for  the  interposition  of  legislative  authority, 
for  the  assistance  of  the  secular  arm,  and  to  endeavour  to  become,  in 
their  turn,  a  new  Church  of  Rome,  though  certainly  very  distinguish- 
able in  religious  doctrine  and  in  moral  practice. 


THE  REFORMATION.  175 

But  when  the  right  of  private  judgment  had  been  hj  the  Reformers 
once  happily  exerted,  it  was  in  vain  to  prescribe  limits  to  its  activity. 
A  spirit  of  inquiry  had  arisen,  and  who  was  to  stay  its  progress  ? 
Who  was  to  define  the  boundaries  within  which  the  human  heart  was 
to  hope  and  fear,  —  within  which  the  human  understanding  was  to 
doubt  and  discover?  The  earthly  means  by  which  this  second 
emancipation  of  the  human  mind  was  efiected,  this  second  emancipa- 
tion which  the  first  Reformers  did  not  mean  to  produce,  are  suffi- 
ciently evident.  They  were  found  in  the  revival  of  learning  and  the 
invention  of  printing :  these  secured  the  victory  that  had  been  ob- 
tained over  the  Roman  see.  The  Reformers  had  everywhere  en- 
couraged the  study  of  the  Greek  language,  and  the  meaning  of 
the  texts  of  the  New  Testament  was  thus  brought  within  the  compre- 
hension of  the  more  intelligent  part  of  society.  Men  of  education, 
though  laymen,  could  no  longer  distinguish  between  themselves  and 
their  spiritual  teachers.  With  the  same  longings  after  immortahty, 
the  same  terrors  of  the  future,  the  same  revelation  proposed  to  them, 
and  the  means  of  interpreting  its  doctrines  and  its  precepts  now  com- 
mon to  both,  no  further  distinction  remained  between  them,  —  be- 
tween the  layman  and  the  priest,  —  none  but  that  of  superiority  of 
learning  in  the  clerical  character,  or  greater  purity  of  manners ;  no 
further  spiritual  influence  but  such  as  did  and  ought  to  belong  to 
gaaore  regular  and  extensive  erudition  and  more  settled  and  anxious 
piety. 

The  action  and  reaction  of  this  freedom  of  private  judgment  has 
been  productive  of  the  most  salutary  consequences  both  to  the  clergy 
and  the  laity.  The  two  characters  have  been  more  assimilated  to 
each  other,  materially  to. the  benefit  of  both.  This  is  that  silent  and 
still  more  important  reformation  which  slowly  succeeded  to  the  more 
visible  and  to  the  important  reformation  in  the  days  of  Luther,  of 
Calvin,  and  of  Cranmer ;  and  it  is  not  the  less  real  because  it  may  or 
may  not  stand  acknowledged  in  the  creeds  or  legislative  acts  of  the 
diflerent  churches  or  states  of  Christendom. 

But  the  same  freedom  of  the  mind,  which  had  been  successfully 
asserted  by  the  Reformers  in  religious  subjects,  extended  itself  after- 
wards to  every  department  of  human  inquiry.  The  nature  and 
different  provinces  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  power  were  examined 
and  ascertained,  and  the  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual  concerns  of 
mankind  were  delivered  from  their  long  and  injurious  bondage.  The 
world  of  science,  too,  was  now  thrown  open,  and  men  had  no  longer 
to  be  checked  in  their  curiosity  or  debarred  the  exercise  of  their 
natural  faculties,  while  investigating  the  laws  of  nature,  by  the  ter- 
rors of  the  Inquisition  or  the  disapprobation  of  their  temporal  and 
spiritual  rulers.  The  same  right  of  private  judgment  came,  at 
length,  to  be  exercised  on  the  more  abstruse  subjects  of  speculative 
inquiry,  on  the  original  principles  of  metaphysics  and  morals.     Even 


176  LECTURE  X. 

tlie  evidences  of  religion  itself  became  subjects  of  discussion ;  and 
the  J  wlio  had  not  the  means  of  investigating  truth  themselves,  the 
illiterate  and  the  busy,  might  be  consoled  by  perceiving  that  such' 
means  were  amply  in  the  possession  of  others,  and  that  belief  in  au- 
thority might  now  be  reasonable,  when  no  authority  was  e\'idently 
acknowledged  but  the  authority  of  truth. 

Lastly,  it  must  be  observed,  that,  although  the  religious  principle 
mingled  itself  most  unhappily  with  the  temporal  politics  of  Europe, 
its  interference  was  in  some  respects  productive  of  the  most  perma- 
nent and  beneficial  effects.  The  Reformers,  through  all  their  differ-' 
ent  varieties  of  opinion,  were  necessarily,  till  they  became  themselves 
the  estabhshed  sect,  the  friends  of  rehgious  liberty.  But  with  the 
rights  of  religious  liberty  the  rights  of  civil  liberty  were  naturally 
connected ;  the  cause,  therefore,  of  civil  freedom  was  always  the 
cause  of  the  Reformers,  —  a  cause  most  dear  to  them  while  they 
were  the  inferior  sect,  and  more  congenial  to  them  whenever  they 
became  the  superior.  It  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the  salutary  influ- 
ence that  came  thus  to  operate  upon  the  different  constitutions  of 
civil  polity  in  Europe,  particularly  in  our  own  island.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say,  that,  had  it  not  been  for  this  animating  spark,  the  civil 
rights  of  mankind,  on  the  decline  of  the  feudal  system,  would  have 
expired  under  the  increasing  power  which  the  sovereign  at  that  criti- 
cal period' everywhere  obtained.  , 

The  Reformation,  when  considered,  as  it  ought  to  be,  in  all  these 
points  of  view,  may  be  reasonably  represented  as  one  of  the  greatest 
events,  or  rather  as  the  greatest  event,  in  modern  history.  To  the 
Reformation  we  owe  not  only  the  destruction  of  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  thraldom  of  the  Papacy,  the  great  evil  with  which  Europe 
had  to  struggle,  but  to  the  Reformation  we  may  be  said  to  owe  all 
the  improvements  which  afterwards  took  place,  not  only  in  religion, 
but  in  legislation,  in  science,  and  in  our  knowledge  of  the  faculties 
and  operations  of  the  human  mind,  —  in  other  words,  all  that  can 
distinguish  the  most  enlightened  from  the  darkest  periods  of  human 
society. 

I  must  now  proceed  to  mention  such  books  and  treatises  as  may,  I 
think,  be  sufficient  to  give  proper  information  with  respect  to  this 
memorable  struggle  for  the  purity  of  religion  and  the  freedom  of  the 
human  mind.  But  I  must  observe,  in  the  first  place,  that  on  the 
subject  of  the  Reformation,  above  all  others,  it  is  not  for  me  to  offer 
any  limits  to  the  ardor  of  the  student  or  the  extent  of  his  inquiries. 
Endeavouring,  however,  as  usual,  to  make  what  I  recommend  as 
practicable  as  possible,  and  to  mention  as  few,  not  as  many,  books  as 
the  subject  admits  of,  I  am  inclined  to  propose  to  the  student  to  read, 
first,  the  history  of  the  Reformation  in  Robertson's  Charles  the 
Fifth;  next,  the  history  of  Charles  the  Fifth  in  Coxe's  Austria; 
next,  that  of  the  Reformation  in  Mr.  Roscoe's  Leo  the  Tenth ;  and 


THE  REFORMATION.  177 

.astlj,  the  same  subject  in  the  fiftj-fourth  chapter  of  Gibbon.  After 
these  have  been  considered,  I  would  have  him  turn  to  Mosheim, 
and  read  the  introduction  and  first  four  chapters  that  relate  to  the 
Reformation  in  the  fourth  volume  of  our  English  edition.  He  may 
then  begin  at  the  second  part,  and  read  the  history  of  the  Lutheran 
and  Reformed  Churches ;  turning  afterwards  to  the  first  part,  to  con- 
sider, more  particularly  at  the  close  of  it,  the  history  of  the  llomish 
Church.  He  will  then,  I  conceive,  have  a  very  adequate  idea  of  the 
causes  that  led  to  the  first  rise  of  the  Reformation,  of  the  events  that 
attended  its  progress,  and  of  its  consequences  ;  nor  is  the  course  of 
reading  thus  proposed  long.  Each  of  the  writers  mentioned  has 
his  separate  and  difierent  merits,  and  you  will  find  the  original 
authors  referred  to,  and  all  the  respectable  writers  on  the  subject 
mentioned,  if  you  choose  to  weigh  the  merits  of  the  modern  historians 
I  have  recommended,  or  of  those  who  were  themselves  actors  in  these 
memorable  scenes. 

In  the  general  subject  of  the  Reformation  there  are  three  great 
divisions  :  the  causes  which  led  to  it ;  the  events  that  attended  its 
progress  ;  the  consequences  which  resulted  from  it.  I  do  not  detain 
you  with  commenting  here  upon  topics  which  you  will  find  regularly 
considered  in  the  writers  I  have  referred  to.  But  the  last  is  the 
most  extensive.  Effects  have  been  produced,  so  many  and  so  impor- 
tant, upon  the  morals  and  the  manners,  upon  the  arts,  Hterature,  sci- 
ences, knowledge,  religion,  and  politics  of  Europe,  that  properly  to 
display  them  would  require  a  work  exclusively  appropriated  to  the 
subject,  and  for  which  no  ability  or  information  would  be  entirely 
adequate. 

Some  notion  of  the  nature  of  such  a  subject  may  be  formed,  not 
only  from  the  writings  I  have  mentioned,  but  more  particularly  from 
a  work  which  I  may  now  mention, — the  Prize  Essay  of  Mr.  Villers, 
on  the  Spirit  and  Influence  of  the  Reformation  of  Luther.  The 
reader  will  find  the  author  a  man  of  talents,  and  soon  perceive  that 
he  is  a  Frenchman.  The  essay  is  written,  as  might  be  expected,  not 
in  a  manner  sufficiently  composed  and  modest ;  but  froni  the  midst  of 
those  imposing  views  and  sweeping  assertions  which  are  so  grateful 
to  French  authors,  when  they  write  exclusively  on  any  particular  sub- 
ject, and  which  are  so  justly  troublesome  and  embarrassing  to  the 
more  natural  mind  of  an  English  reader,  some  rational  views  may  be 
after  all  selected,  and  the  student  will,  on  the  whole,  find  his  mind, 
by  the  perusal  of  the  essay,  enlarged  and  enriched,  and  far  better 
enabled  to  form  its  own  judgment  than  before.  Mr.  Villers  lays 
down  the  happy  effects  of  the  Reformation  on  the  progress  of  knowl 
edge  and  the  liberty  of  thought  in  the  most  unqualified  mamier,  and 
he  may  be  compared  in  these  points  with  some  of  our  own  English 
writers,  Gibbon  and  Roscoe,  whom  I  have  mentioned,  and  who  think 
very  differently  on  this  particular  part  of  the  subject.  The  great 
23 


178  LECTURE  X. 

divisions  of  the  essay  are  the  influence  of  the  Reformation,  first,  on 
the  political  situation  of  the  states  of  Europe,  and,  secondly,  on  the 
progress  of  knowledge.  The  first  will,  I  think,  be  found  of  most  value. 
There  is  a  good  life  of  Luther  prefixed,  borrowed  from  Robertson  and 
others,  and  an  appendix  which  contains  a  sketch  of  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory, and  which,  as  a  sketch,  seems  able,  and,  on  the  whole,  may 
not  be  without  its  use.  The  section  which  treats  of  reformations  in 
general  is  the  worst  part  of  the  whole.  I  see  in  Mr.  Hallam's  laat 
work  that  he  does  not  think  Villers  an  original  inquirer. 

Thus  much  for  the  history  of  the  Reformation  in  general,  and  here 
I  might  close  all  further  disquisition  on  these  objects  of  our  inquiry. 
But  an  English  student  will .  naturally  turn  with  more  pecuhar  inter- 
est to  the  fortunes  of  the  Reformation  in  his  own  country ;  and  I  must 
therefore  say  a  few  words,  before  I  conclude  my  lecture,  on  this  more 
particular  portion  of  the  general  subject. 

The  student  must,  in  the  first  place,  have  been  much  pleased,  when 
he  was  considering  the  causes  of  the  Reformation  in  Robertson  and 
other  writers,  to  observe  the  striking  merits  of  his  countryman,  John 
Wickliffe.  He  will  find  an  account  of  him  in  Henry's  History  of 
England,  in  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  in  Fox's  Book  of  Mar- 
tyrs, and  in  the  third  volume  of  Mosheim,  where  he  will  see  a  refer- 
ence given  to  a  more  complete  and  regular  history  of  his  life  ;  lastly, 
in  Milner's  Church  History.  Nothing  can  be  more  creditable  to  any 
man  than  to  anticipate  the  discoveries  of  a  subsequent  age,  to  be 
already  as  enlightened  as  those  who  live  a  century  and  a  half  after- 
wards. Such  was  the  exalted  merit  of  Wickliffe ;  the  Refoi-mers  seem 
in  no  respect  to  have  surpassed,  many  not  to  have  equalled  him. 
"What  is  still  more  extraordinary  is,  that  he  was  allowed  to  die  as 
peaceably  as  if  he  had  not  been  wiser  than  the  rest  of  the  world. 

The  student  may  now  turn  to  the  history  of  the  Reformation  as 
given  by  Mr.  Hume.  It  is  always  desirable  to  consider  a  subject  in 
as  simple  a  form  as  possible,  and  on  this  account  I  would  recommend 
you  to  pause  at  the  end  of  his  reign  of  Elizabeth  or  James  ;  for  the 
materials  afforded  for  your  reflection  in  the  subsequent  reigns  will 
remain  the  same,  only  exliibited  to  your  view  in  colors  still  more 
striking. 

Turning  to  the  account  which  now  remains  in  Mr.  Hume's  work 
after  his  last  corrections  and  omissions  (for  those  who  wrote  against 
nim  wrote  against  passages  which  you  will  now  not  find),  I  have  the 
following  observations  to  submit  to  your  reflection. 

The  cause  of  the  Reformers,  in  their  first  struggle  with  the  Church 
of  Rome,  which  I  distinguish  from  their  subsequent  contests  with 
each  other,  was  the  cause  of  truth,  of  religion,  and  of  all  the  best 
interests  of  society.  Now  the  proper  and  just  and  natural  influence 
of  so  sacred  a  cause  on  the  human  mind  is  not  duly  observed  or 
properly  respected  by  Mr.  Hume,  and  the  student  must  not  suffer 


THE  REFORMATION.  179 

himself  to  be  insensibly  led  into  so  striking  an  injustice  to  sucb  vir- 
tuous men,  and  into  so  thoughtless  an  indifference  to  such  sacred 
principles.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  try  Mr.  Hume  by  a  single  sen- 
tence which  may  have  been  inconsiderately  written,  but  the  reader 
may  proceed  through  all  the  causes  of  the  progress  of  the  Reformor 
tion  which  are  mentioned  in  this  part  of  his  History,  and  he  will  see 
those  that  are  secondary  and  those  that  are  not  creditable  to  the 
Reformers  chiefly  and  indeed  alone  insisted  upon.  It  is  not  that 
causes  are  mentioned  that  did  not  operate,  but  that  the  natural  and 
just  efficacy  and  influence  of  truth  and  religious  inquiry,  when  op- 
posed to  the  gross  doctrines  and  abuses  of  the  Papacy,  are  over- 
looked. The  fault  here  is  considerably  analogous  to  the  fault  com- 
mitted by  Mr.  Gibbon  in  his  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  chapters,  with 
respect  to  the  propagation  of  Christianity.  He  produces  and  dwells 
upon  every  cause  but  the  main  and  the  right  one,  that  on  which  the 
rest  depended. 

Again,  objections  that  belong  to  some  of  the  Reformers  are  trans- 
ferred to  all,  and  made  characteristic  of  the  whole  cause.  In  all 
questions,  civil  as  well  as  religious,  there  is  no  species  of  injustice 
against  which  the  student  should  be  so  much  on  his  guard  as  this. 
None  is  so  common;  good  and  wise  men  are  continually  made  to 
answer  for  the  bad  principles  and  bad  conduct  of  others,  with  whom 
they  indeed  agree,  but  agree  only  as  to  certain  points.  It  is  often 
the  ungenerous  artifice  of  their  opponents,  and  always  the  custom  of 
tie  vulgar,  to  confound  these  distinctions,  however  real. 

Again,  improper  motives  are  sometimes  imputed  to  the  Reformers. 
Our  nature  is  made  up,  as  it  is  well  known,  of  various  ingredients  ; 
our  best  principles  readily  associating  with,  and  often  assisted  by, 
motives  not  the  most  dignified.  But  it  is  not  philosophical,  neither  is 
it  a  part  friendly  to  mankind,  to  rob  our  virtues  of  their  due  share 
in  those  actions  which  they  so  contribute  to  produce,  if  they  do  not 
entirely  produce.  A  species  of  injustice  like  this  is  one  of  the  chief 
fallacies  in  the  works  of  Rochefoucauld,  Mandeville,  and  the  licentious 
moralists. 

Again,  the  people  are  represented  by  Mr.  Hume  as  passive  with 
respect  to  religion,  and  as  ready  to  receive  any  form  or  description 
of  it.  But  the  student  is  not  thence  to  conclude,  as  too  many 
have  done,  that  this  is  an  argument  against  all  religion.  True  re- 
ligion as  well  as  false  religion  may  be  taken  upon  authority.  The 
original  question  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  a  religion  remains  the 
same.  An  argument,  indeed,  may  be  hence  adduced  for  the  free- 
dom of  religious  inquiry,  that  the  people  may  see  that  others  inquire, 
though  they  cannot ;  but  this  is  the  proper  conclusion,  not  an  indis- 
criminate conclusion  against  all  religion  whatever. 

Lastly,  there  is  through  the  whole  of  Mr.  Hume's  recital  a  certain 
cur  of  carelessness  with  respect  to  religion,  and  a  readiness  to  re prd- 


180  LECTURE  X. 

sent  all  warmtli  on  tlie  subject,  even  in  these  very  peculiar  times,  as 
fanaticism.  Mr.  Hume's  opinions  in  religion  are  well  known,  and 
all  this  might  have  been  expected.  You  will  therefore  take  into  joui 
account  these  particular  opinions.  Assuredly,  Mr.  Hume,  as  an  hi* 
torian,  should  not  have  taken  his  own  view  of  the  question  of  religion 
for  granted,  and  should  not  have  confounded  the  warmth  of  men, 
when  opposed  to  the  abuses  of  religion,  with  their  fury,  when  en- 
countering each  other, —  when  contending,  not  for  the  opening  of  the 
Bible,  but  for  some  speculative  point  in  divinity,  or  when  persecuting 
each  other  on  account  of  some  vestment  or  ceremony,  in  itself  of  no 
importance. 

When  these  cautions  have  been  premised,  I  am  not  aware  that  you 
can  be  otherwise  than  materially  instructed  by  the  penetrating  re- 
marks of  this  historian  on  the  effects  of  the  religious  principle  during 
these  singular  times.  No  man  should  turn  entirely  away  from  the 
criticisms  even  of  his  enemy.  The  most  religious  man  may  be  taught 
lessons  by  some  of  the  comments  of  this  powerful  writer ;  and  the 
more  blind  tenets  of  the  Papists  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  more  fan- 
tastic whims  of  the  Puritans  on  the  other,  whenever  they  appear, 
may  surely  be  surrendered  to  his  mercy. 

Along  with  Hume,  I  would  recommend  Burnet's  History  of  the 
Beformation.  No  cautions  need  be  suggested  before  the  perusal  of 
the  laborious  work  of  this  impartial  and  liberal  Churchman,  an  orna- 
ment to  his  order,  and  who  deserved  the  name  of  Christian. 

Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs  should  be  .looked  at.  It  is,  indeed,  in 
itself  a  long  and  dreadful  history  of  the  intolerance  of  the  human 
mind,  and  at  the  same  time  of  the  astonishing  constancy  of  the  human 
mind  ;  that  is,  it  is  at  once  a  monument  of  its  lowest  debasement  and 
its  highest  elevation.  The  volumes  of  Fox  are  also  everywhere  de- 
scriptive of  the  manners  and  opinions  of  the  different  ages  through 
which  the  author  proceeds.  The  transactions  relating  to  Anne  As- 
kew, the  disputations  of  Lambert  before  Henry  the  Eighth,  of  Lati- 
mer, Bidley,  and  Cranmer  at  Oxford,  with  the  examinations  and  suf- 
ferings of  these  eminent  martyrs,  should  be  thoroughly  read,  and  may 
serve  as  specimens  of  such  atrocious,  and,  at  first  sight,  such  aston- 
ishing scenes. 

Fox  may  always  be  consulted,  when  the  enormities  of  the  Papists 
are  to  be  sought  for.  Those  of  the  Protestants  may  be  collected  from 
Burnet,  or  rather  may  be  seen  in  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  and 
in  Dodd's  Church  History ;  and  of  Dodd  you  will  see  an  account  in 
Chalmers's  Biographia  Britannica.  He  did  not  put  his  name  to  his 
work.  I  have  placed  in  a  note-book  on  the  table  some  particulars, 
which,  though  not  necessary  for  a  Roman  Catholic  audience,  may  not 
he  without  their  edification  to  an  audience  of  Protestants,  and  of 
members  of  the  Chui*"Ch  of  England. 

In  Dr.  Lingard's  History  we  may  consider  ourselves  as  now  re- 


THE  REFORMATION.  181 

ceiving  wliat  we  have  never  before  had,  —  a  statement  of  the  case  of 
the  Roman  Catholics,  bj  one  of  their  own  body,  at  a  proper  distance 
of  time  from  the  events. 

The  account  which  is  given  by  Dr.  Robertson  of  the  Reformation 
in  Scotland  must  be  considered  ;  it  is  not  only  valuable  as  describing 
the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Reformation  in  a  part  of  our  own  island, 
but  it  is  enriched  by  many  reasonable  observations  on  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  on  reformers  in  general.  Robertson  must  be  compared  with 
Hume  ;  some  difference  may  be  observed  in  their  accounts. 

Hume  certainly  intended  to  make  the  Reformers  of  Scotland  odious 
and  ridiculous.  He  had  great  powers  of  exciting  sentiments  of  this 
kind,  on  whatever  occasion  he  pleased ;  and  he  has  certainly  suc- 
ceeded in  the  instance  before  us.  It  is  quite  necessary,  therefore, 
that  a  very  valuable  book  lately  published  by  Dr.  M'Crie  should  be 
read.  His  Life  of  Knox  will  correct  our  present  notions  in  many 
important  points.  Knox  does  not  seem  to  have  been  altogether  the 
ferocious,  unfeeling  barbarian  that  we  suppose,  though  he  was  most 
vehement,  and  on  the  subject  of  Popery  most  intolerant.  He  was, 
however,  much  the  same  in  nature  and  merit  with  many  of  the  great 
Reformers  of  England  and  of  the  Continent,  and  had  greater  influ- 
ence here,  as  well  as  in  Scotland,  and  was  from  the  first  a  more  im- 
portant person,  than  the  general  reader  is  aware  of. 

It  is  very  desirable,  that,  along  mth  Mr.  Hume's  History,  some 
work  like  this  of  Dr.  M'Crie  should  be  well  meditated.  For  the 
situation  of  Europe  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  Reformation  should  be 
known ;  what  Popery  was,  and  what  were  its  tenets  and  ceremonies ;  in 
short,  what  was  the  battle,  —  according  to  a  favorite  image  of  Knox, 
—  what  was  the  battle  which  the  Reformers  had  to  fight ;  and  what 
was  the  piety,  what  the  invincible  confidence  in  the  cause  of  truth, 
with  which  these  first  Reformers,  these  great  representatives  of  some 
of  the  highest  qualities  of  the  human  character,  were  animated.  No 
book  will  serve  this  purpose  better  than  this  Life  of  Knox  by  Dr. 
M'Crie.  Some  misrepresentations  in  Mr.  Hume's  account  are  also 
pointed  out,  sufficient  to  show  that  this  historian  is  not  to  be  trusted 
when  he  has  to  describe  the  conduct  of  the  professors  of  religion.  It 
may  be  added,  that  the  student  will  derive  from  the  work  a  more 
favorable  impression  of  the  Presbyterian  communion  than  he  has 
hitherto,  in  all  probability,  entertained.  New  impressions  of  this  kind 
are  valuable.  Different  sects  of  Christians  should  know  what  are 
the  more  appropriate  merits  as  well  as  faults  of  each  other.  They 
always  content  themselves  with  the  latter,  —  the  faults. 

I  must  mention,  before  I  conclude,  the  last  two  volumes  of  Dean 
Milner's  Ecclesiastical  History.  They  are  written,  like  the  principal 
part  of  the  work  by  his  brother,  upon  a  particular  system  of  doc- 
trine ;  but  with  this,  as  a  lecturer  of  history,  I  have  no  concern. 
The  reason  for  which  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  recommend  them 

p 


182  LECTURE  XI. 

to  your  attention  is  this,  —  that  they  contain,  particularly  in  the  life 
of  Luther,  the  best  account  I  know  of  the  more  intellectual  part  of 
the  history  of  the  Reformation ;  in  other  words,  they  contain  the 
progress  of  the  Reformation  in  Luther's  own  mind :  a  very  curious 
subject.  Such  were  the  great  talents  and  qualities  of  Luther,  and 
such  was  the  situation  of  Europe  at  the  time,  that  the  Reformation,  in 
fact,  passed  from  the  mind  of  the  one  into  the  mind  of  the  other.  I 
therefore  consider  these  two  volumes,  particularly  in  the  lives  of 
Wickliffe  and  Luther,  as  a  most  entertaining  and  valuable  accession 
to  our  general  stock  of  information,  and  one  that  may  be  considered 
as  accessible  to  every  student.  Dr.  Milner  appears  to  me  too  deter- 
mined a  panegyrist  of  Luther.  This,  however,  may  be  forgiven 
him ;  not  to  say  that  it  becomes  me  to  speak  with  diffidence,  when  I 
speak  to  differ  from  one  whom  I  know  to  have  been  so  able  and 
whom  I  conceive  to  have  been  so  diligent. 

Since  these  lectures  were  written,  many  valuable  and  interesting 
works  have  appeared,  —  more  than  I  can  enumerate :  Histories  of 
the  Reformation  by  Mr.  Blunt  and  Mr.  Soame ;  different  Lives  of 
Erasmus  and  Luther ;  Lives  of  Wickliffe,  Cranmer,  and  our  emi- 
nent divines,  by  Mr.  Le  Bas,  a  learned  and  powerful  writer ;  and 
many  learned  treatises  connected  with  the  doctrines  of  our  English 
Church,  —  that  is,  with  the  Reformation ;  among  the  rest,  some 
striking  observations  on  Erasmus  and  Luther  by  Mr.  Hallam,  in  the 
first  volume  of  his  intended  work  on  the  Literature  of  Europe. 


LECTURE   XL 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND   RELIGIOUS   WARS. 

In  my  lecture  of  yesterday  I  concluded  nfy  observations  on  the 
Reformation.  I  must  now  turn  to  the  French  history,  and  in  the 
following  lecture  I  must  endeavour  to  give  you  some  general  notion 
of  the  history  of  a  whole  century,  —  the  sixteenth. 

In  considering  the  first  part  of  this  century,  I  shall  have  to  notice 
the  wars  of  enterprise  and  ambition  carried  on  by  the  French  mon- 
archs,  Charles  the  Eighth  and  his  successors.  In  considering  the 
second  part  of  the  century,  I  shall  have  to  allude  to  the  great  sub- 
ject of  the  civil  and  religious  wars  of  France. 

Thesq  transactions  and  events  cannot  be  detailed  in  any  manner, 
however  shght.     I  can  only  make  general  remarks,  —  first  on  the 


FRANCE.  —  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.  183 

one  period,  and  then  on  the  other ;  mentioning,  at  the  same  time, 
such  books  as  will  furnish  you  hereafter  with  those  particulars  on 
which  I  am  now  obliged  to  comment  as  if  you  were  entirely  ac- 
quainted with  them  already. 

We  left  the  French  history  at  the  death  of  Louis  the  Eleventh  ; 
before,  therefore,  we  arrive  at  the  civil  and  religious  wars  of  France, 
we  must  pass  through  the  reigns  of  Charles  the  Eighth,  Louis  the 
Twelfth,  and  Francis  the  First.  Of  these  the  reader  vn\\  be  able  to 
form  a»  very  adequate  idea  by  reading  the  works  of  Mr.  Roscoe  and 
Dr.  Robertson.  These  reigns  may  also  be  read  in  Mezeray,  a  writer 
of  great  authority  ;  or  they  may  be  read  in  Henault,  and  Millot,  and 
Velly,  as  the  rest  of  the  French  history  has  been.  De  Thou  or 
Thuanus,  it  may  be  also  observed,  introduces  his  History  with  a  gen- 
eral review  of  France  and  the  state  of  Europe,  —  a  portion  of  his 
great  work  that  has  been  much  admired,  —  and  then  begins  with  the 
year  1546,  a  httle  before  the  death  of  Francis  the  First. 

The  lesson  which  may,  on  the  whole,  be  derived  from  this  first 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century  is  the  folly,  the  crime,  of  attempting 
foreign  conquest;  this  is  the  leading  observation  I  have  to  offer. 
Charies  the  Eighth  of  France  had  descended  into  Italy ;  Louis  the 
Twelfth  must  therefore  do  the  same  ;  so  must  Francis  the  First  and 
Henry  the  Second.  The  honor  of  the  French  nation  was,  it  seems, 
engaged. 

But  Spain,  which  was  becoming  the  great  rival  state  in  Europe, 
chose  also,  like  France,  to  be,  as  she  conceived,  powerful  and  re- 
nowned ;  Ferdinand,  therefore,  and  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  after- 
wards Philip  the  Second,  were  to  waste,  with  the  same  ignorant 
ferocity,  the  lives  and  happiness  of  their  subjects ;  and  for  what  pur- 
pose ?  Not  to  keep  the  balance  of  Europe  undisturbed ;  not  to 
expel  the  French  from  Italy,  and  to  absta,in  from  all  projects  of  con- 
quest themselves  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  by  rushing  in,  to  contend  for 
the  whole  or  a  part  of  the  plunder. 

The  Italians,  in  the  mean  time,  whose  unhappy  country*  was  thus 
made  the  arena  on  which  these  unprincipled  combatants  were  to 
struggle  with  each  other,  adopted  what  appeared  to  them  the  only 
resource,  —  that  of  fighting  the  one  against  the  other, — if  possible, 
to  destroy  both ;  leaguing  themselves  sometimes  with  France,  some- 
times with  Spain,  and  suffering  from  each  power  every  possible 
calamity ;  while  they  were  exhibiting,  in  their  own  conduct,  all  tlie 
degrading  arts  of  duplicity  and  int^gue.  A  more  wretched  and  dis- 
gusting picture  of  mankind  cannot  well  be  displayed :  all  the  faults 
of  which  man,  in  his  social  state,  is  capable ;    opposite  extremes 

*  There  is  a  well-known  beautiful  sonnet  in  the  Italian,  translated  by  Mr.  Roscoe, 
Und  imitated  by  Lord  Byron,  —  a  lamentation  that  Italy  had  not  been  more  i30werful 
»r  less  attractive,  — which  I  have  seen  an  Italian  repeat  almost  with  tears. 


184  LECTURE  XL 

of  guilt  united ;  all  the  vices  of  pusillanimity,  and  all  the  crimes  of 
courage. 

The  miseries  and  degradation  of  Italy  have  never  ceased  since  the 
fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  great  misfortune  of  this  country 
has  ahyays  been  its  divisions  into  petty  states,  —  a  misfortune  that  was 
irremediable.  No  cardinal  made  into  a  sovereign  could  ever  be  ex- 
pected to  combine  its  discordant  parts  into  a  free  government ;  and 
unless  this  was  done,  nothing  was  done :  could  this,  indeed,  have 
been  effected,  the  Italians  might  have  been  virtuous  and  happy. 

Artifice,  and  a  policy  proverbially  faithless,  were  vain  expedients 
against  the  great  monarchies  of  Europe.  But  while  Italy  was  to  be 
thus  destroyed  by  these  unprincipled  despoilers,  what,  in  the  mean 
time,  was  to  be  the  consequence  to  these  very  monarchies  ?  In  Spain, 
the  real  'sources  of  power  neglected ;  immense  revenue,  and  no 
wealth  ;  possessions  multiplied  abroad,  and  no  prosperous  provinces 
at  home ;  the  strength  of  the  country  exhausted  in  maintaining  a 
powerful  army,  for  the  purposes,  not  of  defence,  but  of  tyranny  and 
injustice ;  and  the  whole  system  ojT  policy,  in  every  part,  and  on 
every  occasion,  a  long  and  disgusting  train  of  mistake  and  guilt.  In 
Erance,  the  same  neglect  of  the  real  sources  of  strength  and  happi- 
ness :  the  produce  of  the  land  and  labor  of  the  community  employed 
in  military  enterprises ;  the  genius  of  the  nobles  made  more  and 
more  warlike ;  military  fame  and  the  intrigues  of  gallantry  (con- 
genial pursuits)  converted  into  the  only  objects  of  anxiety  and  am- 
bition ;  licentiousness  everywhere  the  result,  in  the  court  and  in  the 
nation ;  the  power  of  the  crown  unreasonably  strengthened ;  the 
people  oppressed  with  taxes,  their  interests  never  considered  ;  the  en- 
ergies of  this  great  country  misdirected  and  abused ;  and  the  science 
of  public  happiness  (except,  indeed,  in  the  arts  of  amusement  and 
splendor)  totally  unknown  or  disregarded. 

Erance  and  Spain,  therefore,  concur  Avith  Italy  in  completing  the 
lesson  that  is  exhibited  to  our  reflection :  ambition  and  injustice  have 
their  victims  in  the  countries  that  are  invaded  and  destroyed,  and 
have  alike  their  victims  in  those  very  invaders  and  destroyers.  Bet- 
ter governments  in  all,  or  in  any,  would  have  made  these  evils  less  ; 
and  good  governments  are  thus,  in  all  times  and  situations  of  the 
world,  the  comynon  interest  of  every  state,  as  connected  with  its 
neighbours,  and  of  every  prince  and  people,  as  concerned  in  theu^ 
own  individual  happiness. 

I  now  proceed  to  make  some  general  remarks  on  the  latter  part 
of  the  century.  The  remaining  half  comprehends,  in  Erench  his- 
tory, the  era  of  the  civil  and  religious  wars,  an  era  that  is  peculiarly 
interesting ;  and  the  great  difficulty  is,  to  prevent  our  minds  from 
being  overpowered  and  bewildered  by  the  variety  of  subjects  which 
present  themselves  to  our  examination.  The  events  are  striking ; 
the  actors  splendid ;  the  interests  important ;  and  could  we  see  and 


FRANCE.  — CI HL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.  185 

understand  the  scene  with  the  rapidity  with  which  we  do  the  dramas 
of  Otway  or  of  Shakspeare,  the  effect  would  be  even  more  powerful 
and  the  impression  more  lasting.  But  an  acquaintance  with  a  great 
and  real  tragedy  like  this,  that  lasted  for  nearly  forty  years,  can 
be  acquired  only  by  a  course  of  reading  extended  to  a  considerable 
length  and  somewhat  steadily  sustained.  To  say  the  truth,  it  is 
more  than  usually  perplexing  to  know,  on  this  occasion,  what  books 
to  propose.  The  great  historians  of  the  times  are  Thuanus  and 
Davila  ;  but  the  work  of  Davila  occupies  a  very  large  folio,  and  the 
History  of  Thuanus  is  extended  through  nearly  six  folios  in  the 
original  Latin,  and  through  nearly  ten  full  quartos  in  the  French 
translation. 

I-  must  therefore  explain  what  I  think  may  be  attempted,  and 
what  will,  I  conceive,  be  sufficient.  It  will  be  found  that  the  com- 
prehensive mind  of  De  Thou  undertook,  and  accomplished,  the  his- 
tory of  all  the  rest  of  Europe,  as  well  as  of  France,  and  I  therefore 
propose  to  you  to  confine  your  attention  to  that  part  which  relates 
to  the  French  history.  The  quarto  work,  the  French  translation, 
will  be  the  best  to  resort  to  ;  and  there  will  be  here  no  difficulty 
in  selecting  the  history  of  France  from  the  remainder  of  thg  work. 
Again,  a  considerable  part  of  the  narrative  is  employed  on  the 
progress  of  the  civil  wars  in  the  different  provinces  of  France,  and  on 
the  military  operations  of  the  contending  parties.  These  may  now  be 
looked  at  very  slightly.  It  is  the  conferences,  the  assemblies,  the 
manifestos,  the  treaties,  the  reasonings  and  views  of  the  Huguenots 
and  Roman  Catholics,  to  which  your  observation  should  be  directed. 
Now  these,  though  they  are  detailed,  and  very  properly,  at  great 
length,  by  De  Thou,  do  not,  after  all,  constitute  a  mass  of  reading 
which  may  not,  and  which  ought  not,  to  be  undertaken.  Even  here, 
some  parts  may  be  considered  far  less  attentively  than  others,  and 
with  these  limitations,  and  on  this  system,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  recom- 
mend to  your  perusal  the  great  work  of  one  of  the  first  of  modern 
historians. 

In  like  manner,  Davila  may  be  read  in  parts ;  the  work  may  be 
referred  to  in  all  the  more  important  particulars,  especially  with  re- 
spect to  the  views,  interests,  and  intrigues  of  the  different  leaders  and 
factions.  The  narrative  is  remarkably  unaffected,  perspicuous,  and 
complete  ;  and  every  thing  is  so  easy,  natural,  and  relevant  to  the 
subject,  that  the  reader  who  turns  to  consult  the  work  will  unavoida- 
bly read  on  and  do  more,  and  perceive,  that,  if  a  character  is  to  be 
estimated,  or  any  particular  event  to  be  understood,  the  account  of 
Davila  mus*:  necessarily  be  considered. 

The  Duke  of  Epernon,  an  actor  in  these  scenes,  is  related  by  his 

biographer  to  have  been  pleased  with  this  History ;  and  above  all,  to 

have  commended  the  exact  care  Avhich  the  author  had  taken  to  m- 

form  himself  of  the  secret  motives  by  which  the  different  parties  and 

21  P* 


yS6  LECTURE  XL 

leaders  were  actuated  at  tlie  time.  But  we  must  not  forget,  that  the 
family  of  Davila,  and  himself,  were  connected  with  Catherine  de 
Medicis  ;  that  he  has  been  considered  as  her  apologist ;  that  he  was 
an  Italian,  and  a  soldier ;  and  that  every  thing  with  him  is,  of  course, 
referred  to  faction  or  to  selfishness.  Ideas  of  civil  or  religious  liberty 
seem  little  to  have  occurred  to  him ;  and  the  reader  is  to  consider  his 
History  as  supplying  him  with  materials  which  he  must  combine  with 
those  of  other  writers,  —  not  in  any  instance  as  furnishing  him  with 
conclusions  to  which  he  is  to  assent  without  due  hesitation. 

De  Thou  is  likewise  an  historian  of  facts  and  of  detail,  but  his  sen- 
timents are  generous  and  enlarged ;  and  the  student,  while  he  reads 
what  men  were,  and  but^oo  often  are,  will  never  be  suffered  to  forget 
what  they  ought  to  be. 

French  literature  is  not  so  eminently  distinguished  for  great  regu 
lar  works  of  history  as  for  memoirs  of  the  great  characters  of  history. 
Books  of  tliis  kind  are,  of  all,  the  most  amusing;  and,  when  inspected 
by  a  philosophic  eye,  are  often  well  fitted  to  afford  the  most  important 
conclusions.  The  Memoirs  of  Brantome  are  of  this  description.  The 
writer  is,  of  all  others,  himself  the  least  of  a  thinker  or  of  an  in- 
structor ;  but  he  goes  on  with  the  most  captivating  rapidity  and 
variety,  often  superficial  and  inconsistent ;  panegyrizing  every  one 
he  has  to  speak  of,  without  the  slightest  moral  discrimination,  but 
always  supplying  the  reader  with  those  traits  of  character  and  pecu- 
liarities of  conduct  which  render  his  personages  known  and  famihar 
to  us,  —  no  longer  seen  in  the  cabinet  or  the  field,  but  exhibited  in 
the  recesses  of  private  life,  just  as  they  really  were,  with  all  the 
whims  and  follies  that  belong  to  them. 

The  Memoirs  of  Sully  finish  the  portrait  of  these  times,  not  only  in 
finishing  for  us  the  portrait  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  but  in  giving  us 
many  curious  particulars  respecting  the  practical  government  of 
France,  its  finances,  factions,  and  the  whole  state  of  its  constitution 
and  interests.  The  Memoirs,  indeed,  are  but  a  mass  of  papers  ar- 
ranged by  his  secretaries  and  drawn  up  under  his  eye,  and  it  is  much 
to  be  lamented  that  this  upright  minister  did  not  extend  his  virtuous 
activity  to  the  more  regular  composition  of  a  more  finished  history. 
But,  such  as  it  is,  it  is  still  authentic  and  particularly  valuable,  and 
must  be  read.  There  has  been  lately  a  new  edition  and  translation 
of  this  work. 

These  are  all  original  works,  and,  in  the  manner  I  have  mentioned, 
may  be  perused. 

A  new  edition  of  the  work  of  Brantome  was  in  1812  pubhshed  in 
Paris.  It  will  be  far  more  than  supplied  to  an  English  reader  by  a 
work  of  Mr.  Wraxall,  —  "Memoirs  of  the  Kings  of  France  of  the 
Race  of  Valois,"  —  which  is  collected  from  various  writers  of  this 
kind,  is  but  too  amusing,  and,  as  a  companion  to  the  greater  his- 
tories, perfectly  invaluable. 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.  187 

There  is  also  a  regular  "  History  of  France, ''  by  Mr.  Wraxall, 
from  which  the  reader  will  derive  the  greatest  assistance,  while  en- 
gaged with  the  original  works  of  De  Thou  and  Davila.  It  is  even 
quite  necessary  to  him.  The  narrative  is  drawn  from  many  more 
WTiters  than  could  possibly  be  read,  or  even  easily  be  consulted ;  and 
the  particulars,  brought  together  with  great  diligence,  give  a  very 
perspicuous  and  complete  view  of  the  characters  and  events  of  these 
times.  The  work,  after  having  been  long  neglected,  chiefly,  I  should 
think,  from  the  anxious  and  critical  nature  of  the  times  when  it  ap- 
peared (1795),  was  republished  by  the  author  in  1814,  and  enriched, 
as  he  supposes,  —  disfigured,  as  I  conceive,  —  by  allusions  to  Bona- 
parte and  modern  politics.  This  work  of  Mr.  Wraxall,  with  the  Abbe 
de  Mably,  may  be  sufficient  for  the  general  reader.  D'Anquetil's 
work,  "  L'Intrigue  du  Cabinet,"  may  be  added. 

Since  I  wrote  this  lecture,  a  work  has  appeared  by  Lacretelle,  — 
his  History  of  France  during  the  Religious  Wars  of  France.  This 
work,  with  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  may  be  also  sufficient.  The  matter 
of  the  first  volume  you  wiU  find  better  in  Robertson,  and  so  of  other 
parts  of  the  work  in  our  own  historians  ;  but  this  part  of  the  French 
history  which  we  are  considering  he  gives  in  a  very  concise,  agree- 
able, interesting  manner.  He  touches  upon  the  right  points,  and 
will  facilitate  the  reading  of  other  French  historians,  if  you  choose 
to  read  them  also.  He  is  too  great  a  panegyrist  of  Henry  the 
Fourth,  and  does  not  take  sufficiently  into  account  the  effect  of  the 
religious  principle,  while  explaining  the  history  of  these  times  ;  that 
is,  while  explaining  the  history,  he  seems  not  to  feel  how  respectable, 
how  sublime,  may  be  the  principle,  the  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
sacred  truth,  in  many  persons,  while  it  may  transport  some  men  into 
fanaticism,  and  again,  in  others,  may  be  mixed  with  worldly  consid- 
erations. He  has  something  of  the  fault  of  Davila,  with  whom  every 
thing  is  a  mere  struggle  of  ambition. 

But  while  this  part  of  the  history  of  France  is  read,  in  whatever 
author,  English  or  French,  the  observations  upon  it  by  Mably  must 
be  studied ;  they  are  more  than  ever  able  and  important. 

This  lecture  was  written  many  years  ago,  and  I  have  now  de- 
scribed such  authors  and  memoirs  as  have  been  always  studied  by 
the  readers  of  history.  But  there  has  lately  appeared  a  work,  that, 
as  far  as  the  general  reader  is  concerned,  may  be  a  substitute  for 
them  all.  It  was  drawn  up  for  the  Theological  Library  by  the  late 
Mr.  Smedley,  a  most  excellent  man  and  a  very  able  writer.  It  con- 
sists of  three  octavo  volumes,  and  gives  the  history  of  the  Reformed 
Church  in  France  down  to  the  present  times.  It  is  an  extremely 
interesting  and  valuable  work,  beautifully  done,  and  entirely  to  be 
recommended. 

Turning  now  from  the  books  to  be  read  to  such  observations  aa 
I  hope  may  be  useful,  I  have  first  to  remark,  that  these  dreadful 


188  LECTURE  XL 

wars  of  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  of  a  civil  as 
well  as  of  a  religious  nature  ;  they  are  called  the  Civil  and  Rehgious 
Wars. 

I  mentioned,  in  my  lecture  on  the  Reformation,  how  easily  the 
concerns  of  religion  would  mingle  with  the  politics  of  the  world ;  how 
readily  each  would  act  and  react  upon  the  other ;  the  rage  and  ran- 
cor that  must  ensue.  This  was  so  much  the  case  in  the  instance  of 
France,  that  men  appeared  almost  to  lose  the  common  attributes  of 
their  nature.  Some  of  the  leading  particulars  seem  to  have  been  as 
follows. 

The  great  families  in  France,  though  their  free  constitution  was  no 
more,  though  they  might  now  be  controlled  by  any  prince  of  ability, 
who  dispensed  his  favors  with  care,  and  suiFered  none  to  become  too 
powerful,  were  still  in  themselves  perfectly  able  to  disturb  the  state 
and  to  shake  the  monarchy,  whenever  a  man  of  great  enterprise  and 
genius  appeared  among  them,  or  whenever  a  weak  prince  was  seated 
on  the  throne. 

Francis  the  First,  though  formed  to  be  the  idol  of  Frenchmen,  still 
carried  on  a  regular  system  of  inspection  over  his  nobles  and  their 
proceedings  in  every  place  and  province  of  France.  "  Beware,"  he 
said,  on  his  death-bed,  to  his  son,  Henry  the  Second,  "  beware  of  the 
Guises ! "  His  sagacity  was  but  too  well  shown  by  subsequent  events. 
The  historians,  particularly  Davila,  give  a  very  clear  description 
of  the  court  and  of  the  great  men  who  were  ready  to  contend  for 
power  immediately  on  his  decease,  and  during  the  reign  of  his  suc- 
cessor, Henry  the  Second.  The  chances  of  confusion  were  already 
very  sufficient,  but  they  were  still  further  increased  when  Francis 
the  Second  came  to  the  throne ;  for  not  only  was  he  a  minor  and  of  no 
capacity,  but  the  queen-mother  was  Catherine  de  Medicis.  Charles 
the  Ninth  was,  again,  a  minor,  and,  again,  her  son ;  and  she  was 
mother  even  to  Henry  the  Third,  who  next  mounted  the  throne  after 
Henry  the  Second  and  Francis  the  Second. 

The  family  of  Guise,  connected  by  marriage  with  the  reigning 
family,  produced  distinguished  men,  —  two,  more  particularly,  of  great 
genius  and  of  the  most  aspiring  ambition.  These  were  the  two  men 
whom  Francis  the  First  had  dreaded.  The  Prince  of  Conde,  as  a 
prince  of  the  blood,  conceived  that  the  administration  naturally  be- 
longed to  him  ;  the  Constable  Montmorency,  with  the  ancient  fam- 
ilies, had  the  same  pretensions ;  and  the  queen-mother  had  unhappily 
resolved  to  hold  the  reigns  of  government  herself,  and  therefore  en- 
deavoured to  rule  all  competitors  for  authority  by  dividing  and  oppos- 
ing them  to  each  other. 

As  Catherine  was  a  woman  of  great  natural  ability,  and  as  Charles 
the  Ninth  and  Henry  the  Third  were  far  from  being  devoid  of  it,  it 
is  probable  that  the  authority  of  the  crown  might  still  have  maintained 
itself  and  preserved  a  tolerable  state  of  peace  and  order;  but  it 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.  189 

happened,  most  unfortunately,  that  the  Prince  of  Conde  was  a  Prot- 
estant, the  Constable  a  Roman  Catholic ;  the  court  and  the  Guises 
were  of  the  Roman  Catholic  persuasion  also  ;  and  the  people  had 
been  inflamed  against  each  other  by  the  natural  progress  of  religious 
differences.  The  Prince  of  Conde,  therefore,  had  only  to  state  the 
grievances  of  the  Calvinists,  and  to  be  their  leader,  the  Duke  of 
Guise  to  assert  the  supposed  rights  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  to 
declare  himself  their  chief,  and  long  wars  of  the  most  exterminating 
fury  were  sure  to  be  the  consequence. 

You  will  observe  the  materials  of  destruction  preparing  in  the 
horrible  execution  of  the  Calvinists  by  Francis  the  First,  and  after- 
wards by  Henry  the  Second,  and  in  various  intolerant  edicts  that 
were  from  time  to  time  published.  There  is  a  book,  The  Edict  of 
Nantes,  in  the  first  chapter  of  which  may  be  found  an  account  of  the 
introduction  of  Calvinism  into  France,  and  its  first  persecutions  stated 
very  concisely. 

The  contests,  therefore,  of  civil  and  religious  hate  were  now  to 
begin.  I  cannot  relate  the  facts ;  I  have  to  observe,  therefore, 
generally,  —  first,  that  the  commencement  of  wars,  particularly  of 
civil* wars,  must  always  be  interesting  to  every  reader  of  reflection. 
We  may  turn  away  our  eyes,  when  the  sword  has  been  once  drawn, 
from  the  crimes  and  the  horrors  that  ensue  ;  but,  till  the  first  fatal 
act  of  hostility  has  been  committed,  we  examine  with  care,  we  follow 
with  anxiety,  the  steps  of  the  contending  parties,  and  we  bless  in 
silence  those  real  patriots,  if  any  there  be,  who  have  breathed,  how- 
ever vainly,  the  sounds  of  forbearance  and  kindness,  —  who  have  ex- 
postulated, explained,  conciliated,  and  labored,  if  possible,  to  pro- 
cure a  pause.  Such  sentiments  are  felt,  occasionally,  even  by  the 
very  actors  in  the  scene.  A  remarkable  instance  of  this  kind  occur- 
red in  this  period  of  the  French  history. 

At  the  moment  when  the  civil  wars  were  on  the  point  of  breaking 
out,  and  each  party  stood. prepared  and  in  arms,  the  Prince  of  Conde 
and  the  queen-mother  had  a  conference,  by  regular  appointment,  to 
adjust,  if  possible,  terms  of  mutual  accommodation.  Their  followers 
were  ordered  to  remain  at  a  distance,  merely  because  it  was  sup- 
posed, that,  if  they  approached  each  other,  some  word,  some  look  of 
offence,  might  be  interchanged,  and  in  an  instant  the  kingdom  be- 
come a  scene  of  blood.  They  were  contented  awhile  to  obey  their 
orders,  but  they  at  last,  with  great  difficulty,  obtained  leave  to  take 
a  nearer  view  of  each  other,  that  they  might  no  longer  appear  already 
occupied  by  sentiments  of  estrangement  and  suspicion.  It  was  then 
that  nature  prevailed,  for  one  short  and  reasonable  moment,  over  all 
the  more  artificial  impulses  of  misguided  opinion  and  military  duty. 
They  recognized,  each,  in  the  ranks  of  his  opponents,  his  brother,  his 
relation,  or  his  friend ;  hostility  and  defiance  were  at  an  end ;  they 
saluted  each  other,  they  embraced,  they  implored  from  each  other 


190  LECTURE  XL 

mutual  compassion  and  forbearance ;  they  deprecated  a  war,  where 
to  conquer  was  not  to  triumph ;  they  mingled  their  tears,  the  tears 
of  terror  as  of  affection,  —  of  terror,  lest  the  next  day  should  see 
them,  as  it  did  see  them,  drawn  out  in  fearful  combat  with  each 
other,  to  be  friends  and  brothers  no  more,  to  destroy,  to  pursue  even 
to  agony  and  death,  each  the  generous  and  gallant  man  that  the 
chance  of  battle  presented  to  his  sword.  —  And  why  were  scenes 
like  these  to  ensue  ?  The  Prince  of  Conde  required,  it  seems,  that 
the  new  Leaguers  should  leave  the  court,  and  that  the  late  tolerant 
edict  should  be  observed.  "  The  first  does  not  meet  my  wishes,'* 
said  the  queen-mother ;  "  the  second  is  impossible.  Were  we  to 
think  further  of  this  edict,  all  the  clergy,  a  great  part  of  the  nobility, 
and  almost  all  the  nation,  would  be  against  us."  And  these  were 
the  unhappy  obstacles  in  the  way  of  peace  that  could  not  be  re- 
moved ! 

If  there  be  any  principle  necessary  to  mankind,  it  is  that  of  the 
civil  obedience  of  the  subject,  that  principle  by  which  the  single  mind 
of  the  ruler  is  able  to  direct  .and  control  the  physical  strength  of  mil- 
lions ;  if  there  be  any  one  good  that  is  totally  invaluable  to  our  Ijelp- 
less  condition,  it  is  religion.  But  there  are  seasons  in  the  history  of 
mankind  when  we  are  tempted  almost  to  wish  that  men  could  be  dis- 
robed at  once  of  all  the  distinctions  and  ties  which  belong  to  their 
social  state,  and  thrown  again  into  the  woods  to  take  the  chance  of 
savage  existence,  rather  than  be  suffered  so  frightfully  to  abuse,  so 
intolerably  to  waste,  the  best  materials  of  their  happiness,  and  the 
first  blessings  of  their  nature.  It  is  on  this  account  that  the  wars  of 
faction,  and  more  particularly,  as  in  this  case,  of  religious  faction, 
should  be  most  thoroughly  studied ;  that,  as  much  as  possible,  not 
only  the  nature  of  ambition  should  be  known,  but  the  temptations  of 
the  religious  principle,  when  interfering  in  the  affairs  of  the  world, 
should  be  understood ;  that,  as  much  as  possible,  mankind  may  be 
put  upon  their  guard,  not  only  against  their  rulers,  but  against  them- 
selves, —  not  only  against  their  own  vices,  but  against  the  most  vir- 
tuous tendencies  of  their  nature. 

I  now  proceed  to  some  further  comments  on  transactions  to  which 
I  can  in  no  other  way  but  in  this,  of  general  comment,  allude.  The 
great  leading  conclusions  to  be  deduced  from  these  wars  are  much 
the  same  as  have  been  already  drawn  from  the  prior  history  of  the 
Reformation ;  as, 

1st.  The  slowness  with  which  the  doctrines  of  toleration  are  com- 
prehended even  by  the  best  men.  The  celebrated  Preface  of  Thu- 
anus,  his  Dedication  to  Henry  the  Fourth,  the  speeches  and  reason- " 
ings  of  the  great  magistrates  of  the  realm,  and  of  all  the  friends  to 
order  and  peace,  such  as  they  are  given  in  his  History,  all  lead  to 
this  conclusion.  Forbearance  to  the  Protestants  is  never  argued 
upon  any  general  principles,  such  as  the  right  of  private  judgment,  — 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.  191 

but  upon  the  inefficacj  of  force  and  punishment  to  convince  men  of 
their  errors.  Good  men,  even  if  sufficiently  enlightened,  could  prob- 
ably then  venture  on  no  other  language,  and,  indeed,  naturally 
adopted  the  argument  that  admits  of  no  answer.  The  parties  them- 
selves seem  always  to  have  supposed,  each,  that  the  other  was  abomi- 
nable in  the  sight  of  the  Creator,  and  that,-  as  such,  they  were  to  be 
punished  and  subdued  by  all  who  had  any  proper  sense  of  religion. 

The  wars  were  repeatedly  closed  and  renewed.  The  court  and 
the  Catholics  could  never  rest  satisfied,  on  the  one  side,  while  the 
Protestants  exercised  their  rehgion  in  the  face  of  day ;  and  the  Prot- 
estants, on  the  other  side,  could  never  bring  .themselves  to  believe 
that  they  were  in  a  state  of  proper  security.  The  manifestos, 
edicts,  and  mutual  complaints  indicate  very  completely  the  particu- 
lar nature  of  religious  animosity,  and  should,  therefore,  be  well 
studied. 

2dly.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  concord  were  the  same  as  they 
have  always  been.  The  questions  to  be  settled  were,  th^  exercise  of 
public  worship,  the  payment  of  tithes  to  the  ministers  of  the  prevail- 
ing communion,  the  admission  to  places  of  honor  and  influence  ;  and 
in  these  civil  wars  the  Calvinists  were  so  inferior  in  strength  to 
their  opponents,  that  even  the  education  of  their  children,  the  rites 
of  burial  and  marriage,  the  equal  participation  of  the  laws,  and  other 
similar  considerations,  were  all  subjects  of  contention. 

But,  though  always  defeated  in  the  field,  though  always  inferior  in 
number  and  resources  to  their  opponents,  they  were  never  totally 
subdued.  It  is  said  that  in  number  they  were  not  above  one  tenth 
of  the  whole.  Before  the  civil  wars  began,  they  were  dragged  to 
the  stake ;  but  during  them,  they  continually  obtained  edicts  which 
rendered  their  existence  more  tolerable.  Like  their  gallant  and 
virtuous  leader,  the  Admiral  Coligny,  they  never  despaired  of  the 
common  cause,  and  were  thus  enabled  to  procure  something  like  for- 
bearance and  respect  from  their  unenlightened  opponents.  The  sort 
of  success  that  they  obtained,  and  the  injuries  they  inflicted  on  their 
adversaries,  are  calculated  to  teach  mankind,  not  only  that  men  can- 
not be  •influenced  in  their  religious  opinions  by  force,  but  that  every 
sect  is  to  be  managed,  even  on  the  mere  principles  of  worldly  policy, 
with  proper  deference  and  kindness ;  that  the  objects  clamored  for  by 
the  bigoted  are  not  worth  the  risk  of  such  contention  as  they  may 
occasion  ;  that  men,  whether  right  or  wrong,  and  with  or  without  suc- 
cess, will  die  in  support  of  what  they  think  the  truth ;  and  that  they 
may  often  be  enabled  thus  to  die,  amid  the  calamities  and  slaughter 
of  their  persecutors.  • 

3dly.  There  were  conferences  of  divines  to  settle  religious  differ- 
ences, as  in  other  countries,  during  and  after  the  Reformation,  and 
with  the  same  ill  success.  An  account  of  one  of  them,^  where  the 
celebrated  Theodore  Beza  took  a  distinguished  part,  is  given  by  De 


192  LECTURE  XL 

Thou.  The  whole  relation  is  curious  and  instructive.  But  disputor 
tions  like  these,  what  are  thej?  Lambert  disputed  before  Henry  the 
Eighth  against  his  bishops,  and  was  defeated.  A  Protestant  divine 
was  in  like  manner  overpowered  before  Henry  the  Fourth  in  France, 
as  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  a  Roman  Catholic  divine  before  Eliza- 
beth in  England.  Public  disputations  of  this  kind  are  characteristics 
of  the  age,  and  indicative  of  the  natural  tendencies  of  the  human 
mind  on  these  subjects ;  they  should  therefore  be  considered. 

When,  indeed,  Henry  the  Fourth  afterwards  announced,  that  he 
was  ready  to  be  converted,  if  proper  arguments  could  be  offered  to 
him,  the  reasonings  of  the  Roman  Catholic  divines  were  successful, 
and  they  demonstrated  to  him  the  doctrines  of  auricular  confession, 
the  invocation  of  saints,  and  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  Papal  see. 
These,  it  seems,  were  the  points  on  which  the  scruples  of  the  king 
had  happened  to  fall.  On  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  he  had 
no  difficulty.  All  history  thus  shows,  what  all  theory  announces, 
that  speculative  truth,  particularly  in  religious  questions,  can  be  left 
with  best  advantage  to  the  silent  influence  and  ultimate  decision,  not 
of  creeds  and  councils,  but  of  free  inquiry. 

Again,  there  appeared  in  these  religious  wars  the  same  want  of 
good  faith  that  has  so  often  marked  the  conduct  of  the  ruling  sect, 
the  same  inextinguishable  resentment,  the  same  unwillingness  to  be 
satisfied  while  their  opponents  were  suffered  to  appear  in  any  state 
but  that  of  total  degradation  and  submission ;  and  then  the  next 
lesson  is  this,  —  that  the  whole  of  the  history  bears  testimony  to  the 
impolicy  of  a  temperament  so  unjust  and  so  irreligious.  Even  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  extinguished  not  the  evil  which  the 
court  meant  to  remedy ;  it  only  made  their  anxieties,  and  perhaps 
even  their  dangers,  the  greater. 

Thus  far  the  rehgious  wars  of  France  seem  to  exhibit  the  same 
features  and  lessons  of  instruction  that  are  presented  by  other  re^ 
ligious  wars,  whatever  be  the  ruling  sect,  the  Roman  Catholic  or  the 
Protestant.  But  in  one  respect  these  were  distinguishable  from  all 
others  that  Europe  has  witnessed,  —  their  more  than  usual  horrors, 
their  singularly  atrocious  crimes  ;  in  none  others  were  all  tho»  char- 
ities and  obligations  of  mankind  so  violated,  and  all  the  common 
principles  of  mercy  and  justice  so  outraged  and  set  at  naught.  This 
seems  to  indicate  not  only  the  necessity  of  a  free  government  to 
humanize  men,  but  also  that  the  members  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
communion  are  of  all  sects  the  most  intolerant  and  cruel. 

The  reason  is,  that  they  are  more  under  the  influence  of  their 
spiritual  guides ;  and  every  sect  will  be  fouj^d  more  or  less  intolerant 
and  cruel,  as  this  is  more  or  less  the  case.  A  spiritual  director,  like 
every  human  being,  abuses  the  power  that  is  given  him.  The .  more 
unlimited  the  power,  the  greater  the  abuse ;  and  whether  it  be  the 
Bramin  in  the  East,  the  Calvinistic  preacher  in  Scotland,  or  the  Ro- 


FRANCE.  -  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS   WARS.  193 

man  Catholic  priest  in  France  and  Spain,  the  effect  proceeds  from 
the  same  cause,  and  is  proportioned  to  it.  The  spiritual  guide,  in 
these  cases,  generally  deceives  himself,  and  always  deceives  his  foi 
lower,  by  considering  the  cause  in  which  his  passions  have  got  en- 
gaged as  the  cause  of  the  Deity.  And  yet,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
it  appears  from  this  very  history  that  men  may  sometimes  teach 
themselves  the  same  identification  of  their  own  religious  opinions 
with  the  cause  of  the  Deity,  by  the  workings  of  their  own  mind, 
even  ivithout  the  interference  of  any  spiritual  instructor. 

For  instance,  Poltrot  (Vol.  iii.  p.  394,  De  Thou)  assassinated  the 
first  Duke  of  Guise.  "  Poltrot  had  embraced,"  says  the  historian, 
"  with  great  ardor,  the  Protestant  faith ;  and,  enraged  at  the  success 
of  this  great  Catholic  leader,  he  resolved  to  destroy  him.  He  had 
thrown  himself  on  his  knees  to  ask  in  prayer  from  the  Almighty 
whether  his  design  to  kill  the  tyrant,  as  he  called  him,  was,  or 
was  not,  derived  from  heaven.  He  had  implored  to  be  accordingly 
fortified  in  his  resolution,  or  not ;  and  he  perpetrated  the  murder 
under  the  belief  that  he  had  been  inspired  to  do  so."  Poltrot  was  a 
Protestant,  and  had  no  spiritual  director ;  but  Smedley  considers 
Poltrot  only  as  a  ruffian,  not  as  a  fanatic.  — p.  263,  vol.  i.,  of  his 
Religious  Wars. 

On  a  principle  of  this  kind,  and,  what  is  still  more  dreadful,  gen 
erally  with  the  sanction  of  the  deliberations  and  reasonings  of  some 
priest  or  confessor,  was  the  life  of  Henry  the  Third  taken  away,  and 
that  of  Henry  the  Fourth  several  times  attempted.  Even  the  en- 
thusiasm of  E-availlac,  who  at  last  assassinated  Henry  the  Fourth, 
though  it  reached  insanity,  was  religious  insanity  :  so  careful  should 
all  religious  men  be  never  to  lose  sight,  for  a  moment,  of  their  moral 
obUgations  ;  if  they  once  do,  it  is  impossible  to  say  what  point  of 
enthusiasm,  or  even  of  guilt,  they  may  not  reach. 

But  not  only  were  murders  of  this  nature  committed,  but  a  mas- 
sacre (I  allude  to  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew),  a  massacre  of 
every  person  of  consequence  that  belonged  to  the  inferior  sect,  under 
cover  of  a  reconciliation,  was  actually  both  conceived  and  almost  en- 
tirely perpetrated,  —  and  that  by  the  first  people  of  rank  in  France, 
regularly  deliberating,  contriving,  and  executing,  slowly  and  syste- 
matically, what  is  not  pardoned  to  human  nature  even  in  her  wildest 
transports  of  sudden  fury  and  brutal  folly.  With  all  the  latitude 
that  can  be  imagined  for  civil  and  religious  hatred,  nothing  but  evi- 
dence totally  irresistible  could  reconcile  the  mind  to  the  belief  of  such 
an  astonishing  project  of  guilt  and  horror.  The  entire  and  total  sep- 
aration and  hatred  that  existed  between  the  two  religious  sects  must 
have  been  carried  to  an  extent  now  inconceivable,  or  such  a  scheme 
could  never  have  been  devised,  and  still  less  executed.  Could  it 
have  been  supposed  possible  that  such  a  secret  as  this  would  have 
been  so  kept,  that  a  certain  portion  of  the  whole  community,  an 
25  Q 


194  LECTURE  XI. 

entire  description  of  brave  men,  should  be  slaughtered  in  their  beds 
and  in  the  streets,  in  the  capital  and  in  the  provinces,  to  the  amount 
of  seventy  thousand  human  beings,  without  the  slightest  chance  of 
combination  or  resistance  against  their  murderers  ?  Yet  such  was 
the  fact. 

All  memoirs  and  historians  make  mention  of  this  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew  ;  and  each  becomes  worth  consulting,  by  noticing  some 
particulars  not  noticed  by  the  rest.  Davila,  at  other  times  so  inter- 
esting from  his  minuteness,  and  judicious  minuteness,  disappoints  ex- 
pectation. The  subject  could  not  well  be  dwelt  upon  by  an  historian 
like  him,  who  must  have  wished,  at  least,  to  think  well  of  Catherine, 
with  whose  court  he  had  been  connected.  De  Thou  enters  more  into 
the  detail. 

After  the  first  emotions  of  astonishment,  indignation,  and  horror 
have  subsided,  we  may,  perhaps,  not  unprofitably  turn  to  reflect  on 
the  manner  in  which  the  perpetrators  of  such  atrocities  could  recon- 
cile them  (and  they  did  reconcile  them)  to  their  own  views  of  relig- 
ion and  virtue.  Men  on  their  death-beds  were  known  to  consider 
the  part  they  took  -in  these  extraordinary  crimes  as  meritorious  with 
the  Deity.  The  massacre  was  defended  by  reasonings  at  Rome,  by 
an  oration  of  the  eloquent  Muretus,  by  the  sermons  of  divines,  and 
the  apologies  of  men  in  the  highest  stations,  and  even  sanctioned  by 
public  authority  at  Paris.  The  annals  t)f  the  world  do  not  exhibit  so 
awful  an  instar.ce  (and  this  is  the  great  lesson  to  be  drawn  from 
these  enormities)  of  the  dangerous  situation  in  which  the  human 
mind  is  placed,  when  it  onee  consents,  on  whatever  account,  whether 
of  supposed  religion  or  imagined  duty,  to  depart  from  the  great  and 
acknowledged  precepts  of  morality.  I  must  for  ever  press  this 
point  upon  your  remembrance,  —  the  great  code  of  mercy  and  jus- 
tice impressed  upon  the  human  heart  by  the  Creator ;  an  attention 
to  it  can  alone  keep  you  safe  from  the  possible  delusions  of  religious 
zeal. 

The  Protestant  part  of  Europe  at  the  time,  and  posterity  ever 
since,  have  vindicated  the  rights  of  insulted  reason  and  religion.  It 
is  some  melancholy  consolation  to  observe,  that  even  the  abominable 
court  itself  was,  at  first,  obliged  to  pretend,  and  their  apologists 
since,  that  they  only  anticipated  a  projected  insurrection  of  the. 
Huguenots.  Charles  the  Ninth  seems  never  to  have  known  health 
or  cheerfulness  again :  he  had  pages  to  sing  him  to  sleep  ;  and  he  at 
last  died,  ere  his  youth  had  well  passed  away,  lost  and  destroyed  in 
body  as  in  mind,  and,  if  possible,  an  object  of  compassion.  It  is  in- 
deed true,  that  Catherine,  while  urging  on  her  hesitating  son,  could 
quote  a  passage  from  the  sermon  of  the  Bishop  of  Bitonto,  to  assure 
him  that  pity  to  a  heretic  was,  in  fact,  but  cruelty,  and  cruelty  pity ! 
But  there  were  governors  in  some  of  the  provinces  that  replied  to 
the  mandate  of  their  sovereign,  —  "  We  are  good  citizens,  we  are 


FRANCE.  — CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.  195 

brave  soldiers,  but  we  are  not  executioners."  "  Excidat  ilia  dies,'* 
said  the  virtuous  De  Thou,  ashamed  of  his  countrymen,  — 

"  Excidat  ilia  dies  aevo,  ne  postera  credant 
Secula :  nos  certe  taceamus,  et  obruta  multa 
Nocte  tegi  propriae  patiamur  crimina  gentis." 

Mankind,  from  a  sense  of  their  common  nature,  might  'wish  the 
same. 

Such  seem  the  general  reflections  that  may  occur  to  us  while  we 
are  engaged  in  earlier  parts  of  the  annals  of  this  period.  But  in 
reading  the  history  of  these  civil  and  religious  wars,  you  must  ob- 
serve, that,  though  for  some  time  the  Roman  Catholics  are  united 
with  the  court  in  opposition  to  the  Protestants,  yet  at  length  a  new 
scene  opens,  and  the  contest  is  carried  on  against  the  Protestants  by 
the  Roman  Catholics  themselves^  with  or  without  the  assistance  of  the 
court.  The  celebrated  combination  called  "  the  League  "  makes  its 
appearance,  —  a  combination  independent  of  the  crown,  —  and  the 
result  is,  that  the  throne  itself  is  at  last  shaken,  and  the  crown 
nearly  overpowered  by  positive  rebellion. 

This  League,  therefore,  forms  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  these  civil 
and  religious  wars,  and  they  may  thus  be  divided  into  two  parts,  be- 
fore and  after  it.  This  last  is,  like  the  former,  a  portion  of  history 
that  should  be  well  studied.  Davila  and  De  Thou,  particularly  Da- 
vila,  should  be  carefully  read.  There  is  also  a  history  of  the  League 
by  Maimbourg,  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  He 
is  never  considered  as  a  writer  sufficiently  temperate  ;  his  hatred  of 
the  Calvinists  was  such,  that  his  representations  must  always  be  read 
with  very  great  caution.  You  have  the  work  of  D'Anquetil  on  the 
subject.  The  whole  account  is  very  well  given  by  Wraxall,  and  to 
him  I  refer  you.  You  will  find  in  Lacretelle  a  concise  and  intelHgi- 
ble  detail  of  it. 

The  sum  and  substance  of  this  part  of  the  history  is,  that  the  sec- 
ond Duke  of  Guise  had  ability  enough  to  get  himself  considered  as 
the  defender  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  ;  to  form  a  union  in 
support  of  it,  without  any  authority  from  the  crown ;  to  point  the 
zeal  of  the  Catholics  against  the  king,  as  an  enemy  to  the  faith ;  to 
avail  himself  of  the  vices  and  indolence  of  the  prince,  and  to  improv^e 
every  favorable  circumstance  so  successfully,  as  at  last  almost  to 
mount  the  throne  amid  an  insurrection  at  Paris ;  finally,  though  he 
did  not  then  mount  the  throne,  to  resume  his  plans,  after  the  king's 
escape  from  the  capital,  and  to  urge  on  his  projects,  till  he  was  at 
last  himself  assassinated  by  order  of  the  wretched  monarch,  who 
could  see,  as  he  thought,  no  other  expedient  to  preserve  longer  his 
crown,  his  liberty,  or  his  life. 

Of  transactions  like  these  there  is,  evidently,  no  part  that  may  not 
be  instructive.  I  cannot  enter  into  any  narrative,  but  I  will,  as  be- 
fore, :>fier  some  general  remarks,  to  be  left  for  your  consideration, 


196  LECTURE  XI 

when  you  come  to  read  the  history  yourselves.  How,  for  instance, 
could  such  an  armed  union  as  this  of  the  League  ever  make  its  ap- 
pearance without  being  instantly  put  down  by  the  crown  ?  How 
could  it  ever  be  joined  by  men  who  did  not,  from  the  first,  mean  to 
alter  the  government,  or,  at  least,  to  change  the  monarch  ?  Ques- 
tions like  these  will  show  you  the  importance  of  these  transactions, 
for  they  involve  in  their  consideration  many  points  that  will  always 
be  of  importance  to  every  good  citizen,  and  every  good  government 
that  can  be  found  among  mankind. 

From  a  note  in  Sully,  where  these  transactions  are  alluded  to,  it 
may  be  collected,  that  there  are  several  manuscripts  in  the  king's 
library  at  Paris  that  would  throw  great  light  on  the  first  origin  and 
progress  of  this  unconstitutional  combination.  But  even  in  Maim- 
bourg  the  reader  will  find  (and  given,  apparently,  upon  sufficient 
authority)  the  first  draft  of  this  association,  afterwards  called  "  the 
League,"  which  the  Duke  of  Guise  caused  to  be  circulated  in  a 
part  of  France.  It  is  not  known  to,  or  at  least  is  not  noticed  by,  the 
great  historians  ;  but  it  appears  to  me  remarkable,  as  enabling  us  to 
observe  the  manner  by  which  men  may  be  gradually  led  from  one 
step  to  another,  till  they  arrive  ultimately  at  positive  rebellion. 

The  terms  of  the  first  association,  as  given  by  Maimbourg,  not  by 
the  great  historians,  appear  to  express  nothing  but  devotion  to  the 
Catholic  religion  and  loyalty  to  the  monarch.  The  difficulty  must 
always  have  been,  how  to  throw  power  into  the  hands  of  the  Duke 
of  Guise.  In  the  articles,  therefore,  there  is  a  chief  of  the  League 
mentioned,  and  but  sUghtly ;  only  twice  with  any  distinctness,  and 
always  in  subordination  to  the  king.  The  strongest  expression  is 
this :  —  "  The  chief  of  the  aforesaid  association,  who  is  Monsieur 
D'Humiers,  to  whom  we  promise  to  render  all  honor  and  obedience," 
&c.  This  chief  might  evidently  have  been  afterwards  altered,  and 
made  the  Due  de  Guise.  But  in  the  celebrated  formulary  of  the 
League,  which  was  at  last  and  afterwards  circulated  and  signed,  as 
it  is  given  by  Mezeray,  D'Aubigne,  and  Davila,  and  as  it  is  under- 
stood by  De  Thou,  though  there  is  the  same  spirit  of  devotion  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion  and  of  loyalty  to  the  king,  there  is  an  un- 
limited obedience  distinctly  acknowledged  to  the  head  of  the  League, 
and  with  these  remarkable  words  annexed, —  "Without  exception  of 
persons."  That  is,  an  obedience  was  acknowledged,  unknown  to 
the  constitution  of  the  realm,  without  bounds,  and  that  ultimately 
attached  itself,  not  to  the  king,  but  to  the  chief  of  the  League,  and 
to  him  alone,  "  without  exception  of  persons." 

Here,  therefore,  is  one  of  those  instances  in  history  which  are  to 
teach  men  very  carefully  to  watch  over  the  erection  of  any  power 
unknown  to  the  constitution  of  their  country,  any  power  which 
may  be  brought  into  competition  with  the  existing  authorities  ;  how 
careful  they  must  be  on  this  point,  if  they  really  mean  only  to  im 


FRANCE. —  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS.  197 

prove  that  constitution,  and  do  not  mean  eventually  to  overthrow  it. 
This  is  mj  first  observation ;  but  the  history  of  this  League  exhibits, 
among  many  lessons,  another  that  may  be  mentioned. 

The  intolerance  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  tke  zeal  of  their 
preachers,  were  of  great,  and,  indeed,  of  indispensable,  service  to  the 
Duke  of  Guise,  in  the  gradual  prosecution  of  his  ambitious  designs. 
During  the  first  part  of  the  history  of  these  civil  wars,  the  Roman 
Catholic  clergy  enforced  the  doctrines  of  intolerance  against  the 
Protestants,  and  united  with  the  court ;  that  is,  they  inflamed  the 
animosities  of  the  parties,  and,  in  fact,  did  every  injury  to  the  state 
and  to  religion  that  was  possible.  During  the  latter  part,  the  same 
clergy  were  employed  in  the  cause  of  the  League,  —  opposed  to  the 
Protestants  indeed,  and  engaged  in  support  of  the  supposed  cause 
of  religion,  but  opposed  to  the  king  also.  "  The  king  is  no  good 
Catholic,"  said  the  preachers  ;  "  religion  will  be  destroyed  among 
us."     I  quote  from  the  historian. 

Examples  of  this  kind  in  history  have  taught  statesmen  most 
anxiously  to  deprecate,  at  all  times,  the  interference  of  the  ministers 
of  religion  in  the  poHtics  of  the  state.  Their  zeal  may  be  virtuous, 
and  often  is,  but  they  see  every  thing  through  the  mist  of  that  zeal ; 
they  exaggerate,  they  inflame  the  people,  they  inflame  themselves  ; 
they  set  into  motion  a  principle  (the  religious  principle)  against 
which,  if  it  once  becomes  inflamed,  no  other  principle  of  reason  or 
propriety  can  be  successfully  opposed.  They  have  been  naturally 
accustomed  to  look  in  one  direction,  and  they  are,  therefore,  though 
men  of  education,  seldom  able  to  take  a  view  sufficiently  extended 
of  the  general  interests  of  the  community.  This  was  the  opinion 
even  of  Lord  Clarendon.  Such  statesmen,  therefore,  as  have  meant 
ill  have  often  converted  men  of  this  sacred  character  into  instru- 
ments to  serve  their  own  political  purposes ;  and  such  statesmen  as 
have  endeavoured  well  have  but  too  often  found  them  impediments 
to  their  designs.  All  history  enforces  upon  the  attention  disagree- 
able conclusions  of  this  nature,  and  pious  and  good  men  should  be 
aware  of  it ;  though  I  cannot  mean,  that  men,  because  they  are 
clergymen,  should  cease  to  be  citizens.  I  state  the  lessons  and  mo- 
nitions of  history,  more  particularly  of  this  period  of  history.  The 
impression  which  it  had  left  on  the  mind  of  Mr.  Burke  must  have 
been  of  this  kind  ;  for  when  the  late  Dr.  Price,  about  the  beginning 
3f  the  French  Revolution,  preached  a  sort  of  political  discourse  at 
the  Old  Jewry,  which  he  afterwards  published,  Mr.  Burke  was  im- 
mediately reminded  of  the  very  times  we  are  now  considering,  —  the 
times  of  the  League  in  France.  He  mentions  them  along  with  the 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  so  memorable  in  the  history  of  Scot- 
land and  England ;  and  he  admonishes  the  Doctor,  that  men  like 
him,  men  of  his  sacred  profession,  were  unacquainted  mth  the  world, 
and  had  nothing  of  politics  but  the  passions  they  excite. 

Q* 


198  LECTURE  XL 

Another  observation  must  also  be  made.  The  Duke  of  Guise 
found  a  no  less  effective,  though  more  unworthy,  support  in  the  king 
and  in  the  court  itself  than  he  did  in  the  clergy ;  that  is,  he  found  a 
support  in  their 'profligacy,  their  waste  of  public  money,  their  scan^ 
dalous  disposal  of  places  of  trust  and  honor,  and  their  total  disregard 
of  pubhc  opinion.  These  vices  produced  in  the  people  that  effect 
which  they  have  invariably  done,  and  which  they  can  never  fail  to 
do.  It  is  possible  that  circumstances  may  not  be  sufficiently  critical 
to  produce,  exactly  at  the  time,  insurrections  and  revolutions ;  but 
the  materials  for  these  most  dreadful  calamities  are  always  ready, 
when  such  flagitious  conduct  has  been  at  all  persevered  in.  The 
great,  on  these  occasions,  have  no  right  to  blame  the  populace  ;  they 
have  themselves  first  exhibited  the  vices  and  crimes  to  the  commis- 
sion of  which  they  were  more  particularly  liable  ;  and  the  vulgar  do 
no  more,  when  they  break  out,  in  their  turn,  into  acts  of  brutality 
and  ferocity.  Manners  and  principles  are  propagated  downwards, 
and  on  this  account  the  lower  orders,  to  a  considerable  extent,  be- 
come w^hat  they  are  made  by  the  example  of  their  superiors.  This 
example  may  be. vicious  or  may  be  virtuous;  in  either  case,  it  can- 
not but  have  influence. 

Lastly,  I  must  remark,  that  there  are  several  parts  of  this  history 
of  the  League  that  seem  almost  to  have  announced  to  us,  two  cen- 
turies ago,  the  unhappy  events  of  modern  times.  When  we  turn,  for 
example,  to  the  account  of  the  day  of  the  barricadoes  in  Paris,  we 
have  the  siege  of  the  Louvre,  the  Swiss  guards,  the  flight  of  the 
king,  the  tumultuous  capital,  the  committees,  and  other  particulars, 
that  might  almost  lead  us  to  imagine  that  w^e  were  reading  but  a 
detail  of  the  transactions  that  lately  took  place  in  the  very  same  me- 
tropolis, —  that,  in  fact,  w^e  were  engaged  in  the  perusal  of  the  hor- 
rors ^of  the  French  Revolution. 

Such  are,  I  think,  some  of  the  general  reflections  which  belong  to 
these  civil  and  religious  wars  in  France,  in  both  their  different  stages, 
before  and  after  the  project  of  the  League. 

I  must  now  leave  you  to  read  the  history  for  yourselves.  I  may 
observe,  indeed,  before  you  do  so,  that"  these  scenes  have  always  been 
recommended  to  the  interest  and  curiosity  of  mankind,  not  only  be- 
cause they  have  exhibited  in  the  strongest  manner  the  w^orkings  of 
the  tw^o  great  passions  of  civil  and  religious  hate,  but  because  times 
so  extraordinary  were  calculated  to  produce,  and  did  produce,  char 
acters  the  most  extraordinary,  —  fierce  crimes,  unbridled  licentious- 
ness, but  accompanied  with  great  courage  and  ability  in  the  one  sex, 
and.  with  genius  and  spirit  in  the  other.  These  have  always  more 
particularly  marked  this  singular  era,  and  have,  therefore,  had  a 
charm  for  the  readers  of  history,  not  derived,  I  fear,  from  any  very 
respectable  desire  either  of  philosophic  entertainment  or  instruction. 
Brantome  has  always  been  read ;  but  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  House 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  199 

of  Valois,  by  Wraxall,  may  be  found  an  ample  specimen  of  the  char- 
acters and  anecdotes  which  belong  to  this  part  of  history;  and  you 
may  in  this  work  occupy  yourselves  more  than  sufficiently  in  a  species 
of  reading  by  which  every  one,  I  fear,  may  be  amused,  and  no  one,  I 
arm  sure,  can  be  improved. 

I  must  here  close  my  account  of  these  civil  and  reli^ous  wars, 
which  will  be  found,  when  perused,  too  busy  in  events,  and  too  fertile 
in  character,  to  be  treated  in  any  other  but  this  indistinct  and  gen- 
eral manner.  But  as  the  student  is  thus  supposed  to  approach  the 
great  subject  of  the  civil  and  religious  wars,  by  -^hich  in  France,  and 
everywhere  in  Europe,  these  ages  were  distinguished,  I  cannot  con- 
clude this  part  of  my  lecture  without  making  one  observation  more, 
however  obvious.  It  is  this  :  that  the  theatre  of  the  world  is  not  the 
place  where  we  are  to  look  for  religion ;  her  more  natural  province 
must  ever  be  the  scenes  of  domestic  and  social  life.  Too  elevated  to 
take  the  lead  in  cabinets  and  camps,  to-  appear  in  the  bustle  and  osten- 
tation of  a  court,  or  the  tumults  of  a  popular  assembly,  amid  the  strug- 
gles of  political  intrigue,  or  the  vulgar  pursuits  of  avarice  and  ambi- 
tion. Religion  must  not  be  judged  of  by  the  pictures  tha':  appear  of  her 
in  history.  The  form  that  is  there  seen  is  an  earthly  and  counterfeit 
resemblance,  which  we  must  not  mistake  for  the  divine  original. 


LECTURE   XII 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH,  AND  THE  LOW  COUNTRIES. 

In"  my  last  lecture  I  made  some  remarks  on  the  civil  and  religious 
wars  of  France,  before  and  during  the  League.  The  reign  of  the 
celebrated  Henry  the  Fourth  forms  the  concluding  part  of  this  re- 
markable era.  The  great  historical  French  work  on  the  subject  of 
his  life  and  reign  is  by  Perefixe  ;  but  De  Thou,  Sully,  Mably,  L'In- 
trigue  du  Cabinet,  with  Wraxall,  will  be  the  best  authors,  as  I  con- 
ceive, to  recommend  to  your  attention.  You  may  read  Lacre telle  ; 
he  is  too  favorable.  You  may  ui  these  works  read  the  narrative  of 
his  eventful  hfe.  I  cannot  enter  into  it.  A  few  general  observa- 
tions, on  the  whole,  are  all  that  I  can  attempt  to  offer. 

The  situation  of  Henry,  while  mounting  the  throne  of  France,  was 
so  beset  with  difficulties,  that,  as  we  read  the  history,  we  can  scarcely 
imagine  how  he  is  ever  to  become  successful,  though  we  already  know 
that  such  was  the  event.     He  was  a  Huguenot,  and  the  nation  could 


^V  LECTURE  XII. 

not,  ferefore,  endure  that  he  should  be  king ;  he  had  been  leagued 
with  Henry,  the  former  king,  while  that  prince  was  stained  with  the 
blood  of  the  Duke  of  Guise,  the  great  object  of  national  admiration ; 
he  had  a  disputed  title  ;  an  able  and  experienced  general  to  oppose 
him  in  Majenne,  the  brother  of  the  murdered  Guise,  backed  by  si 
triumphant  party,  and  by  the  furious  Parisians ;  lastly,  he  was  ex- 
posed to  the  hostile  interference  of  one  of  the  most  consummate 
generals  that  ever  appeared,  the  Duke  of  Parma,  at  the  head  of  the 
Spanish  infantry,  then  the  first  in  the  world.  It  must  be  confessed, 
that  Henry,  with  some  assistance  from  fortune,  fairly,  slowly,  and 
laboriously  won  and  deserved  his  crown.  This  part  of  the  history  is 
well  given  by  Wraxall,  from  De  Thou  and  others. 

But  Henry  had  not  only  to  win  the  crown,  but  to  wear  it,  —  not 
only  to  acquire,  but  preserve  it.  Now  the  great  lesson  to  be  drawn 
from  Henry's  life  is  the  wisdom  of  generous  policy,  the  prudence  of 
magnanimity.  To  these  he  owed  his  success.  There  was  nothing 
narrow  in  his  views,  no  ungovernable  animosity  that  rankled  in  his 
memory :  he  forgot,  he  forgave,  he  offered  favorable  terms,  he  nego- 
tiated with  all  the  fearless  liberality  of  an  elevated  mind.  The  path 
of  honorable  virtue  was  here,  as  it  always  is,  that  of  true  policy,  that 
of  safety  and  happiness.  The  result  was,  that  he  was  served,  by 
men  who  had  been  opponents  and  rebels,  more  faithfully  than  other 
princes  have  been  by  their  favorites  and  dependants. 

Henry  has  always  been,  and  with  some  justice,  the  idol  of  the 
French  nation.  But  in  his  private  life,  two  fatal  passions  reduce 
him,  great  as  he  was  in  public,  to  a  level  with  his  fellow-mortals,  and 
sometimes  far  below  them.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  virtuous  «Sully 
remonstrated  against  his  passion  for  play.  Again,  Henry  seems 
never  to  have  suspected  that  domestic  comfort  was  to  be  purchased 
only  by  domestic  virtue.  In  respect  of  the  Princess  of  Conde, 
such  was  his  licentious  nature,  such  the  result,  as  is  always  the  case, 
of  the  long  indulgence  of  his  passions,  that  he  is,  in  this  affair,  as  far 
as  I  can  understand  the  history,  very  little  to  be  distinguished  from 
a  mere  violent  and  unprincipled  tyrant. 

The  name  of  Henry  the  Fourth  may  remind  us  of  a  celebrated 
work,  the  Henriade  of  Voltaire.  This  extraordinary  writer  was 
allowed  to  be  a  poet  by  Gibbon,  and  an  historian  by  Robertson.  The 
poem  will  exhibit  him  in  both  capacities.  It  should  be  read  immedi- 
ately after  reading  the  history  of  these  times.  Thus  read,  it  will 
strike  the  judgment  and  refresh  the  knowledge  of  the  student,  while 
it  exercises  his  taste,  and,  to  a  certain  degree,  animates  his  imagina- 
tion. The  work  was  considered  by  its  author  merely  as  a  poem,  and 
not  a  history ;  but  it  is  now  chiefly  valuable  for  the  descriptions 
which  it  gives  of  the  great  characters  and  events  of  these  times, 
drawn  with  great  beauty  and  force,  and  evidently  by  the  pencil 
of  a  master.  It  will  be  found  very  entertaining,  read  in  the  way  I 
propose. 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  201 

On  the  whole,  the  striking  scenes  of  this  celebrated'  period  in 
French  history  (the  period  of  the  sixteenth'  century)  attach  power- 
fully on  our  attention  ;  but  we  must  never  forget  to  remark  those 
incidents  which  paint  the  manners,  laws,  and  constitution  of  any  peo- 
ple whose  annals  we  are  reading.  Incidents  of  this  kind  may  be 
found,  many  of  them  in  De  Thou,  some  in  Davila,  many  more  in 
very  inferior  authors,  such  as  L'Etoile.  Every  information  of  this 
sort  is  collected  with  great  diligence  and  propriety  of  selection  by 
Wraxall :  a  large  part  of  his  work  is  very  properly  dedicated  to  the 
delineation  of  the  arts,  manners,  commerce,  government,  and  internal 
situation^ of  society,  —  first,  under  the  later  princes  of  the  house  of 
Valois,  and,  secondly,  during  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Fourth. 

This  author  does  not  seem  to  have  studied  the  science  of  political 
economy  with  the  same  diligence  which  he  has  exerted  in  his  more 
immediate  department  of  history,  and  therefore  his  conclusions  on 
these  subjects  must  be  read  with  great  caution.  The  science  seems 
to  have  been  still  more  unknown  to  the  statesmen  and  historians  of 
France ;  it  is  therefore  difficult  to  understand  their  reasonings,  or 
benefit  by  their  remarks,  when  such  matters  are  touched  upon. 

The  facts  and  anecdotes  of  these  times,  which  Wraxall  has  col- 
lected, exhibit  a  most  afflicting  picture  of  Hcentiousness  and  vice. 
The  historian  is  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  he  can  find  only  three 
virtues  then  in  existence,  —  courage,  friendship,  and,  what  could  be 
less  expected  J  ''  filial  obedience "  ;  a  scanty  catalogue,  which  it 
seems  cannot  be  enlarged.  Yet  was  this  the  age  of  rehgious  wars  ! 
So  much  more  easy  it  is  to  contend  about  religion  than  to  prac- 
tise it. 

The  arts  of  luxury  and  splendor  seem  to  have  been  fully  displayed 
in  the  courts  and  castles  of  the  great  barons.  The  peasants  and 
lower  orders  were,  in  the  mean  time^  lost  in  wretchedness  and  igno- 
rance, and  debased  by  oppression.  Even  the  higher  orders  them- 
selves, amid  all  their  costly  excesses,  were  exposed  to  many  evils  and 
inconveniences  which  we,  of  the  present  day,*should  consider  as 
quite  inconsistent  with  our  personal  comfort.  So  different  is  the 
wealth  of  a  country  from  the  riches  of  a  court ;  so  difierent  the  prog- 
ress of  the  more  costly  arts  from  the  general  improvement  of  so- 
ciety. 

After  the  personal  character  of  Henry,  the  events  of  his  reign, 
and  the  manners  of  the  times  have  been  considered,  the  last  and 
great  object  of  inquiry  is  the  constitution  of  France.  If  this  had 
received  any  improvement,  however  dreadful  might  have  been  the 
effects  of  these  "civil  and  religious  wars  in  other  respects,  the  pros- 
pect of  future  happiness  to  this  great  kingdom  would  have  been  still 
open. 

What,  therefore,  we  ask,  had  been  the  fortunes  of  the  States-Gen- 
eral ?  The  answer  may,  unhappily,  be  given  in  the  description  in 
26 


202  LECTURE  XIL 

the  Henriade  :  —  "  Inefficient  assemblies,  where  laws  were  proposed, 
rather  than  executed,  and  where  abuses  were  detailed  with  eloquence, 
but  not  remedied."  The  public  seem,  indeed,  to  have  felt  the  weight 
of  taxes  ;  and  complaints  arid  representations  were  made  in  these 
assemblies,  which  in  this  manner  occasionally  reached  the  throne  it- 
self. At  two  different  periods,  in  1576,  and  still  more  in  1588,  ai^ 
opportunity  was  offered  of  at  least  some  effort  for  the  general  good, 
biit  in  vain.  The  images  of  liberty  had  been  too  long  withdrawn 
from  the  eyes  of  the  nation,  and  no  reasonable  ideas  on  the  subject 
seem  to  have  been  entertained  by  any  leader  or  description  of  men 
in  the  state.  Even  the  religious  reformers  seem  not,  in  Fjj^nce,  to 
have  felt  in  themselves,  or  to  have  endeavoured  to  excite  in  the  minds 
of  their  countr3mien,  any  of  those  principles  of  civil  liberty  which  so 
honorably  distinguished  them  in  other  parts  of  Europe. 

In  the  constitution  of  France,  the  only  part  of  the  system  which  the 
reader  can  fix  upon  as  yet  of  consequence  to  the  cause  of  civil  lib- 
erty, the  only  body  from  which  any  thing  could  yet  be  hoped,  was 
the  Parliaments.  These  assemblies,  particularly  that  of  Paris,  seem 
continually  to  have  offered  a  sort  of  yielding  resistance  to  the  arbi- 
trary power  of  the  crown,  —  to  have  been  ever  ready  to  assert  priv- 
ileges (to  assert  or  create  them)  which  might,  eventually,  be  of  de- 
cisive importance  to  the  nation.  For  instance,  they  acquired,  or 
retained,  the  prerogative  of  registering  the  edicts  of  the  king.  In 
the  exercise  of  this  prerogative,  a  most  important  one,  it  is  true  they 
always  accommodated  themselves  to  the  wishes  of  the  monarch, 
whenever  he  insisted  upon  their  comphance :  still,  the  prerogative 
itself  remained  in  existence  ;  royal  edicts,  after  all,  were  not  exactly 
laws  ;  they  became  so,  only  when  the  Parhaments  had  given  them  a 
last  sanction,  by  consenting  to  register  them.  Here,  then,  lay  the 
great  secret  of  the  constitution,  —  how  far  the  king  could  legally 
compel  this  acquiescence  ;  and  here  was  fixed  the  proper  engine  of 
constitutional  control  or  resistance.  You  will  see  its  importance 
when  you  come  to  r?ad  the  history  of  the  French  Revolution. 

On  this  subject  of  the  constitution,  facts  and  information  may  be 
taken  from  Wraxall,  and  above  all  from  Sully,  who  is  an  original 
author  and  full  of  them  ;  but  principles  and  reasonings  must  be 
drawn  from  the  Abbe  de  Mably. 

The  value  of  a  national  representation,  as  an  instrument  of  taxa- 
tion, even  to  the  crown  itself,  may  be  seen  in  the  history  of  France. 
The  monarch,  it  is  true,  could  issue  edicts,  but  the  taxes  were  inter- 
cepted by  the  collectors  of  them ;  though  the  subject  paid  much,  the 
crown  received  little.  Arbitrary  power  is  not  favorable  to  the  real 
affluence  of  the  sovereign.  For  the  same  notions  in  the  people  and 
in  the  monarch  that  lead  to  arbitrary  power  lead  to  abuses  of  every 
description :  compulsory  loans,  venality  of  offices,  demands  of  free 
gifts,  rapacious  exactions  from  opulent  traders,  destructive  imposi- 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  203 

tions,  and  anticipations  of  revenue ;  habits  of  expense,  improvident 
management,  and  a  universal  system  of  waste  and  peculation.  But 
it  is  in  this  manner  that  all  the  sources  of  national  revenue  are  de- 
stroyed ;  and  if  the  revenue  be  not  produced,  the  monarch  cannot 
have  a  part  of  it.  It  was  in  vain  for  the  prince,  even  if  patriotic,  to 
endeavour  to  introduce  economy  into  his  household  and  expenses  :  a 
large  sum  might  be  collected  in  such  a  country  as  France,  by  a 
minister  like  Sully,  under  a  king  like  Henry  the  Fourth ;  but  the 
Memoirs  of  Sully  himself  resound  with  the  king's  embarrassments 
and  poverty.  The  whole  organization  of  society,  from  the  throne 
down  to  the  cottage,  if  the  government  be  arbitrary,  is  always,  to  the 
purposes  of  a  royal  exchequer,  unfavorable ;  every  instrument  that 
the  monarch  can  employ  is,  more  or  less,  a  bad  one.  The  monarch 
and  court,  by  the  absence  of  all  apparent  criticism  from  public  as- 
semblies, themselves  lose  the  necessary  discipline  and  support  of 
virtue.  They  beconrn-.fhemselves,  and  every  one  around  and  below 
them,  expensive  and  aepraved,  profuse  and  needy. 

The  great  accusation  to  be  brought  against  Henry  is,  that  he  did 
nothing  for  the  liberties  of  France,  nothing  for  its  constitution.  He 
never  attempted  to  turn  to  the  best  advantage  such  a  means  of  im- 
provement as  might  still  have  been  found  in  the  States-General.  He 
labored  to  be  a  father  to  his  people,  but  only  because  it  was  his  own 
good  pleasure  to  be  so ;  he  forgot  that  the  power  which  he  directed 
to  the  benefit  of  his  subjects  was  to  descend  to  others,  —  and  that  it 
was  one  thing  for  a  nation  to  have  a  good  king,  and  another  to  have 
a  good  constitution.  » 

There  are  two  services,  however,  which  he  rendered  to  the  consti- 
tution of  France,  and  that  by  his  own  merits.  First,  he  prevented 
the  renewal  of  the  government  of  the  fiefs.  The  great  nobles  were 
made  so  powerful  by  the  civil  wars,  their  followers  so  familiarized  to 
arms,  all  order  and  law  so  banished  from  the  kingdom,  and  the  gov- 
ernors of  provinces  were  possessed  of  powers  so  vast  and  dangerous, 
that  independent  sovereignties  might  probably  have  been  estabhshed, 
if  Henry  the  Fourth  had  not  been  on  the  throne  during  the  first  very 
critical  years  that  succeeded  to  the  assassination  of  Henry  the  Third. 
Considerable  efforts  were  made  by  some  of  the  great  leaders  to  have 
their  governments  made  hereditary,  even  while  Henry  the  Fourth 
was  their  monarch,  armed  with  all  his  advantages  of  talents  and  suc- 
cess. The  hereditary  governments,  if  once  established,  might  readily 
have  assumed  the  nature  and  privileges  of  independent  sovereignty, 
and  the  country  been  broken  up  and  ruined. 

Secondly,  he  procured  for  the  Protestants  the  edict  of  Nantes. 
The  promulgation  of  this  edict  must  be  considered  as  a  sort  of  con- 
clusion of  the  rehgious  wars,  —  wars  which,  for  nearly  forty  years, 
desolated  France,  and  had  more  than  reahzed  the  dreadful  picturea 
of  Tacitus,  even  when  describing  the  worst  times  of  the  worst  people. 


204  LECTURE  XIl. 

This  celebrated  edict  will  surely  attract  the  curiosity  of  every  re- 
flecting mind.  I  have  already  mentioned  a  wcrk  under  the  title  of 
the  Edict  of  Nantes,  and  recommended  the  perusal  of  the  first  book. 
I  now  recommend  the  fifth,  which  will  give  the  reader  a  very  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  times  and  of  the  subject.  The  edict  itself  is  at  the 
end  of  the  first  volume,  and  may  be  easily  read.  It  consisted  of 
ninety-two  general  articles,  and  these  followed  by  fifty-six  secret 
articles.  After  all  these  have  been  considered,  the  observations  of 
the  Abbe  de  Mably  may  be  attended  to. 

The  Protestants,  the  inferior  sect,  made  the  usual  demands,  and 
the  Roman  Catholics  the  usual  objections.  The  points  in  debate 
comprehended  all  the  accustomed  difficulties.  At  length,  by  the 
articles  of  the  edict  (VI.  IX.  X.),  the  Protestants  were  allowed  to 
live  everywhere  in  France  without  molestation  on  account  of  their 
private  religious  tenets,  and  publicly  to  enjoy  (XIV.)  the  exercise 
of  their  religion  in  particular  places,  though  not  in  the  metropolis,  or 
within  a  certain  distance  of  it.  • 

You  will  look,  I  hope,  at  these  articles,  particularly  tlte  secret 
articles.  I  cannot  further  allude  to  them  as  I  could  wish  to  do,  for 
in  this  lecture,  as  in  every  other,  I  am  restricted  to  a  certain  time  ; 
but  I  must  at  least  point  out  to  you  the  twenty-seventh  article,  which 
is  to  us  more  particularly  interesting,  as  the  policy  of  our  own  coun- 
try has  been  different,  and  as  the  wisdom  of  our  policy  has  been  very 
reasonably  disputed. 

By  the  twenty-seventh  article  of  the  edict,  the  Protestants  (the 
Dissenters  in  France)  were  rendered  eligible  to  all  offices,  without 
exacting  any  other  oath  from  th^m  but  (I  quote  the  article)  "  well 
and  faithfully  to  serve  the  king  in  the  discharge  of  their  offices,  and 
to  observe  the  ordinances  as  they  have  been  observed  at  all  times  "  ; 
that  is,  the  test  was  civil,  not  religious.  Our  policy,  as  seen  in  our 
Corporation  and  Test  Acts,  is  different.  These  are  so  contrived, 
that,  with  us,  Roman  Catholics  and  Dissenters  are  necessarily  ex- 
cluded from  offices  ;  for  they  are  required  to  take  the  sacrament  after 
the  manner  of  the  Church  of  England ;  that  is,  the  test  is  religious. 

The  humanity  and  philosophy  of  the  Abbe  de  INIably  take  fire, 
when  he  comes  to  notice  this  celebrated  edict.  To  establish,  he  ob- 
serves, a  solid  peace  between  the  two  religions,  there  ought  to  have 
been  established  between  them  a  perfect  equality.  If  the  Protestants 
were  feared,  no  exercise  of  their  religion  could  have  been,  he  con- 
tends, too  public.  Their  preachings  were .  otherwise  to  be  rendered 
always  the  hot-beds  of  intrigue,  cabal,  and  fanaticism.  Henry,  he 
adds,  should  have  called  the  States-General,  made  the  parties  pro- 
duce and  discuss  their  claims,  then  have  mediated  between  them  and 
formed  a  law,  —  the  law  of  the  whole  nation. 

To  views  and  observations  like  these  the  history  itself,  and  all  his- 
tory,  is  a  melancholy,  but  sufficient,  answer.     It  is  only  astonishing;, 


HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  205 

that,  after  such  scenes  as  had  taken  place,  Henry  could  accomplish 
what  he  did.  "Insufficient  as  it  may  seem  to  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  it 
was  not  effected  without  the  most  meritorious  exertions  on  his  part, 
and  the  assertion  of  all  his  authority,  with  both  laity  and  clergy,  par- 
ticularly the  latter.  Had  he  called  the  States-General,  he  would 
only  have  dignified  and  organized  the  opposition  which  he  could 
scarcely,  with  the  assistance  of  the  most  favorable  circumstances, 
overpower.  Like  a  real  statesman,  he  was  resolvedsto  do  something 
for  the  benefit  of  liis  country,  but  was  contented  when  he  had  done 
what  seemed  practicable,  when,  in  short,  he  had  made  the  best  of  his 
materials.  It  was  sufficient  for  him,  as  it  must  often  be  for  others, 
to  have  laid  the  germ  of  future  improvement,  which  was  to  ripen,  if 
succeeding  times  were  favorable  ;  if  othermse,  to  perish. 

"  See  nations  slowly  wise,  and  meanly  just." 

The  account  which  Sully  gives  of  these  memorable  transactions  is 
very  imperfect  and  inadequate  to  their  importance.  De  Thou  is 
more  satisfactory ;  but  even  by  him  the  subject  seems  not  to  have 
been  properly  comprehended.  You  will  have  some  idea  of  it  from 
Lacretelle.  * 

Some  reforms  were,  however,  accomplished  by  Henry  and  Sully. 

The  merits  of  Henry  the  Fourth  had  an  easy  conquest  over  the 
French  nation ;  for  he  restored  them  to  peace,  after  the  calamities, 
not  only  of  civil  war,  but  of  civil  and  religious  war.  Favored  by 
fortune,  and  recommended  by  great  merit,  Henry  became  at  once, 
and  has  always  remained,  the  object  of  universal  admiration.  It 
seems  but  too  generally  forgotten  that  Henry  made  no  attempt  to 
revive  the  constitution  of  his  country.  The  people  of  France  them- 
selves seem  never  to  have  objected  this  most  important  fault  to  him. 
Mankind,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  ever  running  headlong  in  their 
feelings  of  praise  and  censure ;  and  they  seem  almost  justified,  when 
they  give  the  free  reins  to  their  confidence  and  affections  in  favor  of 
princes  who  have  been  their  deliverers  and  protectors. 

But  it  is,  unhappily,  on  occasions  like  these,  after  revolutions  or 
g,reat  calamities,  that  a  nation  loses,  as  did  the  French,  as  did  the 
English  at  the  restoration  of  Charles  the  Second,  all  care  of  its  laws, 
its  privileges,  and  its  constitution.  It  thinks  only  of  the  horrors  of  the 
past,  and  of  the  comparative  enjoyments  of  the  present ;  slavery  it- 
self is  a  comfort,  when  compared  with  the  miseries  that  have  been 
endured ;  and  good  princes  as  well  as  bad  princes  have  converted  to 
the  purposes  of  their  own  power  these  thoughtless,  but  natural,  senti- 
ments, in  a  fatigued,  terrified,  and  scarcely  yet  breathing  people. 
No  periods  have,  therefore,  been  so  dangerous  to  the  civil  Hberties 
of  a  country.  What  Louis  the  Eleventh  had  effected  was  now 
willingly  confirmed;  and  the  whole  French  nation  —  a  nation  of 
civilized  men,  quick  in  intelligence,  ardent  in  sentiment,  prodigal  in 

B 


206  LECTURE  XII. 

courage,  and  the  descendants  of  the  Franks  —  contented  themselves 
with  the  political  blessings  of  the  hour,  and  in  the  virtues  of  their 
monarch,  without  thinking  of  the  future,  reposed  that  confidence 
which  should  have  been  given  only  to  some  free  form  of  govern- 
ment, —  some  form  of  government  where  their  States-General,  the 
proper  images  of  themselves,  had  been  combined  with  the  executive 
power,  and  both  harmonized  into  a  regular  constitution,  for  the  per- 
manent benefit, as  well  of  the  prince  as  of  the  people. 

Before  I  quit  this  subject,  I  must  again  recommend  to  you  an  ac- 
count lately  drawn  up  by  Mr.  Smedley,  a  History  of  the  Reformed 
Religion  in  France.  The  work  will  tell  you  every  thing  that  it  is 
necessary  to  know  respecting  the  religious  part  of  the  history  of  these 
times. 

We  must  now  turn  to  a  scene  that  will  have  been  often  presented 
to  us  indirectly,  during  our  perusal  of  these  civil  and  religious  wars 
in  France  :  the  contest  between  Philip  the  Second  and  his  Dutch  and 
Flemish  subjects ;  the  progress  of  the  Reformation  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries. 

We  are  furnished  with  sufiicient  materials  for  understanding  these 
interesting  transactions.  We  have  the  Protestant  historian,  Grotius ; 
the  Cathohc  historian,  Bentivoglio ;  and  a  very  full  detail  from  the 
Catholic  historian,  Strada.  These  may  be  considered  as  authors 
living  at  the  time.  We  have  also  a  very  full  history  of  the  Reforma- 
tion by  Brandt,  who  lived  half  a  century  afterwards,  when  the  truth 
might  be  still  more  completely  ascertained  ;  and  lastly,  we  have  our 
own  historian,  Watson,  who,  from  these  and  other  sources,  has  drawn 
up  his  own  unafiected  and  valuable  narrative.  The  whole  will  divide 
itself  naturally  into  a  few  different  portions,  corresponding  with  the 
different  governors  and  changes  of  system  adopted  by  the  court  of 
Spain.  But  the  most  instructive  is  the  first,  —  the  interval  that 
elapsed  while  the  Netherlands  were  gradually  advancing  to  rebellion, 
and  while  Philip  was  endeavouring  to  establish  his  fatal  system  of 
coercion  and  intolerance.  Now,  although  the  original  authors  I  have 
mentioned  may  be  more  or  less  freely  consulted  through  the  whole  of 
the  contest,  I  would  recommend  that  they  should  be  entirely  perused 
while  they  give  the  history  of  this  first  period,  —  the  period  which 
preceded  the  first  appearance  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  in  the  Nether- 
lands. 

It  is  somewhat  amusing,  but  it  is  surely  edifying,  to  observe  the 
difference  of  tone  and  sentiment  in  the  Cathohc  and  Protestant 
writers.  Grotius  and  Brandt  speak  a  language  consistent  with  civil 
and  religious  freedom,  as  might  be  expected ;  while  with  the  other  his- 
torians all  resistance  to  the  civil  powers  is  faction  and  rebellion,  —  all 
controversy  with  the  Church,  impiety  and  irreligion.  Strada  investi- 
gates the  causes  of  the  revolt  of  the  Netherlands,  and  considers  and 
dismisses,  as  of  little  importance,  such  solutions  of  this  event  as  might 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  20T 

appear  to  us  very  adequate  to  account  for  it :  the  introduction,  for 
instance,  of  a  standing  army  amid  a  people  whose  laws  and  constitu 
tion  were  of  a  free  and  popular  cast ;  the  forcible  increase  of  a  num 
her  of  ecclesiastical  dignitaries  ;  the  attempt  to  introduce  the  Inqui- 
sition ;  the  enforcing  of  the  intolerable  edicts  of  Charles  the  Fifth. 
These  causes  he  considers  as  contributing,  indeed,  somewhat  to  the 
tumults  in  religion,  but  the  first  and  true  origin  of  the  whole  he  finds 
only  in  heresy.  It  was  this,  he  conceives,  that  rendered  turbulent 
the  mass  of  the  community  ;  and  when  to  this  was  added  the  discon- 
tent of  the  nobles,  the  rest  was  of  course.  Bentivoglio,  in  like  man- 
ner, considers  religion  and  the  Roman  Catholic  profession  of  it 
as  one  and  the  same  thing,  and  seems  never  to  have  apprehended 
that  civil  obedience  had  any  bounds  but  the  good  pleasure  of  the 
sovereign. 

It  is  very  singular  that  a  Pope's  nuncio,  like  Bentivoglio,  coming 
to  the  Netherlands  just  after  the  close  of  these  dreadful  contentions, 
should  write  an  account  of  them  which  even  Grotius  should  pro- 
nounce to  be  an  impartial  history.  It  is  agreeable  to  observe  that 
the  great  duty  of  an  historian  is  so  obvious  and  indispensable,  that  it 
can  in  this  manner  be  felt  and  obeyed  even  by  a  man  like  Bentivo- 
glio, who  had  surrendered  all  the  freedom  of  his  mind  on  every  other 
subject  connected  with  civil  and  religious  liberty. 

Strada  had  an  unfortunate  wish  to  write  like  Tacitus ;  but  Benti- 
voglio will  in  no  respect  fatigue  or  repel  the  reader.  After  the  first 
four  books  have  been  read  and  compared  with  Watson,  the  remainder 
may  be  consulted  or  perused,  as  the  student  thinks  best. 

There  seem  to  me  two  principal  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  this  part 
of  the  history  of  the  Low  Countries.  First,  the  unhappy  effects  of 
intolerance.  In  this  respect  the  facts  and  the  conclusions  to  be  de- 
rived from  them  are  the  same  as  in  other  countries,  and  such  as  we 
have  already  noticed.  Secondly,  the  impolicy  of  all  harsh  govern- 
ment. The  Netherlands  were  dependencies  of  the  Spanish  mon- 
archy. It  has  never  yet  been  possible  to  teach  any  country,  or 
even  any  cabinet,  the  wisdom  of  governing  its  colonies  or  dependen- 
cies with  mildness.  The  first  portion  of  this  history,  while  Margaret 
of  Parma  was  in  authority,  is  therefore  particularly  to  be  studied ; 
the  portion  I  have  already  mentioned.  She  endeavoured  to  govern 
mildly. 

The  system  of  Philip  the  Second  was,  no  doubt,  the  most  violent 
specimen  of  harsh  government  that  has  yet  been  exhibited  among 
mankind.  But  the  system  of  all  other  mother  countries  has  been 
similar  ;  and  what  difference  there  may  be  is  in  degree,  and  not 
in  kind. 

A  distinction  is  here  to  be  made.  Philip  the  Second  has  always 
been  considered,  and  justly,  as  the  most  perfect  example  of  bigotry 
that  history  supplies ;  and  to  this  must  be  imputed  much  of  th« 


208  LECTURE  Xn. 

abominable  tyranny  which  he  exercised  over  the  Low  Countries. 
But  the  love  of  arbitrary  power  is  always  found  where  bigotry  is 
found.  The  human  mind,  amid  its  endless  inconsistencies,  is  indeed 
capable  of  being  animated  with  a  love  of  r^igious  liberty,  and  yet  of 
being  at  the  same  time  ignorant  of  the  nature,  or  somewhat  indiffer- 
ent to  the  cause,  of  civil  liberty.  Instances  of  this  kind,  though 
very  rare,  have  sometimes  occurred,  but  the  converse  never  has  ;  no 
man  was  ever  a  religious  bigot,  and  at  the  same  time  a  friend  to  civil 
liberty;  and  it  was  perfectly  consistent  for  Philip  to  introduce  not 
only  the  Inquisition  into  the  Low  Countries,  but  also  Spanish  soldiers 
into  the  fortified  towns  ;  to  deprive  the  Flemings  of  the  free  exercise 
of  their  religious  opinions,  and  at  the  same  time  of  the  laws  and 
privileges  of  their  states  a,nd  assemblies  ;  to  leave  in  ecclesiastical 
matters  no  visible  head  but  the  Pope,  and  in  civil  affairs  no  real 
authority  but  his  own.  These  were  parts  of  a  system  of  conduct 
that  perfectly  harmonized  with  each  other  :  each  took  its  turn  as  the 
occasion  required. 

The  favorite  instruments  of  his  tyranny  were  men  of  like  nature 
with  himself, — foes  equally  to  civil  and  rehgious  liberty, —  Cardinal 
Granvelle  and  the  Duke  of  Alva. 

Bigotry  and  the  love  of  rule  had  so  conspired  even  in  Charles  the 
Fifth,  his  father,  that  he  had  paved  the  way,  by  his  edicts,  for  all  the 
subsequent  proceedings  of  Phihp,  and  was,  perhaps,  saved  from  simi- 
lar enormities  only  by  a  partiality  which  he  had  contracted  for  Flan- 
ders in  his  early  years,  —  those  years  when  his  mind  was  in  its  nat- 
ural state,  could  be  capable  -of  attaching  itself  to  the  objects  that 
surrounded  it,  and  of  tasting  a  happiness  which  it  is  probable  no  sub- 
sequent splendor  could  ever  afterwards  bestow. 

The  object  contended  for  by  Philip  was,  that  the  rehgious  persua- 
sion of  these  countries  should  be  the  same  as  his  own.  "  You  may 
lose  them,  if  you  persist,"  said  one  of  his  officers.  "  I  would  rather 
be  without  kingdoms,"  he  replied,  "  than  enjoy  them  with  heresy." 

Now,  on  all  occasions  when  harsh  government  is  to  be  the  means, 
it  will  always  be  found,  as  in  this  instance,  that,  in  the  first  place,  the 
end  to  be  accompUshed  is  not  worth  the  risk  of  the  experiment,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  injustice  of  the  experiment  itself. 

Next,  it  will  be  found  that  some  statesman  like  Cardinal  Granvelle 
always  makes  his  appearance :  very  violent  and  very  able,  —  quali- 
ties not  incompatible ;  skilled  in  business,  and  perhaps  acquainted 
with  the  inferior  country  that  is  to  be  ruled ;  distinct,  decisive,  and 
consistent  in  his  opinions  ;  whose  counsels,  therefore,  have  an  air  of 
wisdom  which  does  not  belong  to  them,  and  acquire  irresistible 
authority  in  the  superior  or  mother  country,  with  the  monarch  and 
his  cabinet,  because  they  are  not  well  informed  themselves,  and  are* 
already  sufficiently  disposed  to  such  counsels  from  the  prejudices  of 
their  own  situation. 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  209 

Again,  the  Roman  Catholic  historians  are  satisfied  in  imputing  all 
the  turbulence,  as  they  would  call  it,  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  and 
the  Flemish  leaders  to  disappointed  ambition.  But  it  is  always  for- 
gotten that  such  disappointment  is  reasonable.  When  authority  and 
mfluence  are  generally  conferred,  not  on  the  natives  of  the  country 
governed,  but  on  those  who  in  comparison  are  considered  as  ahens,  it 
is  impossible  that  men  should  be  satisfied  with  the  government  which 
robs  them  of  their  natural  consequence  in  their  own  land.  This  is  a 
very  common  species  of  impolicy  and  injustice.  The  Flemings,  it 
will  be  found,  had  every  reason  to  be  dissatisfied  in  this  respect. 

Lastly,  the  student  will  observe,  on  the  other  side,  great  irreg- 
ularities committed  by  the  people  in  their  mode  of  resistance 
to  Philip  :  the  symbols  of  the  Roman  Catholic  worship  insulted 
with  great  violence  and  outrage ;  and  an  intolerance  displayed  by 
them^  precisely  of  the  same  nature  with  the  intolerance  of  Philip 
himself. 

Excesses  of  this  kind  always  occur,  and  are  instantly  seized  upon 
in  argument,  by  those  who  govern,  as  justifying  the  harsh  measures 
that  in  fact  led  the  way  to  them ;  they  are  brought  forward  as  de- 
manding fresh  applications  of  force  and  severity.  But  the  very  con- 
trary of  all  this  is  the  proper  conclusion  ;  it  is  the  total  inability  of 
the  people  to  govern  for  themselves,  it  is  their  inevitable  fury, 
ignorance,  and  brutality,  when  once  roused,  that  render  mild  gov- 
ernment so  indispensable  a  duty  in  their  rulers.  Their  faults  are  a 
part  of  the  very  case  ;  temper,  moderation,  reasonable  views,  it  is 
ridiculous  to  expect  from  them  ;  but  in  cabijiets  they  may  and  ought 
to  be  found :  if  they  are  not  found  somewhere,  what  must  be  the 
consequence  ? 

I  would  recommend  you  particularly  to  observe  how  the  whole 
nature  of  a  subject  like  this  is  brought  before  your  view  by  the  de- 
bate that  you  will  find  represented  by  Bentivoglio  as  taking  place  in 
the  Spanish  cabinet  in  the  presence  of  Phihp  the  Second.  The 
Duke  of  Feria  was  the  advocate  for  mild  measures ;  the  Duke  of 
Alva  for  force.  Their  speeches  are  given.  Strada  also  gives  the 
debate,  but  puts  much  of  the  argumentation  of  Feria  into  the  mouth 
of  the  Prince  of  Eboli,  who  is  mentioned  by  Bentivoglio  as  seconding 
rather  than  leading  the  Duke  of  Feria.  The  Duke  of  Alva  appears 
in  each  of  the  historians  to  have  advised  instant  coercion!  He  was 
the  Moloch,  whose  "  sentence  was  for  open  war." 

I  must  confess  that  I  think  this  debate,  which  you  will  see  best  in 
Bentivogho,  very  remarkable.  It  is  to  be  observed,  that  the  reason- 
ings of  the  Spanish  statesmen  are,  on  this  occasion,  exactly  the  same 
with  those  of  our  own  statesmen  at  the  brealdng  out  and  during  the 
continuance  of  the  late  American  war.  Nor  was  the  event  dissimi- 
lar. The  good  sense  of  the  Duke  of  Feria  was  exerted  with  as  Uttlo 
effect  as  was  afterwards  the  philosophic  eloquence  of  Mr.  Burke. 
27  •  R* 


210  LECTURE  XII. 

The  establisTiinent  of  the  republic  of  Holland  was  in  one  instance 
the  consequence,  and  the  independence  of  America  in  the  other. 

But  reason  and  history  are  equally  unavailing  to  teach  the  wisdom 
of  temperate  and  healing  counsels  to  a  brave  and  prosperous  people, 
as  were  the  Spaniards  in  the  first  instance,  and  the  English  in  the 
second.  Such  a  people  and  their  rulers  inflame  each  other,  and 
every  thing  is  to  be  submitted  to  that  irritable  jealousy  and  high 
sense  of  national  importance  which  their  courage  and  their  power  so 
inevitably  produce.  It  was  in  vain  that  Margaret  of  Parma  had,  in 
the  mean  time,  very  tolerably  composed  the  troubles  of  the  Nether- 
lands. The  imperious  nature  of  Philip  and  his  counsellors  was  to  be 
gratified,  the  Flemings  were  to  be  taught  what  it  was  to  resist  author- 
ity, and  Alva  was  to  be  despatched  to  enforce  that  obedience  by 
arms,  which  it  suited  not,  it  seems,  the  dignity  of  the  monarch  to  de- 
serve by  humanity  and  justice.  • 

The  nature  of  the  Flemish  grievances  may  be  very  clearly  under- 
stood from  Watson,  and  even  from  Bentivoglio.  The  Reformation 
had  made  some  progress  in  the  Netherlands.  The  prosperity  of  the 
people  everywhere  depended,  not  on  any  assistance  from  the  Spanish 
monarchy,  but  on  their  own  industry  and  commerce,  —  that  is,  on  their 
equal  laws  and  constitutional  privileges.  The  edicts  of  Charles  the 
Fifth  had  declared,  that  all  persons  who  held  heretical  opinions 
should  be  deprived  of  their  offices  and  degraded  from  their  rank ; 
that  they  who  taught  'these  doctrines,  or  were  present  at  the  relig- 
ious meetings  of  heretics,  should  be  put  to  death ;  that  even  those 
who  did  not  inform  of  heretics  should  be  subjected  to  the  same  pen- 
alties. Philip  had  resolved,  first,  to  enforce  these  horrible  edicts ; 
secondly,  to  establish  a  tribunal  that  could  not  be  distinguished,  ex- 
cept in  name,  from  that  of  the  Inquisition ;  thirdly,  to  increase  the 
number  of  bishops  from  five  to  seventeen.  These  were  to  be  the 
ecclesiastical  instruments  of  his  power.  The  civil  instruments  of  his 
authority  were  to  be  found  in*  the  numerous  bands  of  Spanish  soldiers 
which,  fourthly,  he  resolved  to  station  in  the  provinces,  contrary  to 
the  provisions  of  their  fundamental  laws.  It  can  be  no  matter  of 
surprise  that  a  system  like  this  should  be  considered,  by  a  people  so 
situated,  as  a  system  of  destruction.  ^ 

The  resistance  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  of  some  of  the  Flem- 
ish nobles  will  be  found,  even  according  to  the  representation  of 
Bentivoglio,  to  have  been  as  temperate  and  regular  as  the  calmest 
speculator  could  require  ;  and  the  whole  of  the  proceedings  between 
them  and  the  regent  Margaret,  and  between  both  and  the  Spanish 
court,  are  very  instructive.  But  when  we  come  to  the  next  part  of 
the  subject,  the  resistance  that  in  fact  was  made,  it  must  surely  be  a 
matter  of  great  surprise  to  us  to  find  that  no  general  effort  of  this 
kind  seems  to  have  been  made  against  the  Duke  of  Alva,  when  he  at 
length  appeare^i.     He  came  into  the  Low  Countries,  and,  with  an 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  211 

army  of  about  fourteen  thousand  men,  he  disposed  of  the  lives  and 
privileges  of  the  Flemings  of  all  ranks  at  his  pleasure,  imprisoned 
two  of  the  most  popular  and  meritorious  noblemen,  erected  a  Council 
of  Tumults,  or,  as  it  was  more  properly  called,  a  Council  of  Blood, 
and  destroyed,  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  by  the  hands  of  the 
executioner,  more  than  one  thousand  eight  hundred  different  individ- 
uals ;  while  more  than  twenty  thousand  persons  fled  into  France, 
Germany,  and  England,  without  the  slightest  attempt  having  first 
been  made,  either  by  themselves  or  others,  for  their  common  safety 
and  protection. 

These  cruelties,  and  the  cruelties  that  were  inflicted  by  other  per- 
secutors who  preceded  Alva,  may  be  seen  in  Brandt ;  and  Bentivo- 
glio  himself  observes,  that  even  those  who  were  nowise  concerned 
were  aflrighted  to  see  the  faults  of  others  so  severely  punished  ;  and 
they  groaned,  he  says,  to  perceive  that  Flanders,  which  was  wont  to 
enjoy  one  of  the  easiest  governments  in  Europe,  should  now  have  no 
other  object  to  behold  but  the  terror  of  arms,  flight  of  exiles,  impris- 
onment and  blood,  death  and  confiscations. 

The  only  resource  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  patriots  seems 
to  have  been  to  raise  forces  in  Germany  from  their  own  funds,  and 
to  call  to  their  assistance  the  Protestant  princes,  the  Count  Palatine, 
the  Duke  of  Wiirtemberg,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  and  others. 
"  The  danger  is  common,"  says  the  Prince  of  Orange  ;  "  so  should 
the  cause  be.  The  Spanish  forces,  once  in  Flanders,  will  be  always 
ready  to  enter  Germany  ;  and  you  will  have  new  faces,  new  customs, 
severe  laws,  more  severely  executed,  heavy  yokes  upon  your  persons, 
and  more  heavy  upon  your  consciences.  I  am  held,"  said  he,  "to 
be  the  contriver  of  conspiracies  ;  but  what  greater  glory  can  there 
be  than  to  maintain  the  liberty  of  a  man's  country,  and  to  die  rather 
than  be  enslaved  ?  " 

William  and  his  brother  led  separate  armies  against  the  Duke  of 
Alva,  but  were  obliged,  the  one  to  fly,  and  the  other  to  disband  his 
troops.  The  want  of  the  means  to  pay  them  proved  equally  fatal  in 
different  ways  to  the  enterprises  of  each  commander  ;  and  neither 
proper  funds  nor  adequate  assistance  were  supplied  by  the  Flemings 
themselves.  This  is  one  instance  among  many,  which  it  is  melan- 
choly to  observe,  of  the  difficulty  with  which  the  regular  troops  of  an 
unprincipled  tyrant  can  be  resisted,  or  at  least  ever  are  resisted,  by 
an  insulted  and  oppressed  people.  The  principal  cities  became  sensi- 
bly thinner  in  population  ;  whole  villages  and  small  to^vns  were  ren- 
dered almost  desolate.  Still  no  resistance,  —  that  is,  no  resistance 
from  the  Flemings  themselves. 

But  it  fortunately  happened  that  Alva  was  not  only  made  more 
arbitrary  and  insolent  by  success,  but  he  began  himself  to  feel  the 
same  want  of  money  for  the  payment  of  his  troops,  which  had  been 
BO  fatal  to  the  Protestant  leaders.     Philip  was  supposed  at  the  time 


212  LECTURE  XII. 

» 

to  possess  all  the  wealth  of  the  world,  and  he  certainly  did  possess 
a  large  portion  of  the  gold  and  silver  of  it ;  but  it  was  now  to  be 
shown  that  ambition  and  harsh  government  could  exhaust  even  Mex 
ico  and  Peru.  Alva  found  himself  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  taxa- 
tion, and  to  require  from  the  industry  and  wealth  of  the  Flemings 
themselves  that  constant  supply  which  all  the  mines  and  slaves  of  his 
master  were  insufficient  to  afford  him. 

And  now  for  once  it  happened,  that  a  total  ignorance  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  political  economy  in  the  rulers  was  eventually  favorable  to 
the  happiness  of  the  people.  The  duke  insisted,  —  1st,  upon  one 
per  cent,  on  all  goods  movable  or  immovable  ;  2dly,  on  an  annual 
tax  of  twenty  per  cent,  on  all  immovable  goods  or  heritage  ;  and, 
lastly,  of  ten  per  cent,  on  all  movable  goods,  to  be  paid  on  every  sale 
of  them.  Taxes  better  fitted,  the  former  for  the  annoyance  of  a 
commercial  people,  and  the  latter  for  their  destruction,  could  not  well 
have  been  contrived.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Duke  of  Alva  was 
told,  that,  if  this  ten  per  cent,  was  paid  on  every  sale  of  an  article,  — 
first  on  the  wool,  for  instance,  then  on  the  yam,  then  on  the  cloth 
before  it  was  dyed  ;  then,  when  sold,  first  to  the  merchant,  secondly 
to  the  retailer,  and  lastly  to  the  consumer,  —  no  foreign  customer 
would  be  wilUng  to  buy  it,  and  no  home  customer  would  be  able ;  and 
that,  on  the  whole,  such  a  tax  could  produce  only  the  ruin  of  the 
manufacture  itself  and  all  concerned,  or,  in  other  words,  of  all  the 
sources  of  revenue  together.  Observations  of  this  kind  were  suffi- 
ciently answered  by  Alva,  as  he  thought,  when  he  replied,  with  that 
stupidity  as  well  as  insolence  which  so  generally  belongs  to  arbitrary 
power,  that  the  tax  was  levied  in  his  town  of  Alva,  and  that  he 
wanted  the  money. 

It  is  not  very  agreeable  to  observe,  that  everywhere,  through  all 
history,  the  most  sensible  nerve  that  can  be  touched  is  this  of  taxa- 
tion. Privileges  may  be  taken  away,  laws  violated,  pubhc  assemblies 
discontinued  ;  no  distant  consequence  is  regarded,  no  common  prin- 
ciple seems  as  yet  sufficiently  outraged  ;  the  community  are  silent,  or 
murmur*  only  for  a  short  season,  and  submit.  But  if  a  tax  is  to  be 
levied,  every  man  feels  his  interest  at  issue,  every  man  starts  up  in 
arms,  every  man  cries  with  Shylock,  — 

"  Nay,  take  my  life,  and  all ; 

You  take  my  life. 

When  you  do  take  the  means  whereby  I  live." 

Observe  the  facts  in  these  Low  Countries.  The  Flemings  had 
seen  their  fellow-citizens  executed  by  the  Duke  of  Alva ;  had  seen 
all  the  principles  of  their  civil  and  religious  liberty  destroyed  ;  had 
suffered  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  their  patriot  leaders  to  fight 
their  battles  by  means  of  German  Protestants,  whom  he  was  to  pay 
in  any  manner  he  could  devise,  —  a  task  to  which  it  must  have  been 
known  that  his  funds  were  totally  unequal ;  all  this  they  had  seen, 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  213 

and  all  this  pusillanimous  guilt  they  had  incurred ;  but  the  moment 
that  the  loss  of  their  civil  liberty  was  to  produce  one  of  its  many 
injurious  effects,  the  moment  that  the  duke's  tax-gatherers  were  to 
interfere  with  their  manufactures  and  with  the  sources  of  their  opu- 
lence, then,  and  not  till  then,  combinations  could  be  formed,  a  univer- 
sal sensation  take  place,  and  resistance  to  the  Spanish  tyranny  every- 
where assume  a  visible  form  and  become  a  regular  system. 

But  our  mortification  is  not  yet  to  end.  We  might  wish  to  see 
mankind  always  ready  to  kindle  with  a  generous  and  rational  sympa- 
thy. We  might  wish  to  see  them  act  'with  sony^e  reasonable  consis- 
tency and  courage,  when  oppressed.  But  what  was  the  fact  ?  The 
Walloon  or  southern  provinces,  being  not  so  entirely  commercial 
as  those  that  were  more  maritime,  will  be  found  on  that  account  (for 
no  other  reason  can  be  given)  to  have  resisted  the  taxes  of  Alva 
less  firmly.    '        , 

It  is  painful  to  follow  the  subject  through  all  the  more  minute,  but 
important,  particulars  that  belong  to  it,  and  to  observe  the  manner  in 
which  so  many  of  the  provinces  could  be  practised  upon  and  gained 
over,  —  could  be  soothed,  deluded,  or  terrified,  —  could  basely  con- 
sent to  submit  to  a  certain  part  of  the  proposed  requisitions,  that 
is,  to  fit  on  such  of  the  chains  as  they  thought  might  possibly  be 
borne,  while  the  rest  were  to  be  left  still  hanging  in  the  hands  of 
their  oppressors,  ready  to  be  applied  on  the  first  occasion,  an  occa- 
sion which  they  might  be  certain  would  so  soon  and  so  inevitably 
follow. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  resistance  of  Brabant,  and  the  still  more 
intelligent  and  invariable  firmness  of  the  single  province  of  Utrecht, 
all  might  have  been  lost ;  and  the  bigoted,  unfeeling  Philip,  though 
his  subjects  might  no  longer  have  been  worth  his  ruling,  would  at 
least  have  had  the  gratification  of  seeing  them  bound  and  prostrate 
at  his  feet.  The. example,  however,  of  Utrecht  was  not  without  its 
effect,  and  its  resistance  was  fatal  to  the  Spanish  system  of  taxation. 
A  distinction,  it  is  true,  may  always  be  perceived  between  the  seven 
northern,  more  commercial  provinces,  and  the  rest.  The  moi*e 
southern  and  less  commercial  often  observed  a  cold  neutrality,  and 
were  even  guilty  of  a  species  of  hostility  to  the  Prince  of  Orange 
and  the  patriotic  cause,  that  was  often  but  too  convenient  and  favor- 
able to  the  Spanish  arms. 

Cruelty  and  oppression  were,  however,  destined  at  last  to  receive 
some  lessons.  Holland,  Zealand,  and  five  other  of  the  more  bold 
and  virtuous  provinces  of  the  Low  Countries,  which  with  Brabant 
must  always  be  distinguished  from  the  rest,  openly  and  steadily  re- 
sisted. It  is  consoling  to  observe,  that  even  the  exiles,  men  whom 
Alva  had  reduced,  as  he  supposed,  to  the  condition  of  mere  outcasts 
and  pirates,  too  contemptible  to  interest  his  thoughts  for  a  moment, 
were  in  fact  the  very  men  who  gave  strength  and  animation  to  the 


214  '  LECTURE  xn.    • 

revolt ;  and  by  their  armed  vessels,  their  enterprises,  their  extraordi- 
nary exertions  by  sea  as  well  as  by  land,  so  shook,  and  injured,  and 
endangered  the  Spanish  greatness,  that  the  entire  independence  of  a 
part  at  least  of  the  Low  Countries  was  at  last  formally  asserted. 

The  military  conduct  of  Alva  is  remarkable.  In  the  field  he  was 
as  calm  and  considerate  as  he  was  rash  and  intemperate  in  the  cabi- 
net ;  that  is,  he  understood  the  science  of  war,  but  not  of  politics. 
Yet  still  he  could  not,  even  in  arms,  succeed.  The  opportunities  for 
resistance  afforded  by  the  singular  situation  of  the  maritime  provinces, 
the  consummate  prudence,  the  zeal,  and  the  tolerant  spirit  of  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  were  obstacles  which  he  could  not  entirely  over- 
come. The  great  towns  in  Holland,  Haerlem  and  others,  were  be- 
sieged, 'taken,  and  outraged  by  the  most  extraordinary  excesses  of 
cruelty  and  rapine ;  but  there  were  other  towns  that  could  not  be 
taken.  Holland,  Zealand,  and  five  other  provinoes,  acknowledged 
the  authority  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  not  of  Philip ;  and  Alva  at  last 
retired,  though  the  rebellion  in  the  Low  Countries  was  not  put  down, 
and  neither  his  own  vengeance  nor  that  of  his  master  as  yet  satiated. 
He  consoled  himself,  we  are  told,  with  the  reflection,  that  eighteen 
thousand  heretics  had  suffered  by  the  hands  of  the  executioner,  and 
a  much  greater  number  fallen  by  famine  or  the  sword. 

It  appears  from  this  history,  that  concessions  were  made  by  the 
Spanish  court;  but,  as  is  usual  in  such  contests,  made  too  late. 
Orders  had  been  sent  by  Phihp  to  remit  the  taxes  of  the  ten  and 
twenty  per  cent.,  but  not  till  the  maritime  provinces  had  already  re- 
volted. After  Alva,  with  his  soldiers  and  .executioners,  had  been  let 
loose  upon  the  provinces  for  nearly  six  years  together,  Philip  began 
at  last  to  doubt  a  little  the  efficacy  of  force,  and  to  be  disposed  to 
send  a  new  governor,  in  the  person  of  Requesens,  who  might  act  on 
a  more  concihating  system.  Requesens  was  a  man  of  abihty  and 
moderation,  and  this  last  part  of  his  character  gave  the  Prince  of 
Orange  and  the  patriots  the  greatest  apprehen&ion,  lest  the  Flemings 
should  too  readily  forget  the  perfidy  and  cruelty  of  their  oppressors. 
But  Requesens  not  only  came  too  late,  but  found  it  impossible  to 
serve  such  a  master  as  PhiHp. 

I  can,  however,  no  longer  continue  this  sort  of  narrative.  After 
Requesens,  followed  a  kind  of  interregnum,  and  the  government  of  a 
Flemish  council  of  state  ;  then,  the  administration  of  Don  John  of 
Austria ;  lastly,  that  of  the  justly  renowned  Prince  of  Parma. 
Each  of  these  administrations  became  an  era  in  this  great  contest. 
Each  has  its  particular  events,  and  its  own  more  striking,  though  not 
very  dissimilar,  lessons.  I  had  drawn  up  observations  on  each  of 
them.  But  I  must  omit  all  further  allusion,  not  only  to  the  facts  of 
this  contest,  but  to  the  contest  itself.  I  must  break  away  from  the 
subject,  for  I  must  hasten  to  conclude  my  lecture.  I  am  willing  to 
hope  that  you  will  not  only  read  the  whole  account  in  Watson,  but 


THE  LOW  COUNTRIES.  215 

be  prepared  to  make  such  observations  on  the  events  as  they  ought, 
I  think,  to  excite  in  your  minds.  If  I  have  succeeded  to  this  extent, 
I  am  satisfied,  and  consider  my  office  as  at  an  end. 

To  advert,  therefore,  to  the  final  result  of  this  great  struggle,  and 
to  finish  my  lecture. 

The  Prince  of  Orange,  notwithstanding  the  defection  of  some,  and 
the  mutual  jealousies  of  too  many  of  the  provinces,  had  contrived  to 
form  the  Union  of  Utrecht,  —  a  combination  of  seven  of  them  ;  and 
this  union  may  be  considered  as  the  first  foundation  of  the  republic 
of  Holland. 

It  is  difficult  for  unprincipled  ambition  to  be  prudent.  Philip  had 
not  only  schemes  of  tyranny  in  the  Low  Countries,  but  of  invasion  in 
England,  and  of  aggrandizement  in  France.  The  multiplicity  of  his 
designs  exhausted  even  his  American  treasures  ;  the  impossibihty  of 
his  wishes  squandered  away  even  the  resources  of  the  genius  of  the 
Duke  of  Parma.  The  United  Provinces  were  not  subdued,  England 
was  not  overcome,  France  was  not  united  to  his  crown,  and  Europe 
was  not  subjected  to  the  domination  of  the  house  of  Austria. 

We  have  at  last  the  satisfaction  to  see  the  seven  maritime  prov- 
inces, at  least,  treating  with  their  oppressors  as  sovereign  states  ;  and 
not  only  their  independence  admitted,  but  their  trade  with  the  Indies 
allowed,  and  their  cause  completely  triumphant. 

These  events,  and  particularly  the  negotiations  for  peace,  may  be 
seen  in  Bentivoglio  and  Wraxall,  and  m^y  be  considered  with  stiU 
greater  advantage  in  Watson.  Transactions  of  this  nature  are  very 
deserving  of  attention ;  and  we  cannot  but  be  struck,  not  only  with 
the  active  policy  of  Henry  'the  Fourth  of  France,  but  with  the  virtu- 
ous exertions  of  the  wise  Barneveldt,  who,  more  successful  than  other 
patriots  who  resembled  him  have  sometimes  been,  had  the  pure  satis- 
faction of  reasoning  into  peace  his  inflamed  and  improvident  country- 
men. 

In  the  w^hole  of  this  memorable  contest,  —  a  contest  of  half  a  cen- 
tury, —  the  great  hero  was  the  Prince  of  Orange,  the  great  delin- 
quent was  Phihp  the  Second.  The  one  may  be  proposed  as  a  model, 
in  public  and  in  private,  of  every  thing  that  is  good  and  great ;  and 
the  other,  with  the  exception  of  attention  to  business,  of  every  thing 
that  is  to  be  avoided  and  abhorred. 

To  Europe  and  mankind,  in  the  mean  time,  the  success  of  the 
maritime  provinces  was  of  the  greatest  importance.  The  power  of 
the  house  of  Austria  was  for  ever  prevented  from  gaining  too  danger- 
,ous  an  ascendency.  Resistance  to  those  who  were  controUing  re- 
ligious opinions  by  fire  and  sword,  and  trampling  upon  constitutional 
privileges,  had  been  successfully  made.  An  asylum  was  opened  for 
all  those,  of  whatever  country,  who  fled  from  persecution,  —  from 
persecution  of  whatever  kind.  The  benefit  thus  accruing  to  mankind 
cannot  now  be  properly  estimated,  for  we  cannot  now  feel  what  it  is 


216  LECTURE  XIII. 

to  liave  no  refuge  and  no  means  of  resistance,  while  men  are  ready 
to  punish  us  for  our  opinions,  and  are  making  themselves  inquisitors 
of  our  conduct.  It  is  known  to  have  been  one  of  the  severest  mis- 
eries of  the  later  Romans,  that  they  could  not  escape  from  their  gov- 
ernment, that  the  world  belonged  to  their  emperors.  It  was  in  the 
Low  Countries  that  the  defenders  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  found 
shelter.  It  was  there  that  they  could  state  their  complaints,  publish 
what  they  conceived  to  be  the  truth,  and  maintain  and  exercise  the 
privileges  of  free  inquiry.  These  were  the  countries  to  which  Locke 
retired,  and  where  William  the  Third  was  formed. 

But  this  was  not  all.  The  wonders  that  can  be  effected  by  com- 
merce and  the  peaceful  arts  were  displayed,  and,  on  the  whole,  a 
practical  example  wa5  held  up  to  the  princes  and  statesmen  of  every 
age  and  nation,  well  fitted  to  teach  them  many  of  those  great  truths 
which  every  friend  of  humanity  would  wish  always  present  to  their 
minds :  that  ambition  should  be  virtuous  and  peaceful,  that  religious 
feelings  should  be  tolerant,  that  government  should  be  mild. 


LECTURE   XIII. 


THE   THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR. 


We  have  now  made  some  progress  in  the  history  of  this  century 
of  religious  wars.  We  have  considered  the  civil  and  religious  wars 
of  France  ;  next,  those  of  the  Low  Countries.  We  must  now  turn  to 
Germany. 

I  have  called  this  lecture  a  Lecture  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War ;  but 
I  should  rather  have  called  it  a  Lecture  on  the  Religious  Concerns  of 
Germany.  The  Thirty  Years'  War  is,  indeed,  the  most  interesting 
portion  of  the  whole,  and  that  to  which  the  attention  of  all  readers  of 
history  has  been  more  naturally  directed ;  but  there  is  much  to  be 
read  and  considered  before  you  reach  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and 
much  after,  or  you  will  not  be  able  to  embrace  in  your  minds  the 
whole  subject,  —  the  subject  of  the  religious  concerns  of  Germany 
during  the  sixteenth  century.  In  truth,  I  am  to  allude  to  such  af 
mass  of  reading  in  this  lecture,  and  allude  to  it  so  indistinctly,  that  I 
know  not  well  how  I  can  enable  you  to  listen  to  what  I  am  to  address 
to  you. 

It  may  assist  you,  perhaps,  if  you  will  first  attend  to  the  order  in 
■which  I  am  going  to  proceed.     It  is  the  following :  — 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  217 

The  Reformation  introduced  great  divisions  of  opinion  into  Ger- 
many. I  must  first  allude  to  the  contest  that  existed  between  -the 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  from  the  breaking  out  of  the  Reformation 
to  the  peace  of  Passau. 

At  this  peace  of  Passau,  the  interests  of  the  contending  parties 
were  brought  to  an-  adjustment.  I  must  therefore  next  allude  to  the 
provisions  of  that  peace  of  Passau. 

But  after  some  time  this  adjustment  was  no  longer  acquiesced  in, 
and  the  Thirty  Years'  War  followed.  I  must  therefore  allude  to  the 
causes  which  brought  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

This  Thirty  Years'  War  is  a  memorable  era  in  history,  and  I  must 
therefore  allude  to  the  conduct  of  it,  and  to  the  great  hero  of  the 
Protestant  cause  on  this  occasion,  Gustavus  Adolphus. 

The  peace  of  Westphalia  was  the  termination  of  this  great  contest, 
and  of  the  whole  subject ;  and  I  must  therefore  allude,  finally,  to  the 
peace  of  Westphalia. 

The  whole  interval  from  the  days  of  Luther  to  this  peace  of  West- 
phalia, an  interval  of  more  than  a  century,  must  be  considered  as  one 
continued  struggle,  open  or  concealed,  between  the  Reformers  and 
the  Roman  Cathohcs.  The  first  period  of  this  great  contest  extends 
to  the  peace  of  Passau ;  the  next,  to  the  Thirty  Years'  War ;  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  is  the  third.  The  peace  of  Westphalia  is  the 
final  settlement  of  the  whole. 

First,  then,  of  the  period  that  closed  with  the  peace  of  Passau.  1 
need  neither,  as  I  conceive,  relate  the  facts,  nor  comment  upon  them, 
for  you  may  study  this  part  ©f  the  history  yourselves  in  Robertson 
and  Coxe,  and  it  would  be  a  waste  of  your  time  to  offer  you  here,  in 
a  mutilated  state,  what  you  will  find  regularly  displayed  in  those  au- 
thors. I  may,  however,  select  what  I  consider  as  the  leading  events, 
and  recommend  you  to  fix  your  attention  upon  them.  They  are  the 
following :  — 

First,  The  denial  of  the  authority  of  the  Pope  by  Luther. 

Secondly,  The  total  intolerance  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  avowed  in  the 
edict  of  Worms. 

Thirdly,  The  resistance  of  the  Protestants,  and  the  exhibition  of 
their  own  faith  in  the  Confession  of  Augsburg. 

Fourthly,  Their  appeal  to  arms  from  the  injustice  of  Charles,  — 
the  league  of  Smalkalden. 

Lastly,  After  the  various  events  of  unrighteous  warfare,  the  rehgious 
peace  concluded  at  Passau,  in  1555,*  about  the  close  of  his  reign. 

These  are  the  principal  events.     You  must  consider  them,  particu- 

*  The  peace  of  Passau  was  concluded  August  2, 1552.  The  date  given  in  the  text, 
1555,  is  that  of  the  Recess  of  Augsburg,  by  which  the  treaty  of  Passau  was  confirmed. 
It  is  to  this  Recess  that  the  provisions  noticed  in  the  next  page,  particularly  the 
"  E'cclesiastical  Reservation,"  and  the  "  declaration  securing  liberty  of  conscience  to 
those  who  adopted  the  Confession  of  Augsburg,"  are  to  be  referred.  See  Robertsons 
Charles  V.,  Books  x.,  xi.,  and  Coxe's  House  of  Austria,  Ch.  xxxi.  -  -  N 

28  s 


218  •  LECTURE  Xm. 

larlj  the  peace  of  Passau.  On  tliis  last,  as  it  is  so  important,  I  will 
stop  to  make  a  few  observations. 

It  was  the  first  great  adjustment  of  the  contending  religious  inter- 
ests of  Germany.  It  was  extorted  from  Charles  the  Fifth,  and,  on 
the  whole,  it  was  favorable  to  the  great  cause  of  religious  freedom  and 
the  welfare  of  mankind.  Those  of  the  inferior  sect  were  no  longer 
to  be  insulted,  dispersed,  or  exterminated ;  they  were  to  exist  in  so- 
ciety, as  their  Roman  Catholic  brethren,  erect  and  independent ;  they 
were  to  worship  their  God  in  the  manner  they  thought  most  agreeable 
to  his  word.  Human  authority  in  matters  of  religious  faith  was 
avowedly  cast  off  by  a  large  and  respectable  part  of  the  Continent ; 
and  neither  the  magistrate  nor  the  soldier  was  any  longer  to  un- 
sheathe the  sword,  to  imprison,  to  massacre,  or  to  drag  to  the  stake. 

In  practice,  therefore,  some  progress  had  been  made,  —  some  prog- 
ress in  practice,  but  little  in  the  understandings  or  feelings  of  man- 
kind. The  parties  abstained  from  mutual  violence,  because  they 
were  well  balanced,  and  feared  each  other,  —  not  because  they  dis- 
cerned and  acknowledged  their  mutual  rights  and  duties.  Not  only 
were  the  Roman  Catholics  separated  from  the  Protestants,  but  the 
Lutherans  had  separated  themselves  from  the  Zuinglians,  afterwards 
called  the  Calvinists,  and  had  endeavoured  to  stigmatize  them  with 
the  name  of  Sacramentarians.  That  is,  the  Roman  Catholics,  the 
Lutherans,  and  Calvinists  were  all  equally  ready  to  believe  that 
every  religious  opinion  but  their  own  was  sinful,  and  therefore  that 
their  own,  upon  every  principle  of  piety  and  reason,  was  at  all  events 
to  be  propagated,  and  every  other  repressed. 

Again,  we  have  already  observed  that  one  of  the  great  difficulties 
on  this  subject  must  always  be  the  disposal  of  property  to  the  ecclesi- 
astic :  to  which  sect  it  is  to  be  given  by  the  state  ;  to  one,  or  to  all, 
and  upon  what  conditions.  This  difficulty  necessarily  appeared  at 
tlje  pacification  which  was  attempted  at  Passau. 

It  was  insisted  by  the  Protestants,  that  all  those  who  separated 
from  the  Church  of  Rome  should,  nevertheless,  retain  their  ecclesias- 
tical emoluments,  —  emoluments,  it  must  be  observed,  which  had  been 
received  originally  from  the  Roman  Catholic  establishment.  By  the 
Roman  Catholics  it  was  contended,  on  the  contrary,  that  every  such 
separatist  should  immediately  lose  his  benefice. 

This  point  could  not,  at  the  peace  of  Passau,  be  carried  by  the 
Protestants.  They  seem  to  have  sullenly  submitted,  and  to  have 
virtually  acquiesced  in  what  was  called  the  Ecclesiastical  Reservation. 
This  reservation  secured  the  benefice,  and  left  it  to  remain  with  the 
Catholic  establishment  when  the  holder  turned  Protestant. 

The  Protestants  were  consoled,  on  the  other  hand,  by  a  declaration 
securing  Jiberty  of  conscience  to  those  who  adopted  the  Confession 
of  Aiigsburg,  —  a  declaration  which  the  Roman  Catholics  as  little 
relished  as  the  Protestants  did  the  reservation  just  mentioned. 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  219 

The  parties  were,  therefore,  not  as  yet  sufficiently  religious  and 
wise  to  settle  the  real  subjects  of  contention.  Then  followed,  after 
this  peace  of  Passau,  a  sort  of  interval  and  pause.  After  this  inter- 
val, all  Germany  was  laid  waste  and  convulsed  by  the  Thirty  Years' 
War. 

We  naturally  turn  to  ask  what  were  the  causes  of  so  dreadful  an 
event,  —  thirty  years'  war ;  the  very  term  is  a  disgrace  to  humanity. 
To  this  the  answer  will,  I  think,  be  found  to  be,  first,  the  intolerant 
conduct  of  the  Protestant  princes  to  each  other ;  second,  the  bigotry, 
ambition,  and  arbitrary  politics  of  the  princes  of  the  house  of  Austria. 
I  will  say  a  word  on  each. 

First,  with  regard  to  the  conduct  of  the  Protestant  princes,  Luther- 
an and  Calvinistic.  It  will  appear  to  those  who  examine  the  history, 
that  the  Protestant  cause  was  well  estabhshed  at  the  peace  of  Passau, 
and  at  the  death  of  Charles  the  Fifth ;  but  that  it  was  afterwards 
nearly  lost  by  the  advantages  which  the  Roman  Catholic  arms  and 
politics  derived  from  the  dissensions  which  existed  between  the  Lu- 
theran and  Calvinistic  princes.  Though  these  princes  had  the  most 
palpable  bond  of  union  (their  wish  to  exercise  the  right  of  private 
judgment), — though  they  were  both  equally  opposed  to  the  Catholic 
powers  who  would  have  denied  them  this  inestimable  privilege,  yet 
was  it  impossible  for  them  to  differ  in  some  mysterious  points  of  doc- 
trine without  a  total  disregard  to  mutual  charity  ;  and  each  sect, 
rather  than  suffer  the  other  to  think  differently  from  itself,  was  con- 
tented to  run  the  chance  of  being  overpowered  by  the  Catholics, 
that  is,  of  not  being  suffered  to  think  at  all.  The  Lutherans  might 
possibly  have  been  expected  to  be  the  most  rational,  that  is,  the  most 
tolerant  of  the  two ;  but  they  were  not  so ;  they  were,  in  reality, 
more  in  fault  than  the  Calvinists,  —  being  not  only  the  first  aggres- 
sors in  this  dispute  with  their  fellow-Protestants,  but  the  more  ready 
to  temporize,  to  betray  and  desert  the  common  cause. 

You  will  perceive  that  I  am  here  obliged  to  leave  great  blanks  be- 
hind me,  as  I  go  along,  and  you  will  perceive  the  same  through  every 
part  of  this  lecture.  These  blanks  must  be  hereafter  filled  up  by 
your  own  diligence.  I  cannot  expect  to  make  the  steps  I  take 
through  my  subject  very  intelligible  at  present ;  but  you  will  be  able 
to  judge  of  my  arrangement,  my  statements,  and  my  conclusions 
hereafter,  when  you  come  to  read  the  history. 

I  must,  then,  for  the  present,  content  myself  with  repeating  to  you, 
that  the  Protestant  princes  were  themselves  very  faulty,  more  par- . 
ticularly  the  Lutheran  princes ;  that  their  intolerance  to  each  other 
was  most  unpardonable  ;  and  that  the  conduct  of  some  of  the  electors 
of  Saxony  was  very  despicable,  and  most  injurious  to  the  Protestant 
cause ;  and,  finally,  that  all  this  folly  and  intolerance  led  to  the 
Thirty  Years'  War. 

My  next  statement  was,  that  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  all  its 


220  LECTURE  xra. 

dreadful  scenes,  were  occasioned,  in  the  second  place,  hj  the  civil 
and  religious  politics,  the  bigoted  and  arbitrary  conduct,  of  the  princes 
of  the  house  of  Austria. 

Here,  again,  large  blanks  must  be  left.  You  can  judge  of  these 
politics  only  by  reading  the  reigns  of  those  princes.  I  must  refer 
you  to  the  pages  of  Mr.  Coxe.     I  will  make,  however,  a  few  remarks. 

These  princes  were  Ferdinand  the  First,  Maximilian,  Rodolph, 
Matthias,  Ferdinand  the  Second.  The  character  of  Maximilian  de- 
serves your  notice. 

It  is  very  agreeable  to  find  among  these  Austrian  princes  one 
sovereign,  at  least,  like  Maximilian,  whose  conduct  is  marked  by 
justice,  wisdom,  and  benevolence,  and  whose  administration  realizes 
what  an  historian  would  propose  as  a  model  for  all  those  who  are 
called  upon  to  direct  the  afiairs  of  mankind.  On  this  account  I  must 
observe,  that  there  is  no  period  connected  with  these  religious  wars 
that  deserves  more  to  be  studied  than  these  reigns  of  Ferdinand  the 
First,  Maximilian,  and  those  of  his  Successors  who  preceded  the 
Thirty  Years'  War.  We  have  no  sovereign  who  exhibited  that  exer- 
cise of  moderation  and  good  sense  which  a  philosopher  would  require, 
but  Maximilian,  and  he  was  immediately  followed  by  princes  of  a 
different  complexion ;  and  as  all  the  various  sects  themselves  were 
ready  from  the  first  to  display  at  any  moment  those  faults  which  be- 
long to  human  nature,  when  engaged  in  religious  concerns,  the  whole 
subject  of  toleration  and  mild  government,  its  advantages  and  its 
dangers,  and  the  advantages  and  dangers  of  an  opposite  system,  are 
at  once  presented  to  our  consideration ;  and  the  only  observation  that 
remains  to  be  made  is  this :  that  the  difficulties  and  the  hazards  of 
the  harsh  and  unjust  system  are  increased  and  exasperated  by  their 
natural  progress,  while  those  that  belong  to  the  mild  system  are 
to  be  expected  chiefly  at  first ;  that  they  gradually  disappear,  and 
become  less  important,  particularly  as  the  world  advances  in  civiliza- 
tion and  knowledge,  and  as  the  thoughts  of  men  are  more  diversified 
by  the  active  pursuits  and  petty  amusements  which  multiply  with 
their  growing  prosperity. 

Nothing  could  be  more  complete  than  the  difficulty  of  toleration  at 
the  time  when  Maximilian  reigned  ;  and  if  a  mild  policy  could  be  at- 
tended with  favorable  effects  in  his  age  and  nation,  there  can  be  little 
fear  of  the  experiment  at  any  other  period.  No  party  or  person  in 
the  state  was  then  disposed  to  tolerate  his  neighbour  from  any  sense 
of  the  justice  of  such  forbearance,  but  from  motives  of  temporal  policy 
alone.  The  Lutherans,  it  will  be  seen,  could  not  bear  that  the 
Calvinists  should  have  the  same  religious  privileges  with  themselves ; 
the  Calvinists  were  equally  opinionated  and  unjust ;  and  Maximilian 
himself  was  probably  tolerant  and  wise  chiefly  because  he  was  in  hia 
real  opinions  a  Lutheran,  and  in  outward  profession,  as  the  head  of 
the  Empire,  a  Roman  Catholic. 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  221 

For  twelve  years,  the  whole  of  his  reign,  he  preserved  the  religious 
peace  of  the  communitj,  without  destroying  the  religious  freedom  of 
the  human  mind.  He  supported  the  Roman  Cathohcs,  as  the  pre- 
dominant party,  in  all  their  rights,  possessions,  and  privileges  ;  but 
he  protected  the  Protestants  in  every  exercise  of  their  religion  which 
was  then  practicable.  In  other  words,  he  was  as  tolerant  and  just 
as  the  temper  of  society  then  admitted,  and  more  so  than  the  state 
of  things  would  have  suggested.  Now  more  than  this  no  considerate 
Christian  or  real  philosopher  will  require  from  the  sovereign  power 
at  any  time  ;  not  more  than  to  countenance  toleration,  to  be  disposed 
to  experiments  of  toleration,  and  to  lead  on  to  toleration,  if  the  com- 
munity can  but  be  persuaded  to  follow.  More  than  this  will  not,  I 
think,  be  required  from  the  rulers  of  the  world  by  any  real  philoso- 
pher and  true  Christian ;  and  this,  not  because  the  great  cause  of 
religious  truth  and  inquiry  is  at  all  indifferent  to  them,  (it  must 
always  be  most  dear  to  them,)  but  because  they  know  that  mankind 
on  these  subjects  are  profoundly  ignorant  and  incurably  irritable. 
The  merit  of  Maximihan  was  but  too  apparent  the  moment  that  his 
son  Rodolph  was  called  upon  to  supply  his  place. 

The  tolerance  and  forbearance  of  Maximihan  had  been  favorable, 
as  it  must  always  be,  to  the  better  cause ;  but  the  Protestants,  in- 
stead of  being  encouraged  by  the  visible  progress  of  their  tenets, 
and  thereby  induced  to  leave  them  to  the  sure  operation  of  time  and 
the  silent  influence  of  truth,  had  broken  out  with  all  the  stupid  fury 
that  often  belongs  to  an  inferior  sect,  and  indulged  themselves  in  the 
most  public  attacks  and  unqualified  invectives  against  the  Estabhshed 
Church.  The  gentle,  but  powerful,  hand  of  Maximihan  was  now 
withdrawn  ;  and  he  had  made  one  most  fatal  and  unpardonable  mis- 
take :  he  had  always  left  the  education  of  his  son  and  successor  too 
much  to  the  discretion  of  his  bigoted  consort.  Rodolph,  his  son,  was 
therefore  as  ignorant  and  furious,  on  his  part,  as  were  the  Protes- 
tants on  theirs  ;  he  had  immediate  recourse  to  the  usual  expedients, 
—  force,  and  the  execution  of  the  laws  to  the  very  letter.  It  is 
needless  to  add,  that  injuries  and  mistakes  quickly  multiplied  as  he 
proceeded  ;  and  Maximilian  himself,  had  he  been  recalled  to  hfe, 
would  have  found  it  difficult  to  extricate  his  unhappy  sons  and  his 
unfortunate  people  from  the  accumulated  calamities  which  it  had  been 
the  great  glory  of  his  own  reign  so  skilfully  to  avert. 

After  Rodolph  comes  Matthias,  and,  unhappily  for  all  Europe, 
Bohemia  and  the  Empire  fell  afterwards  under  the  management  of 
Ferdinand  the  Second.  Of  the  different  Austrian  princes,  it  is  the 
reign  of  Ferdinand  the  Second  that  is  more  particularly  to  be  con- 
sidered. 

Such  was  the  arbitrary  nature  of  his  government  over  his  subjects 
in  Bohemia,  that  they  revolted.  They  elected  for  their  king  the 
young  Elector  Palatine,  hoping  thus  to  extricate  themselves  from  the 

s* 


222  LECTURE  XITI. 

bigotry  and  tyranny  of  Ferdinand.  This  crown,  so  offered,  was  ac 
cepted ;  and  in  the  event,  the  cause  of  the  Bohemians  became  the 
cause  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany,  and  the  Elector  Palatine 
the  hero  of  that  cause.  It  is  this  which  gives  the  great  interest  to 
this  reign  of  Ferdinand  the  Second,  to  these  concerns  of  his  subjects 
in  Bohemia,  and  to  the  character  of  this  Elector  Palatine ;  for  all 
these  events  and  circumstances  led  to  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  I 
cannot  here  explain  to  you  the  particular  circumstances  which  pro- 
duced such  unexpected  effects  as  I  have  now  stated,  but  you  may 
study  them  in  Coxe  and  other  historians. 

We  thus  arrive  at  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  I  will,  however,  turn 
for  a  moment  to  this  Elector  Palatine.  This  is  the  prince  who  wag 
connected  with  our  own  royal  family.  He  was  married  to  the  daugh- 
ter of  our  James  the  First. 

You  will  see,  even  in  our  own  historians,  the  great  interest  which 
the  Protestant  cause  in  Germany,  to  which  I  am  obliged  so  in- 
distinctly to  allude,  excited  in  England,  as  well  as  in  all  the  rest  of 
Europe. 

The  history  of  the  Elector  Palatine  is  very  affecting ;  you  will 
read  it  in  Coxe.  He  accepted,  you  may  remember,  the  crown  which 
was  offered  to  him  by  the  Bohemians  ;  he  was  unworthy  of  it ;  he 
accepted  it  in  an  evil  hour. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  difficulties  of  those  in  exalted  station 
are  peculiarly  great.  It  is  the  condition  of  their  existence,  that  the 
happiness  of  others  shall  depend  on  them,  —  shall  depend  not  only 
on  the  high  quahties  of  their  nature,  their  generosity,  their  courage, 
but  on  the  endowments  of  their  minds,  their  prudence,  their  fore- 
sight, their  correct  judgment,  their  accurate  estimates,  not  only  of 
others,  but  of  themselves.  So  unfortunately  are  they  situated,  that 
their  ambition  may  be  even  generous  and  noble,  and  yet  their  char- 
acters be  at  last  justly  marked  with  the  censure  of  mankind. 

The  Elector  Palatine,  by  accepting  the  crown  of  Bohemia,  became, 
as  I  have  just  observed,  under  the  existing  circumstances  of  Germa- 
ny, the  chief  of  the  Protestant  cause  ;  but  he  undertook  a  cause  so 
important,  and  he  suffered  the  lives  and  liberties  of  thousands  to  de- 
pend on  his  firmness  and  ability,  without  ever  having  properly  exam- 
ined his  own  character,  or  considered  to  what  situations  of  difficulty 
his  powers  were  equal.  When,  therefore,  the  hour  of  trial  came, 
when  he  was  weighed  in  the  balance,  he  was  found  wanting,  and  his 
kingdom  was  divided  from  him.  Had  he  himself  been  alone  inter- 
ested in  his  success,  his  subsequent  sufferings  might  have  atoned  for 
his  fault ;  but  the  kingdom  of  Bohemia  was  lost  to  its  inhabitants, 
the  Palatinate  to  its  own  subjects,  and  the  great  cause  of  religious 
inquiry  and  truth  might. also  have  perished  in  the  general  wreck  of 
his  fortunes. 

But  in  the  reign  of  the  same  Ferdinand  the  Second,  there  arose, 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  '  221S 

m  tlie  same  cause  In  which  the  Elector  Palatine  had  failed,  a  hero  of 
another  cast,  —  Gustavus  Adolphus. 

And  now  to  recapitulate  a  little,  that  you  may  see  the  connecting 
links  of  this  part  of  the  subject,  in  which  I  am  obhged  to  leave  such 
blanks.  You  will  have  understood  in  a  general  manner,  and  I  must 
now  remind  you,  that  the  house  of  Austria  was  the  terror  of  the 
Protestants  of  Germany ;  that  Ferdinand  the  Second  oppressed  by 
his  tyranny  and  bigotry  his  Protestant  subjects,  more  particularly  in 
Bohemia ;  that  their  cause  became  the  cause  of  the  Protestant  inter- 
est in  Germany  ;  that  the  Elector  Palatine  was  the  first  hero  of  this 
great  cause,  and  that  he  failed ;  'that  the  illustrious  Swede  was  the 
second,  and  that  he  deserved  the  high  office  which  he  bore,  —  that 
he  deserved  to  be  the  defender  of  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of 
Europe,  and  that  he  was  the  great  object  of  admiration  in  the  Thirty 
Years'  War. 

Of  this  Thirty  Years'  War  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  I  should 
speak  here,  even  if  I  had  time,  which  I  have  not,  because  the 
particulars  are  so  interesting,  that  I  can  depend  upon  your  reading 
them.  You  will  do  so,  I  beg  to  assure  you,  with  great  pleasure, 
if  you  once  turn  to  them.  The  narrative  and  detail  you  will  find 
in  Coxe.  , 

The  campaigns  of  Gustavus,  his  victories,  his  death,  —  the  cam- 
paigns of  the  generals  he  left  iDehind,  —  the  campaigns  of  the  Aus- 
trian generals,  the  celebrated  Tilly,  the  still  more  celebrated  Wal- 
lenstein,  —  particulars  respecting  these  subjects,  and  many  others 
highly  attractive,  you  will  find  in  Coxe  and  in  Harte,  and  to  these 
authors  I  must  leave  you.  I  will  make,  however,  a  few  remarks,  and 
first  of  Gustavus.  » 

As  it  must  needs  be  that  offences  will  come,  as  violence  and  injus- 
tice can  be  repelled  only  by  force,  as  mankind  must  and  will  have 
their  destroyers,  it  is  fortunate  when  the  high  courage  and  activity 
of  which  the  human  character  is  capable  are  tempered  with  a  sense 
of  justice,  wisdom,  and  benevolence,  —  when  he  who  leads  thousands 
to  the  field  has  sensibility  enough  to  feel  the  nature  of  his  awful 
office,  and  wisdom  enough  to  take  care  that  he  directs  against  its 
proper  objects  the  afflicting  storm  of  human  devastation.  It  is  not 
always  that  they  who  have  commanded  the  admiration  of  mankind 
have  claftus  like  these  to  their  applause.  Courage  and  sagacity  can 
dignify  any  man,  whatever  be  his  cause  ;  they  can  ennoble  a  wretch 
like  Tilly,  while  he  fights  the  battles  of  a  Ferdinand.  It  is  not 
always  that  these  great  endowments  are  so  united  with  other  high 
qualities  as  to  present  to  the  historian  at  once  a  Christian,  a  soldier, 
and  a  statesman ;  yet  such  was  Gustavus  Adolphus,  a  hero  deserving 
the  name,  perfectly  distinguishable  from  those  who  have  assumed  the 
honors  that  belong  to  it,  the  mihtary  executioners  with  whom  every 
age  has  been  infested. 


224  LECTURE  xni. 

The  life  of  this  extraordinary  man  has  been  written  by  Mr.  Harte, 
with  great  activity  of  research,  and  a  scrupulous  examination  of  his 
materials,  which  are  understood  to  be  the  best,  though  they  are  not 
sufficiently  particularized.  The  book  will  disappoint  the  reader : 
^Ir.  Harte  writes  often  with  singularly  bad  taste,  and  never  with 
any  masterly  display  of  his  subject ;  but  it  may  be  compared  with 
Coxe,  and  must  be  considered. 

The  great  question  which  it  is  necessary  for  the  fame  of  Gustavus 
should  be  settled  in  his  favor  is  the  invasion  of  Germany.  Sweden, 
the  country  of  which  he  was  king,  could,  at  the  time,  furnish  for  the 
enterprise  only  her  two  great  products,  "  iron  and  man,  the  soldier 
and  his  sword  "  ;  and  with  these,  a  leader  like  Gustavus,  some  cen- 
turies before,  might  have  disposed  of  Europe  at  his  pleasure  ;  but, 
happily  for  mankind,  the  invention  of  gunpowder  and  the  progress  of 
science  had  made  war  a  question,  not  merely  of  physical  force,  but 
of  expense.  The  surplus  produce  of  the  land  and  labor  of  the 
snowy  regions  of  Sweden  was  Httle  fitted  to  support  a  large  miUtary 
estabhshment  either  at  home  or  abroad,  little  fitted  to  contend  witn 
the  resources  of  the  house  of  Austria.  It  was,  therefore,  very  nat- 
ural for  the  counsellors  of  Gustavus  to  represent  strongly  to  their 
sove];eign  the  expenses  of  a  war  on  the  Continent,  the  great  power 
of  the  emperor,  and  the  reasonableness  of  supposing  that  the  Ger- 
man electors  were  themselves  the  best  judges  of  the  alfafrs  of  the 
Empire,  and  the  best  able  to  vindicate  their  own  civil  and  religious 
liberties. 

But  it  was  clear,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  power  of  the  house 
of  Austria,  which  had  already  distantly  menaced,  might  soon  be  en- 
abled to  oppress,  the  civil  and  rehgious  Hberties  of  Sweden  ;  it  was 
impossible  to  separate  the  interests  of  that  kingdom  from  those  of  the 
Protestant  princes  of  Germany  ;  and  therefore  the  only  question 
that  remained  was,  whether  Gustavus  should  come  forward  as  a 
leader  of  the  combination  against  Ferdinand  the  Second,  or  wait  to 
be  called  in,  and  join  the  general  cause  as  an  auxiliary. 

Now  the  prince  who  was  naturally  the  head  of  the  Protestant 
union  was  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  a  prince  whose  politics  and  con- 
duct at  the  time  could  awaken,  in  the  minds  of  good  men,  only 
contempt  and  abhorrence.  If,  therefore,  no  one  interfered,  and  that 
immediately,  all  was  lost ;  and  the  very  want  of  a  princij^)al,  and 
the  very  hopelessness  of  the  Protestant  cause,  must  have  been  the 
very  arguments  that  weighed  most  with  a  prince  like  Gustavus, 
and  were,  indeed,  the  very  arguments  that  would  have  influenced 
an  impartial  reasoner,  at  the  time,  in  favor  of  this  great  attempt, 
provided  the  abilities  of  Gustavus  were  clearly  of  a  commanding 
nature. 

On  this  last  supposition,  it  must  also  be  allowed  that  the  case, 
when  examined,   supplied  many  important  probabilities   to    couo- 


THE   THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  225 

tenance  the  enterprise.  Speculations  of  this  kind  jou  should  in- 
dulge as  much  as  possible,  while  you  are  engaged  in  historical  pur 
suits  ;  it  is  the  difference  between  reading  history  and  studying  it. 

After  all,  it  is  often  for  genius  to  justify  its  own  projects  by 
their  execution ;  and  such  may,  if  necessary,  be  the  defence  of 
Gustavus. 

If  any  war  can  be  generous  and  just,  it  is  that  waged  by  a  combi- 
nation of  smaller  states  against  a  greater  in  defence  of  their  civil  and 
religious  liberty.  Such  was  the  contest  in  which  Gustavus  was  to 
engage.  Nothing,  therefore,  could  be  wanting  to  him  but  success. 
He  .won  it  by  his  virtues  and  capacity,  and  his  name  has  been  justly 
consecrated  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

It  sometimes  happens,  that,  when  the  master  hand  is  removed,  the 
machine  stops,  or  its  movements  run  into  incurable  disorder ;  but 
Gustavus  was  greater  than  great  men  :  when  Gustavus  perished,  his 
cause  did  not  perish  with  him.  The  mortal  part  of  the  hero  lay 
covered  with  honorable  wounds  and  breathless  in  the  plains  of  Liit- 
zen  ;  but  his  genius  still  lived  in  the  perfect  soldiers  he  had  created, 
the  great  generals  he  had  formed,  the  wise  minister  he  had  employ- 
ed, and  the  senate  and  people  of  Sweden,  whom  he  had  elevated  to 
his  own  high  sense  of  honor  and  duty.  Neither  his  generals,  his  sol- 
diers, his  minister,  nor  his  people,  were  found  so  unworthy  of  their 
sovereign  as  to  be  daunted  by  his  loss,  and  they  were  not  to  be  de- 
terred from  the  prosecution  of  the  great  cause  which  he  had  be- 
queathed them.  The  result  was,  that  sixteen  years  afterwards,  at 
the  peace  of  Westphaha,  Sweden  was  a  leading  power  in  the  general 
settlement  of  the  interests  of  Europe  ;  and  if  Gustavus  had  yet 
lived,  he  would  have  seen  the  very  ground  on  which  he  first  landed, 
with  only  fourteen  thousand  men  to  oppose  the  numerous  and  regular 
armies  of  the  house  of  Austria,  publicly  ceded  to  his  crown,  the 
power  of  that  tyrannical  and  bigoted  family  confessedly  humbled, 
and  the  independence  and  religion  of  his  own  kingdom  sufficiently 
provided  for  in  the  emancipation  and  safety  of  the  Protestant  princes 
of  Germa,ny. 

In  considering  the  reign  and  merits  of  Gustavus,  our  attention 
may  be  properly  directed  to  the  following  points  :  —  the  invasion  of 
Germany,  the  improvements  which  the  king  made  in  the  military  art, 
the  means  whereby  he  could  support  his  armies,  the  causes  of  his 
success,  his  conduct  after  the  victory  of  Leipsic,  his  management  of 
men  and  of  the  circumstances  of  his  situation,  his  private  virtues  and 
public  merits,  his  tolerance,  and  the  nature  of  his  ambition,  —  how 
far  it  was  altered  by  his  victories,  —  the  service  he  rendered  Europe. 
Much  assistance  is  contained,  rather  than  presented  to  the  reader,  m 
the  work  of  Harte. 

The  history  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  has  been  written  by  Schil- 
ler ;  and  vhen  this  era  has  been  considered  in  the  more  simple  and 
29 


226  LECTURE  Xm. 

regular  historians,  the  performance  of  this  celebrated  writer  may  be 
perused,  not  only  with  great  entertainment,  but  with  some  advantage. 
Indeed,  any  work  by  Schiller  must  naturally  claim  our  perusal ;  but 
neither  is  his  account  so  intelligible  nor  are  his  opinions  so  just  as 
those  of  our  own  historian,  Coxe. 

The  extraordinary  character  of  Wallenstein  —  the  great  general 
who  could  alone  be  opposed  by  Ferdinand  to  Gustavus  —  was  sure 
to  catch  the  fancy  of  a  German  dramatist  like  Schiller.  Here,  for 
once,  were  realized  all  the  darling  images  of  the  scene  :  mystery 
without  any  possible  solution ;  energy  more  than  human,  magnifi- 
cence without  bounds,  distinguished  capacity  ;  gloom,  silence,  and 
terror ;  injuries  and  indignation  ;  nothing  ordinary,  nothing  rational ; 
and  at  last,  probably  a  conspiracy,  and,  at  least,  an  assassination. 

The  campaigns  of  Gustavus,  and  the  military  part  of  his  history, 
will  be  found  more  than  usually  interesting.  Coxe  has  labored  this 
portion  of  the  narrative  with  great  diligence,  and,  as  he  evidently 
thinks,  with  great  success. 

We  are  now  arrived  at  the  conclusion  of  our  subject,  and  I  have 
been  obliged  to  refer  to  such  large  masses  of  historical  reading,  and 
mu.«^  have  left  so  many  spaces  unoccupied  in  the  minds  of  my  hear- 
ers, that  I  think  it  best  to  stop  and  recall  to  your  observation  the 
steps  of  our  progress,  and  advert  to  the  leading  points. 

The  whole  of  our  present  subject,  then,  should,  I  think,  be  sepa- 
rated into  the  following  great  divisions :  —  First,  we  are  to  examine 
-he  contest  between  the  Roman  Catholics  and  the  Reformers,  from 
the  breaking  out  of  the  Reformation  to  the  peace  of  Passau.  Then, 
the  provisions  of  that  peace.  Next,  the  causes  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  —  which  were,  first,  the  conduct  of  the  Protestant  states  and 
princes,  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic,  from  the  death  of  Charles  the 
Fifth,  and  their  impolitic  and  fatal  intolerance  of  each  other ;  sec- 
ondly, the  conduct  of  the  princes  of  the  house  of  Austria,  Ferdijand 
the  First,  Maximilian,  Rodolph,  Matthias,  and  Ferdinand  the  Second, 
more  particularly  their  intolerance  to  their  subjects  in  Bohemia  and 
Hungary.  Then,  the  peculiar  circumstances  in  consequence  of 
which  the  cause  of  the  Bohemians  and  the  oppressed  subjects  of  the 
house  of  Austria  became  at  length  the  cause  of  the  Refoniiation  in 
Germany,  and  the  Elector  Palatine  the  hero  of  it.  Next,  the  misfor- 
tunes of  that  prince.  Then,  the  interference  and  character  of  the  re- 
nowned Gustavus  Adolphus,  the  great  and  efficient  hero  of  that  cause, 
and  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  at  which  we  thus  arrive.  Then,  the 
campaigns  between  him  and  the  celebrated  generals  (Tilly  and  oth- 
ers) employed  by  the  Austrian  family,  which  form  a  new  point  of 
interest.  Again,  the  continuance  of  the  contest  after  his  death, 
under  the  generals  and  soldiers  he  had  formed,  which  becomes 
another.  And  in  this  manner  we  are  conducted  to  the  settlement  of 
the  civil  and  religious  differences  of  Germany  by  the  treaty  of  West- 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  227 

rlialia,  more  than  one  hundred  years  after  the  first  appearance  of 
Luther,  which  treaty  is  thus  left  as  the  remaining  object  of  our  curi- 
osity and  examination,  for  it  is  the  termination  of  the  whole  subject. 

This  celebrated  treaty  has  always  been  the  study  of  those  who 
wish  to  understand  the  history  of  Europe,  and  the  different  views  and 
systems  of  its  component  powers  and  states.  There  are  references 
in  Coxe  sufficient  to  direct  the  inquiries  of  those  who  are  desirous  of 
examining  it.  But  during  the  late  calamities  of  Europe,  after  being 
an  olDJect  of  the  greatest  attention  for  a  century  and  a  half,  it*  has 
shared  the  fate  of  every  thing  human ;  it  has  passed  through  its  ap- 
pointed period  of  existence,  and  is  now  no  more.  As  a  great  record, 
however,  in  the  history  of  Europe,  —  as  a  great  specimen  of  what 
human  nature  is,  when  acting  amid  its  larger  and  more  important 
concerns,  it  must  ever  remain  a  subject  of  interest  to  the  politician 
and  philosopher.  This  treaty  was  the  final  adjustment  of  the  civil 
and  religious  disputes  of  a  century. 

In  examining  the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  the  first  inquiry  is  with  re- 
spect to  its  ecclesiastical  provisions. 

After  the  Reformation  had  once  begun,  the  first  effort  of  the  Prot- 
estants was  to  put  themselves  into  a  state  of  respect,  and  to  get 
themselves  acknowledged  by  the  laws  of  the  Empire.  In  this  they 
succeeded  at  the  peace  of  Passau. 

But  the  Ecclesiastical  Reservation,  as  I  have  before  mentioned,  had 
then  ordained,  that,  if  a  Roman  Catholic  turned  Protestant,  his  bene- 
fice should  be  lost  to  him.  Truth,  therefore,  had  no  equal  chance  ; 
a  serious  impediment  was  thrown  in  the  way,  not  only  of  conviction, 
but  of  all  avowal  of  conviction,  and  even  of  all  religious  inquiry. 
For  with  what  candor,  with  what  ardor,  was  any  ecclesiastic  to  in- 
quire, when  the  result  of  his  inquiry  might  be,  that  he  would  have  to 
lose,  not  only  his  situation  in  society,  but  his  accustomed  means  of 
subsistence  ?  This  point,  however,  could  never  be  carried  by  the 
Protestants. 

The  Roman  Catholics  considered  the  Reservation  as  the  bulwark 
of  their  faith,  and  found  no  difficulty  in  persuading  the  people,  and 
more  particularly  the  rulers  of  the  people,  that  their  cause  was  the 
cause  of  all  true  religion  and  good  government.  At  the  peace  of 
Westphalia,  therefore,  it  was  agreed,  that,  if  a  CathoUc  turned  Prot- 
estant, he  should  lose  his  benefice  as  before,  and  the  same  if  a  Prot- 
estant turned  Catholic.  But  it  will  be  observed,  that  to  make  the 
last  provision  was,  in  fact,  to  do  nothing ;  for  the  Protestant  was  the 
invading  sect.  There  was  no  chance  of  the  Protestant's  turning 
Roman  Catholic,  and  the  only  question  of  practical  importance  was, 
whether  the  Catholic  might  be  allowed  to  open  his  eyes,  and,  if  he 
thought  good,  turn  Protestant,  without  suffering  in  his  fortunes ;  this 
he  could  not.     The  eyes  of  the  Protestant  were  already  opened. 

The  great  cause,  therefore,  of  religious  inquiry  at  least  (there  was, 


228  LECTURE  Xm. 

no  doubt,  a  great  difficulty  in  the  case)  failed,  —  but  not  entirely. 
For  the  inroads  that  the  Protestants  had  made  on  the  Catholic  eccle- 
siastical property,  during  the  first  century  of  the  Reformation,  down, 
for  instance,  to  the  year  1624,  were  not  inconsiderable ;  and  in  the 
possessions  which  they  had  thus  obtained  they  were  not  to  be  dis- 
turbed. A  certain  progress,  —  an  important  progress,  —  was  there- 
fore made  and  secured. 

Again,  what  is  very  remarkable,  the  civil  rights  of  the  Protestants, 
their  equality  with  their  CathoHc  brethren  on  all  public  occasions,  in 
the  Diet  and  other  tribunals,  were  allowed.  This  was  an  important 
victory ;  far  more  than  inferior  sects  have  always  been  able  to  ob- 
tain, —  more  than  they  have  obtained,  for  instance,  in  our  own  coun- 
try ;  far  more  than  can  be  accounted  for  by  any  influence  which 
moderation  and  good  sense  could  have  had  upon  the  contending 
parties. 

Another  result  took  place :  the  Calvinists  and  Lutherans  contrived 
at  last  to  consider  themselves  as  one  body,  whose  business  it  was, 
during  the  negotiations  of  the  peace  and  ever  after,  to  provide  for 
their  common  security,  while  equally  resisting  the  authority  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  This,  too,  was  an  important  victory,  —  a  victory 
which  the  two  sects  obtained,  not  over  their  enemies,  but  over  them- 
selves ;  partly  in  consequence  of  their  past  sufferings  ;  still  more  from 
the  influence  of  their  own  worldly  politics  ;  above  all,  from  the  master 
interference  of  France,  whose  ministers,  equally  disregarding  the  dis- 
tinctions between  Lutheran  and  Calvinist,  and  the  cause  of  Protestant 
and  Papist,  wished  only  to  subdue  the  house  of  Austria,  and  to  com* 
bine  and  manage  every  party  so  as  to  produce  this  grand  effect, 
the  object  of  all  their  politics,  —  the  humihation  of  the  house  of 
Austria. 

The  future  progress  of  religious  truth  seems  to  have  been  but 
loosely  provided  for.  A  prince  was  allowed  to  change  or  reform  the 
religion  of  his  dominions  in  all  cases  not  limited  by  the  treaty  or 
settled  by  antecedent  compact  with  the  subject.  The  truth  is,  that 
a  question  like  this  last  was  too  delicate  to  be  adjusted  by  any  formal 
ordinance  in  an  age  of  religious  wars,  or  indeed  in  any  age. 

The  general  principle  adopted  by  the  treaty  seems  to  have  been, 
to  confirm  every  thing  in  the  state  in  which  it  was  left  by  the  year 
1.624,  —  an  arrangement  that  must,  on  the  whole,  be  considered 
favorable  to  the  Protestants,  far  more  so  than  could  have  been  ex- 
pected, if  we  reflect  on  their  own  unfortunate  intolerance  of  each 
other,  and  the  difficulty,  at  all  times,  of  sustaining  a  combination  of 
smaller  powers  against  a  greater. 

The  great  gainer  in  this  contest  was  France ;  the  great  sufferer, 
the  house  of  Austria.  The  grandeur  of  the  one  was  advanced,  and  the 
ambition  of  the  other  was  for  ever  humbled.  A  combination  against 
the  house  of  Austria  had  been  long  carried  oh  with  more  or  less 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  229 

regularity  and  effect,  but  chiefly  by  the  influence  of  France.  The 
result  of  this  united  eifort  was  seen  in  the  peace  of  Westphalia. 

It  is  painful  to  think  that  the  establishment  of  the  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberties  of  Germany  was  owing,  not  to  the  generous,  rational, 
steady  resistance  of  the  Protestant  princes,  but  much  more  to  the 
anxiety  of  France  to  depress  the  house  of  Austria  ;  and  again,  to  the 
check  which  that  house  of  Austria  continually  experienced  to  its  de- 
signs, and  was  still  likely  to  experience,  from  the  arms  of  the  Otto- 
man princes.  In  this  manner  it  happened,  that,  for  the  religious 
part  of  the  great  treaty  of  Westphalia,  for  such  toleration,  good 
sense,  and  Christianity  as  are  to  be  found  there,  mankind  were,  after 
all,  indebted  principally  to  such  strange  propagators  of  the  cause  of 
truth  and  free  inquiry  as  Richelieu  and  the  Mahometans. 

By  the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  the  apprehensions  which  Europe  had 
80  long  entertained  of  the  power  of  the  house  of  Austria  were,  as  I 
Lave  just  mentioned  to  you,  removed.  But  it  is  the  great  misfortune 
of  mankind,  that  the  balance  is  no  sooner  restored  by  the  diminishing 
of  one  exorbitant  power  than  it  is  again  in  danger  by  the  preponder- 
ancy  of  another.  From  this  epoch  of  the  peace  of  Westphalia,  the 
real  power  to  be  dreaded  was  no  longer  the  house  of  Austria,  but 
France ;  and  the  ambition  of  her  cabinets,  the  compactness  of  her 
possessions,  the  extent  of  her  resources,  and  the  genius  of  her  people 
soon  converted  into  the  enemy  of  the  happiness  of  the  world  that 
very  nation  which  at  the  peace  of  Westphalia  appeared,  and  but  ap- 
peared^ in  the  honorable  character  of  the  protectress  of  the  civil  and 
religious  liberties  of  Germany,  and  the  mediatrix  of  the  dissensions 
of  a  century. 

In  the  Empire,  the  different  states  and  princes  were  now  more  pro- 
tected than  before  from  the  emperor,  but  they  were  not  harmonized 
into  a  whole,  nor  was  it  possible  that  a  number  of  petty  sovereigns 
should  be  influenced  by  any  general  principle.  It  was  impossible 
that  they  should  either  form  themselves  into  any  limited  monarchy, 
or  fall  into  any  system,  which,  however  it  might  have  advanced  the 
substantial  greatness  of  all,  would  have  diminished  the  personal 
splendor  and  fancied  importance  of  each  individual  potentate.  They 
therefore  continued  in  their  common  form  of  union  and  law,  and  en- 
deavoured to  maintain  the  independence  of  the  several  princes  and 
states  by  a  league  for  their  common  interest ;  but  this  league  could 
not  possibly  be  made  sufficiently  binding  and  effective  to  secure  that 
common  interest,  while  they  were  exposed  to  the  practices  of  foreign 
intrigue,  not  only  from  their  situation,  but  from  the  improvident  self- 
ishness which  belongs  as  well  to  states  as  to  individuals.  Thus  it 
happened,  that  France,  or  any  other  power,  found  it  easy  at  all  times 
to  convert  a  portion  of  the  strength  of  Germany  to  its  own  purposes. 
Thus  it  happened  that  this  immense  division  of  the  most  civilized  por- 
tion of  the  world  never  rose  to  that  external  consequence,  and  what 

T 


230  LECTURE  Xni. 

is  more,  never  to  that  state  of  internal  improvement  and  happiness, 
which,  mider  favorable  circumstances,  it  might  certainly  have  real- 
ized. 

I  must  now  make  two  general  observations,  and  conclude  :  first,  on 
the  house  of  Austria ;  secondly,  on  the  peace  of  Westphalia. 

There  is  no  pleasure  in  reading  the  history  of  these  princes  of  the 
house  of  Austria.  At  the  most  critical  period  of  the  world  they 
were  the  greatest  impediments  to  its  improvement ;  every  resistance 
possible  was  made  to  the  Reformation  by  Charles  the  Fifth.  Phihp 
the  Second  is  proverbial  for  his  tyranny  and  bigotry.  If  we  turn 
from  the  Spanish  to  the  German  line  of  this  house,  we  see  nothing, 
except  in  one  instance  (that  of  Maximilian),  but  the  most  blind  and 
unfeeling  hostility  to  the  civil  and  religious  rights  of  mankind.  In 
this  line  ar^  numbered  Ferdinand  the  First,  Maximilian,  Rodolph, 
Matthias.  Ferdinand  the  First  we  see  always  employed  in  tyrannic 
ing  over  his  kingdoms  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia.  In  his  measures 
we  can  discern  only  the  most  continued  violation  of  every  principle 
which  should  animate  a  legislator.  Instead  of  rational  attempts  to 
train  up  the  bold  privileges  of  a  rude  people  into  some  political  sys- 
tem, properly  modified  and  adapted  to  the  dispensation  of  more  se- 
cure and  practical  freedom,  we  see  force  and  fury,  and  command  and 
authority,  and  all  the  machinery  of  harsh  and  arbitrary  government, 
drawn  out  and  employed  to  harass,  subjugate,  and  destroy  a  spirited 
people,  —  a  people  that  deserved  a  better  fate,  by  no  means  incapa- 
ble of  attachment  to  their  rulers,  and  perfectly  susceptible  of  a  sin- 
cere and  ardent  devotion  to  their  Creator. 

Was  there  any  worldly  policy  in  such  outrages  and  injustice  ?  In- 
stead of  aifectionate  and  zealous  subjects,  to  be  interposed  between 
the  dearest  possessions  of  the  house  of  Austria  and  the  Turks,  men 
were  to  be  seen  ever  ready  only  to  break  out  into  insurrection  (mu- 
tinous chiefs),  rebels  to  the  power  of  the  crown,  candidates  for  the 
crown  itself,  —  men  who  were  the  sources  of  terror  and  embarrassment 
to  the  Empire,  not  its  defenders,  or  the  guardians  of  the  general 
security  and  repose. 

Nothing  better  can  be  said  of  Rodolph  the  Second  and  Matthias ; 
and  Ferdinand  the  Second,  under  whom  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
broke  out,  was,  as  nearly  as  human  bigotry  and  tyranny  would  ad- 
mit, the  very  counterpart  of  Philip  the  Second  of  Spain.  Men  like 
these  should  be  pointed  out  in  history  to  statesmen  and  to  sovereigns, 
as  examples  cf  all  that  they  should  in  their  public  capacities  avoid, 
not  imitate.  And  this  lesson  is  the  more  important,  because  these 
princes  were  not  only  men  of  princely  virtues,  of  elevation  of  mind 
in  adversity,  of  patience  and  of  fortitude,  and  of  great  attention  to 
business,  but  men  of  very  sincere,  though  mistaken,  piety  ;  Ferdi- 
nand the  Second,  more  particularly,  while  his  pubhc  conduct  ex- 
hibited the  most  unprincipled  lust  of  power  and  the  most  unfeeling 


THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  231 

bigotry,  was  in  private  life  the  best  of  fathers,  of  husbands,  and  of 
masters  ;  and  whenever  the  religion  of  mercy  was  not  concerned, 
was  merciful  and  forgiving. 

My  second  observation  is  connected  with  the  treaty  of  Westphalia, 
and  relates  to  the  general  condition  and  progress  of  the  rehgious  and 
political  happiness  of  mankind.  What  is  the  history  of  that  religious 
and  political  happiness,  the  history  as  here  presented  to  us,  in  this 
final  adjustment  by  the  peace  of  Westphalia  ?     Consider  it. 

A  spirit  of  religious  inquiry  had  been  excited  in  a  monk  of  Wit- 
tenberg ;  and  so  prepared  had  been  mankind  at  the  time,  that  this 
spirit  had  passed  from  his  closet  and  solitary  thoughts  into  the  cabi- 
nets and  the  councils,  the  mind  and  the  feelings,  of  Europe.  What, 
then,  was  at  last  the  result  ?  What  were  the  provisions  of  the  treaty 
of  Westphalia  ?  Did  not  the  cause  of  reason  and  of  truth  every- 
where prevail,  and  was  not  a  new  profession  of  rehgious  faith  every- 
where the  consequence  ?     Not  so. 

Again,  a  great  family  had  arisen  in  Europe,  arbitrary  and  am- 
.bitious,  —  the  family  of  the  house  of  Austria.  Did  not  all  the  states 
and  powers  whose  interests  could  be  aifected  instantly  unite  in  a 
common  cause,  and,  without  difficulty,  restrain  and  diminish  the 
power  of  this  universal  enemy  ?  Not  exactly  so ;  not  with  such 
readiness,  not  with  such  ease. 

Again,  the  whole  regions  of  Germany  were  parcelled  out  among  a 
number  of  cities  and  states,  of  princes  and  powers,  ecclesiastical  and 
secular.  Did  not  the  different  parts  and  members  of  a  system  so 
unfitted  for  mutual  advancement  and  strength  coalesce  into  some 
general  form,  some  great  limited  monarchy,  which  might  have  pro- 
tected the  whole,  not  only  from  themselves,  but  from  the  great  mon- 
archies of  France  and  Spain  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Turkish  arms 
on  the  other  ?     Not  so.' 

In  answer  to  all  such  inquiries,  it  must  be  confessed  that  the 
affairs  of  mankind  cannot  be  made  to  run  in  these  regular  channels, 
or  their  jarring  interests  and  prejudices  be  moulded  into  the  con- 
venient and  beautiful  forms  which  a  philosophic  mind  might  readily 
propose.  Some  effort,  some  approximation  to  a  reasonable  conduct 
in  mankind,  is  generally  visible  ;  a  struggle  between  light  and  dark- 
ness ;  from  time  to  time  an  amelioration,  an  improvement,  —  at  the 
period  of  the  Reformation,  for  instance,  —  no  doubt,  an  advance 
most  distinct  and  important ;  the  seeds  of  human  prosperity,  after 
each  renovation  of  the  soil,  somewhat  more  plentifully  scattered ;  the 
harvests  continually  less  and  less  overpowered  by  the  tares.  All 
this  is  discernible  as  we  journey  down  the  great  tract  of  history,  and 
more  than  this  is  perhaps  but  seldom  to  be  perceived. 

But  what,  then,  is  the  practical  conclusion  from  the  whole  ?  That 
the  virtue  of  those  men  is  only  the  greater,  who,  in  the  midst  of  dif- 
ficulty and  discouragement,  labor  much,  though  they  have  been 


232  LECTURE  XIV, 

taught  by  reading,  reflection,  and  perhaps  experience,  to  expect  but 
little  ;  who,  whatever  may  be  the  failures  of  themselves  or  others  in 
their  endeavours  to  serve  their  fellow-creatures,  are  neither  depressed 
into  torpor,  nor  exasperated  into  misanthropy  ;  who  take  care  to  de- 
serve success,  but  who  do  not  think  that  success  is  necessary  to  their 
merit ;  who  fix  their  eyes  steadily  on  the  point  of  duty,  and  never 
cease,  according  to  the  measure  of  the  talents  with  which  they  are 
intrusted  by  their  Creator,  to  unite  their  efforts  and  embark  their 
strength  in  the  great  and  constant  cause  of  wise  and  good  men,  the 
advancement  of  the  knowledge  and  the  virtue,  that  is,  in  other 
words,  of  the  happiness,  of  their  speCies. 


LECTURE    XIY. 

HENRY  THE    EIGHTH.  — ELIZABETH.— JAMES  THE 
FIRST.  —  CHARLES   THE   FIRST. 

We  must  now  turn  to  England.  During  the  reign  of  a  prince  so 
respected  for  his  courage  and  understanding,  and  so  tyrannical  in  his 
nature,  as  Henry  the  Eighth,  in  the  interval  between  the  decline  of 
the  aristocracy  and  the  rise  of  the  commons,  the  constitution  of  Eng- 
land seems  to  have  been  exposed  to  the  most  extreme  danger ;  and 
if  Henry  had  lived  longer,  or  if  his  successor  had  resembled  him  in 
capacity  and  disposition,  this  island,  like  France,  might  have  lost  its 
liberties  for  ever. 

It  appears  that  the  slavish  submission  of  Parliaments  had  proceed- 
ed, at  length,  to  allow  to  the  proclamations  of  the  king  an  autliority 
which,  notwithstanding  the  remarkable  limitations  annexed  to  it, 
might  eventually  have  been  extended,  in'  practice,  to  the  destruction 
of  all  other  authority  in  the  realm.  It  is  true  that  this  act  was  not 
obtained  till  the  thirty-first  of  his  reign,  and  within  a  few  years  of 
his  death ;  but  in  about  ten  years  after  his  accession,  it  appeai-s  from 
Lord  Herbert,  who  wrote  a  life  of  him,  that  he  had  "  caused  a 
general  muster  or  description  to  be  made  of  all  his  kingdom ;  com- 
manding that  they  should  certify,  &c.,  the  yearly  value  of  every 
man's  land ;  as  also  the  stock  on  the  lands,  and  who  was  owner  there- 
of, &c. ;  also  the  value  and  substance  of  every  person  being  above 
sixteen  years  old."  (Herbert,  p.  122,  ann.  1522.)  In  consequence 
whereof  he  demanded  a  loan,  &c.,  from  his  subjects,  not  fresh  sup- 
plies from  the  Commons ;  so  that  the  intentions  of  the  king  and 
his  Council  were  sufiiciently  clear. 


HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.  233 

But  there  can  be  no  stronger  testimony  to  the  right  of  the  houses 
of  Parliament  to  tax,  or  rather  to  concur  in  the  taxation  of  the  peo- 
ple, than  the  result  of  the  utmost  efforts  of  the  king  and  Cardinal 
Wolsej  to  obtain  money  without  their  sanction.  "  Ail  which  extra- 
ordinary  ways  of  furnishing  the  present  necessities,"  says  the  his- 
torian, "  yet  ended  in  a  Parliament  the  next  year."  *  In  this  next 
year,  it  seems,  the  cardinal  himself  personally  interfered  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  the  particulars  are  very  curious.  On  the  whole,  the 
king,  as  it  afterwards  appeared,  could  direct  and  limit  the  Reforma- 
tion at  his  will,  —  could  manage  at  his  pleasure  the  morality  and  re- 
ligion of  the  commons,  but  not  their  property. 

In  1525,  an  attempt  was  made  once  more  to  raise  money  without 
Parliament.  But  the  people  showed  the  spirit  of  Englishmen ;  for, 
while  they  pleaded  their  own  poverty,  they  alleged,  in  the  first 
place,  "  that  these  commissions  were  against  the  law  "  (Herbert,  p. 
162)  ;  and  the  king  at  last  disavowed  the  whole  proceedings,  "  and 
by  letters,"  says  the  historian,  "  sent  through  all  the  counties  of 
England,  declared  he  would  have  nothing  of  them  but  by  way  of 
benevolence."  Even  with  respect  to  the  benevolence,  the  narrative, 
as  given  by  Herbert,  is  curious  ;  still  more  so,  when  a  benevolence 
was  again  tried,  and  again  clearly  resisted,  in  1544.  Opposition  was 
constantly  made,  though  the  judges  authorized  this  expedient  in  the 
former  instance,  and  though,  in  the  latter.  Read,  a  magistrate  of  the 
city,  who  refused  compliance,  was,  by  a  great  outrage,  sent  to  serve 
in  the  wars  against  the  Scots,  and  treated  in  a  manner  perfectly 
atrocious.  It  always  appears  that  it  was  necessary  to  have  recourse 
to  Parliament,  and  the  king  in  his  last  words,  though  the  most  de- 
cided and  detestable  of  tyrants,  "  thanked  them,  because  they  had, 
freely  of  their  own  minds,  granted  to  him  a  certain  subsidy." 
Slavish,  therefore,  and  base  as  these  Parliaments  were,  the  members 
of  them  did  not  entirely  forfeit  the  character  of  Englishmen. 

With  respect,  however,  to  the  great  point  of  the  very  existence  of 
our  legislative  assemblies,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that,  from  the  violent, 
cruel,  and  unprincipled  measures  into  which  Henry  was  so  repeat- 
edly hurried,  he  had  continually  to  apply  to  his  Parliaments,  which 
kept  up  the  use  of  them  at  this  most  critical  era  in  our  constitution. 
In  France,  on  the  contrary,  Francis  the  First  could  always  contrive 
to  do  without  his  national  assemblies  ;  a  circumstance  which  most 

*  In  the  previous  editions  of  these  Lectures,  both  English  and  American,  tho  pas- 
sage here  quoted  stands  as  follows  :  —  "  All  which  extraordinary  ways  of  ^finishing  the 
present  usurpatio7is  ended  in  a  Parliament  the  next  year."  We  may  unhesitatingly 
affirm  that  Professor  Smyth  could  not  have  consciously  substituted  expressions  of  so 
widely  different  import  from  the  original,  —  if,  indeed,  the  sentence  as  altered  can  be 
said  to  have  any  intelligible  meaning.  That  he  in  fact  wrote  as  in  the  text,  and  that 
the  alteration  was  purely  an  error  of  the  press,  we  can  hardly  doubt,  when  we  con- 
sider the  manuscript  form  of  the  words  here  changed,  and  the  ambiguous  appear- 
ance which  they  might  easily  have  assumed  in  cursory  writing.  —  N. 

30  T* 


234  LECTURE  XIV. 

unhappily,  and  most  materially,  contributed  to  their  decline  and 
fall. 

In  England,  on  the  death  of  Henry,  the  real  nature  of  the  con- 
stitution was  immediately  shown.  The  very  first  years  of  the  minor- 
ity of  his  son,  Edward  the  Sixth,  produced  repeals  of  those  acta 
which  had  violated  the  acknowledged  liberties  of  the  country.  But 
a  bad  minister  could  so  impose  upon  the  excellent  nature  even  of 
Edward  the  Sixth,  as  to  cause  him  to  issue,  at  the  close  of  his  reign, 
a  proclamation  intended  to  influence  the  election  of  members  of  Par- 
liament ;  a  precedent  which  was  sure  to  be  followed  by  such  a  prin- 
cess as  Mary,  and  afterwards,  though  probably  with  less  ill  intention, 
by  James  the  First.  So  innumerable  are  the  perils  to  which  the  lib- 
erties of  the  subject  are  always  exposed. 

I  hasten  to  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  "  In  order  to  understand," 
says  Mr.  Hume,  "  the  ancient  constitution  of  England,  there  is  not  a 
period  which  deserves  more  to  be  studied  than  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth." And  it  happens,  that  there  can  be  no  period  of  our  history 
which  may  be  m'ore  thoroughly  studied. "  Camden  has  written  her 
life.  There  are  very  valuable  collections  of  letters  and  papers ;  you 
may  trace  them  in  the  references  of  Hume  and  Rapin ;  and  many 
curious  and  amusing,  and  sometimes  important,  particulars  have 
been  lately  drawn  from  these  sources  and  presented  to  the  ordinary 
reader  in  a  very  agreeable  and  sensible  manner  by  Miss  Aikin, 
in  her  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  It  is,  how- 
ever, the  constitutional  part  of  this  history  alone  that  I  can  myself 
allude  to. 

Hume,  after  making  the  remark  I  have  alluded  to,  proceeds  to 
state  the  very  arbitrary  nature  of  the  constitution,  as  exhibited  in 
the  conduct  and  maxims  of  that  queen,  and  of  the  ministers  at  that 
time.  On  the  whole,  he  makes  out  a  strong  case  to  show  the  exist- 
ence of  such  tribunals,  such  principles,  and  such  practices,  as  seem 
in  themselves  totally  inconsistent  with  all  civil  freedom,  however 
qualified  the  idea  which  we  should  affix  to  the  term. 

But  this  reign,  it  must  on  the  other  hand  be  remembered,  not  only 
exhibits  (as  Hume  endeavours  to  prove)  the  strength  and  extent  of 
the  royal  prerogative,  but  also  unveils  and  shows,  though  at  a  dis- 
tance, all  those  more  popular  principles  which  equally  belonged  to 
the  constitution  of  England,  and  all  those  reasonings  and  maxims, 
and  even  parties  and  descriptions  of  patriotism,  which  grew  up  after- 
wards into  such  visible  strength  and  form,  during  the  reigns  of  her 
successors,  James  and  Charles.  For  instance,  and  to  illustrate  both 
views  of  the  constitution,  —  the  arbitrary  and  the  popular  nature  of 
it,  —  whatever  concerned  the  royal  prerogative  was  considered  by 
EHzabeth  as  forbidden  ground,  and  she  included  within  this  descrip- 
tion, in  a  religious  age,  every  thing  that  related  to  the  management 
of  rehgion,  to  her  particular  courts,  and  to  the  succession  to  the 

t 


ELIZABETH.  235 

ci\>wn  ;  she  insisted,  in  her  own  words,  "  that  no  bills  touching  mat- 
ters of  state,  or  reformation  in  causes  ecclesiastical,  be  exhibited." 
(Cobbett,  p.  889.) 

This  will  give  you  some  idea  of  Hume's  view  of  the  reign,  and  of 
the  arbitrary  nature  of  it ;  and  certainly  it  is  quite  disgusting  to  ob- 
serve the  slavish  submission  of  some  of  the  greatest  men  that  our 
country  has  produced  to  the  authority  and  caprices  of  this  female 
sovereign,  —  the  manner  in  which  they  became  her  knights,  rather 
than  her  statesmen,  —  and  the  sort  of  scuffle  which  the  court  exhib- 
ited, between  men  of  the  first  capacities  and  highest  qualities,  for 
mere  patronage  and  power,  rather  than  for  any  worthier  objects  con- 
nected with  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  their  country  and  of 
mankind.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  and  in  opposition  to  the  views 
of  Hume,  it  must  be  remarked,  that,  from  the  nature  of  Elizabeth's 
pretensions  and  claims,  such  as  I  have  just  alluded  to,  it  certainly 
did  happen  that  the  members  of  the  Commons  did  often  offend  her 
by  their  words,  and  were  sometimes  brought  into  direct  collision  with 
her  supposed  authority  by  the  measures  they  proposed,  —  that  a  real 
struggle  ensued,  and  that  Elizabeth,  with  becoming  wisdom,  generally 
gave  way. 

On  the  whole,  all  the  particulars  that  make  up  the  constitutional 
history  of  this  reign  cannot,  in  a  lecture  like  this,  be  even  alluded  to ; 
nor  is  it  possible  that  any  one  can  acquire,  by  any  other  means  than 
the  perusal  of  the  history,  that  general  impression  which  the  whole 
conveys.  I  have,  therefore,  no  expedient  left,  but  to  endeavour  to 
give  some  specimen  of  the  whole  subject,  and  this  I  will,  therefore, 
now  attempt  to  do. 

I  select  for  that  purpose  the  speech  and  the  examination  of  Peter 
Wentworth  (there  were  two  of  them),  and  the  more  so,  because  you 
would  not,  unless  you  read  the  Parliamentary  proceedings,  sufficiently 
notice  these  singular  transactions.  Peter  Wentworth  was  a  Puritan  ; 
this  is  another  reason  why  I  should  draw  your  attention  to  them. 
You  should  learn  to  understand  the  character  of  the  Puritan  as  soon 
as  possible  ;  you  must  never  lose  sight  of  it,  while  reading  this  par- 
ticular portion  of  our  history.  Wentworth  was  one  of  the  most  in- 
trepid and  able  assertors  of  the  privileges  of  the  House,  and  being,  as 
I  have  just  said,  a  Puritan,  he  was  irresistibly  hurried  forward,  not 
only  by  a  regard  for  the  liberties  of  the  subject,  but  by  religious 
zeal.  Here,  therefore,  in  Wentworth,  we  have  immediately  pre- 
sented to  us  a  forerunner  of  the  Hampdens  and  Pyms,  and  in  Eliza- 
beth of  Charles,  the  great  actors  that  are  to  appear  in  the  ensuing 
scenes ;  and  there  is  little  or  no  difference  in  the  constitutiimal  points 
at  issue.     Observe,  then,  what  passed. 

Elizabeth,  after  stopping  and  controlling  the  debates  and  jurisdio' 
tion  of  the  House  on  different  occasions,  at  last  commissioned  the 
Speaker  to  declare,  in  consequence  of  a  bill  relatmg  to  rites  and 


236  LECTURE  XIV. 

ceremonies  in  the  Church  having  been  read  three  times,  that  it  was 
the  queen's  pleasure,  "  that,  from  henceforth,  no  bills  concerning  re- 
ligion should  be  preferred  or  received  into  this  House,  unless  the 
same  should  be  first  considered  and  approved  by  the  clergy." 

Wentworth,  and  indeed  other  members,  had  on  former  occasions 
not  been  wanting  to  the  duty  which  they  owed  their  country ;  but 
this  interference  of  the  queen  produced  from  him,  some  time  after- 
wards, a  speech  which  has  not  been  overlooked  by  Hume,  and  is  in 
every  respect  memorable.  Far  from  acquiescing  in  the  ideas  which 
Elizabeth  had  formed  of  the  prerogative  of  the  prince,  and  of  the 
duties  and  privileges  of  the  Parhament,  expressions  like  the  following 
are  to  be  found  in  his  harangue.  You  will  observe  the  mixture  of 
religious  and  patriotic  feelings.  "We  are  assembled  to  make,  or  ab- 
rogate, such  laws  as  may  be  to  the  chiefest  surety,  safe-keeping,  and 
enrichment  of  this  noble  realm  of  England I  do  think  it  ex- 
pedient to  open  the  commodities  [advantages]  that  grow  to  the  prince 
and  whole  state  by  free  speech  used  in  this  place."  This  he  pro- 
ceeded to  do  on  seven  different  grounds ;  and  he  concluded,  — 
"  That  in  this  house,  which  is  termed  a  place  of  free  speech,  there  is 
nothing  so  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  prince  and  state  as 
free  speech ;  and  without  this,  it  is  a  scorn  and  mockery  to  call  it  a 
Parhament  house,  for,  in  truth,  it  is  none,  but  a  very  school  of 
flattery  and  dissimulation,  and  so  a  fit  place  to  serve  the  Devil  and 
his  angels  in,  and  not  to  glorify  God  and  benefit  the  commonwealth." 
And  again :  —  "So  that  to  avoid  everlasting  death,  and  condemnar 
tion  with  the  high  and  mighty  God,  we  ought  to  proceed  in  every 
cause  according  to  the  matter,  and  not  according  to  the  prince's 

mind The  king  ought  not  to  be  under  man,  but  under  God 

and  under  the  law,  because  the  law  maketh  him  a  king ;  let  the  king, 
therefore,  attribute  that  to  the  law  which  the  law  attribute th  unto  him, 
—  that  is,  dominion  and  power:  for  he  is  not  a  king  in  whom  will,  and 
not  the  law,  doth  rule,  and  therefore  he  ought  to  be  under  the  law." 
And  again :  — "  We  received  a  message,  that  we  should  not  deal 
in  any  matters  of  religion,  but  first  to  receive  from  the  bishops. 
Surely  this  was  a  doleful  message  ;  for  it  was  as  much  as  to  say, '  Sirs, 
ye  shall  not  deal  in  God's  causes ;  no,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  seek  to  ad- 
vance his  glory.' We  are  incorporated  into  this  place  to 

serve  God  and  all  England,  and  not  to  be  timeservers,  as  humor-feed- 
ers, as  cancers  that  would  pierce  the  bone,  or  as  flatterers  that 
would  fain  beguile  all, the  world,  and  so  worthy  to  be  condemned  both 

of  God  and  man God  grant  that  we  may  sharply  and 

boldly  reprove  God's  enemies,  our  prince's  and  state ;  and  so  shall 
every  one  of  us  discharge  our  duties  in  this  our  high  office  wherein 
he  hath  pli^ced  us,  and  show  ourselves  haters  of  ev^  and  cleavers  to 
that  that  is  good,  to  the  setting  forth  of  God's  glory  and  honor,  and 
to  the  preservation  of  our  noble  queen  and  commonwealth." 


ELIZABETH.  237 

The  speech  is  not  short,  and  he  goes  on  to  conclude  thus :  — • 
"  Thus  I  have  holden  you  long  with  my  rude  speech  ;  the  which 
since  it  tendeth  wholly,  with  pure  conscience,  to  seek  the  advance- 
ment of  God's  glory,  our  honoral^le  sovereign's  safety,  and  to  the 
sure  defence  of  this  noble  isle  of  England,  and  all  by  maintaining  of 
the  liberties  of  this  honorable  council,  the  fountain  from  whence  all 
these  do  spring,  my  humble  and  hearty  suit  unto  you  all  is,  to  accept 
my  good-will,  and  that  this,  that  I  have  here  spoken  out  of  conscience 
and  great  zeal  unto  my  prince  and  state,  may  not  be  buried  in  the  pit 
of  oblivion,  and  so  no  good  come  thereof." 

The  House,  it  seems,  out  of  a  reverent  regard  to  her  Majesty's 
honor,  stopped  him  before  he  had  fully  finished,  and  "  he  was  se- 
questered the  House  for  his  said  speech."  He  was  afterwards 
brought  from  the  sergeant's  custody  to  answer  for  his  speech  to  a 
committee  of  the  House.     AH  that  passed  is  very  curious. 

"  I  do  promise  you  all,"  said  this  intrepid  patriot,  "  if  God  forsake 
me  not,  that  I  will  never,  during  life,  hold  my  tongue,  if  any  message 
is  sent  wherein  God  is  dishonored,  the  prince  perilled,  or  the  liberties 
of  the  Parliament  impeached."  And  again :  —  "I  beseech  your 
Honors,  discharge  your  consciences  herein,  and  utter  your  knowledge 
simply  as  I  do ;  for,  in  truth,  herein  her  Majesty  did  abuse  her  no- 
bility and  subjects,  and  did  oppose  herself  against  them  by  the  way 
of  advice." 

"  Surely  we  cannot  deny  it,"  rephed  the  committee  ;  "  you  say  the 
truth."  This  speaker  of  the  truth  was,  however,  like  many  of  his  pre- 
decessors, sent  to  prison  for  "  the  violent  and  wicked  words  yesterday 
pronounced  by  him  in  this  House  touching  the  queen's  Majesty." 

This,  it  seems,  was  no  surprise  to  him.  In  his  examination  before 
the  committee,  he  had  observed,  —  "I  will  assure  your  Honors,  that 
twenty  times  and  more,  when  I  walked  in  my  grounds  revolving  this 
speech,  to  prepare  against  this  day,  my  own  fearful  conceit  did  say 
unto  me,  that  this  speech  would  carry  me  to  the  place  whither  I  shall 
now  go,  and  fear  would  have  moved  me  to  have  put  it  out.  Then  I 
weighed  whether  in  good  conscience  and  the  duty  of  a  faithful  subject 
I  might  keep  myself  out  of  prison,  and  not  to  warn  my  prince  from 
walking  in  a  dangerous  course.  My  conscience  said  unto  me,  that  I 
could  not  be  a  faithful  subject,  if  I  did  more  respect  to  avoid  my  own 
danger  than  my  prince's  danger ;  herewithal  I  was  made  bold,  and 
went  forward  as  your  Honors  heard.  Yet  when  I  uttered  those 
words  in  the  House,  that  there  was  none  without  fault,  no,  not  our 
noble  queen,  I  paused,  and  beheld  all  your  countenances,  and  saw 
plainly  that  those  words  did  amaze  you  all ;  then  I  was  afraid  with  you 
for  company,  and  fear  bade  me  to  put  out  those  words  that  followed, 
for  your  countenances  did  assure  me  that  not  one  of  you  would  stay 
me  of  my  journey ;,....  yet  I  spake  it,  and  I  praise  God  for  it." 

You  will  now  observe  the  conduct  of  Elizabeth.     In  a  month  after 


238  LECTURE  XIV. 

wards,  the  queen  was  pleased  to  remit  her  displeasure,  and  to  refei 
the  enlargement  of  the  party  to  the  House ;  when  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  rose  to  expatiate,  fir|^,  on  her  Majesty's  good  and  cle- 
ment nature ;  secondly,  on  her  respect  to  the  Commons  ;  and,  thirdly, 
their  duty  towards  her.  While  he  laid  down,  that  the  House  were  * '  not, 
under  the  pretence  of  liberty,  to  forget  their  bounden  duty  to  so  gracious 
a  queen,"  he  failed  not  to  add,  that  "  true  it  is,  that  nothing  can  be 
well  concluded  in  a  council  where  there  is  not  allowed,  in  debating 
of  causes  brought  in,  deliberation,  liberty,  and  freedom  of  speech  "  ; 
and  the  whole  tone  of  his  harangue,  which  appears,  even  now,  mod- 
erate and  reasonable,  being  pronounced,  as  it  was,  by  a  minister  of 
the  crown,  in  the  reign  of  Ehzabeth,  and  in  a  set  speech  made  for 
the  occasion,  must  be  considered,  though  the  minister  was  more  of  a 
patriot  than  the  rest,  as  indicating  that  the  House  really  felt  that 
Wentworth  had  been  guilty  rather  in  form  than  in  substance,  and 
had  not  offended  against  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  though  the 
vigor  and  abihty  of  Elizabeth's  administration,  and  her  jealousy  of 
her  prerogative,  made  it  a  task  of  difficulty,  and  even  of  personal 
danger,  openly  to  resist  her  political  maxims  or  disregard  her  men- 
aces. 

The  few  particulars  that  I  have  thus  mentioned  will,  I  hope,  serve 
my  purpose,  —  that  of  giving  you  some  general  notion,  not  only  of 
this  remarkable  transaction,  but  of  the  whole  subject  that  is  so  long 
to  occupy  your  attention. 

Eleven  years  afterwards,  the  same  patriot  and  Puritan,  on  a  simi- 
lar occasion,  handed  forward  to  the  Speaker  a  few  articles  by  way  of 
queries,  among  which  we  find  one  couched  in  the  following  words :  — 
"  Whether  there  be  any  council  which  can  make,  add  to,  or  diminish 
from,  the  laws  of  the  realm,  but  only  this  council  of  Parhament?" — ■ 
a  query  which  Wentworth  conceived  could  be  answered  only  in  the 
negative  (that  there  was  no  council  but  Parliament)  ;  and  which,  if 
so  answered,  would  at  once  put  an  end  to  all  the  maxims  and  pre- 
tences of  arbitrary  power.  It  was  for  another  century  so  to  answer 
this  important  query,  and  not  before  a  dreadful  appeal  had  been 
made  by  the  Commons  and  the  crown  to  the  uncertain  decision  of 
arms. 

Not  a  session  took  place  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  which  does  not 
present  some  speech,  or  motion,  or  debate,  characteristic  of  the  times, 
and  of  the  undefined  nature  of  the  constitution ;  and  we  have  re- 
peated specimens  of  the  same  sort  of  constitutional  questions,  the 
same  sort  of  state  difficulties,  that  took  place  in  the  subsequent  reigns 
of  James  and  Charles.  But  there  is  this  important  difference  invari- 
ably to  be  observed:  Ehzabeth  could  always  give  way  in  time  to 
render  her  concessions  a  favor.  Unhke  other  arbitrary  princes,  and 
unlike  chiefly  in  this  particular,  she  did  not  tliink  it  a  mark  of  politi 
cal  wisdom  always  to  persevere  when  her  authority  was  resisted 


ELIZABETH.  239 

She  did  not  suppose  that  her  subjects,  if  she  yielded  to  their  petitions 
or  complaints,  would  necessarily  conclude  that  she  did  so  from  fear ; 
she  did  not  conclude,  that,  if  she  became  more  reasonable,  they  must 
necessarily  become  less  so.  With  as  high  notions  of  her  prerogative 
as  any  sovereign  that  can  be  mentioned,  in  her  own  nature  most 
haughty  and  most  imperious,  she  had  still  the  good  sense  not  only 
to  perceive,  but  to  act  as  if  she  perceived,  that  it  was  her  interest  to 
be  beloved  as  well  as  respected ;  and  her  reign,  if  examined,  shows  a 
constant  assertion  and  production  of  the  powers  of  the  prerogative, 
but  still  the  most  prudent  management  of  it,  and  the  most  careful  at- 
tention to  public  opinion.  This  last  is  a  great  merit  in  all  sovereigns 
and  their  ministers,  and,  indeed,  somewhat  necessary  to  the  virtue 
of  all  men,  in  private  life  as  well  as  public. 

Now  the  question  is,  successful  and  able  as  she  was,  what  was  it 
that  imposed  any  restraint  upon  her  disposition  ?  Why  did  she  so 
respect  and  abstain  from  the  privileges  which  she  might  or  might 
not  think  belonged  to  the  Commons  ?  Why  did  she  temper  the  exer- 
cise of  what  she  judged  her  own  prerogative,  make  occasional  conces- 
sions, and,  after  all,  not  be  that  arbitrary  sovereign  which,  according 
to  Hume,  the  constitution  rendered  her  ?  There  seems  no  answer 
but  one  :  that  such  was  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  (whatever  might 
be  its  letter),  such  was  the  effect  it  produced  on  the  minds  of  her 
people,  and  of  her  houses  of  legislature,  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was 
not  prudent,  it  would  not  have  been  thought  sufficiently  legal,  for  her 
to  be  often  or  systematically  that  absolute  sovereign  which  the  his- 
torian supposes  her  to  have  been.  The  conclusion,  therefore,  is,  that 
the  constitution  was  not,  in  fact,  what  he  imagines.  There  is  certainly 
some  confusion  in  Hume ;  he  does  not  distinguish  between  the  con- 
stitution as  originally  understood  before  Henry  the  Seventh,  and  the 
constitution  as  it  afterwards  obtained  in  practice  under  the  Tudors. 
Add  to  this,  that  it  is  in  vain  to  look  entirely  at  statutes  and  at 
courts,  whether  equitable  or  oppressive.  The  general  spirit  of  the 
whole,  the  notions  of  it  that  are  inherited  and  transmitted,  the  effect 
produced, on  the  opinions  and  temperament  of  the  public  and  of  the 
rulers  themselves,  —  these  are  the  great  objects  to  be  considered, 
when  we  speak  of  a  constitution. 

It  is  but  too  obvious  to  remark  the  superiority  of  Elizabeth  over 
her  successors,  particularly  the  unhappy  Charles,  in  one  most  im- 
portant requisite,  —  the  art  of  discovering  the  state  of  the  pubUc 
mind,  the  art  of  appreciating  well  the  nature  of  the  times  in  which 
she  lived.  The  fact  seems  to  be,  that  the  great  merit,  the  sole 
merit,  of  this  renowned  queen  was  this :  with  great  faults,  bad 
passions,  and  most  female  weaknesses,  she  had  still  the  spirit  and  the 
sense  so  to  control  her  own  nature,  that,  with  the  exception  of  her 
appointment  of  Leicester  to  cha.rges  the  most  critical,  she  never,  like 
other  sovereigns  of  similar  faults,  neglected  the  interests  of  her  king- 


240  LECTURE  XIV. 

dom,  or  by  the  indulgence  of  her  own  failings  brought  calamities  on 
her  subjects.  This  is  an  honorable  distinction.  If  princes  and 
ministers,  in  their  real  disposition  as  reprehensible  and  odious  as 
Queen  Elizabeth,  would  in  practice  become  rulers  as  prudent  and 
patriotic,  the  affairs  of  mankind  would  present  a  verjs  different  and 
far  more  pleasing  appearance. 

There  is  a  Dialogue  by  Dr.  Hurd  on  the  times  and  personal 
qualities  of  Elizabeth,  which  is  not  long,  and  is  well  worth  reading, 
where  her  character  is  very  severely  criticized,  and  feebly  defended. 
Camden's  Life  of  Queen  Elizabeth  may  be  consulted  for  minute  par- 
ticulars respecting  the  distinguished  families  and  statesmen  of  those 
days,  and  for  facts.  The  history  is  drawn  up  in  the  form  of  annals, 
—  the  style  clear  and  unaffected;  but  there  are  no  philosopliio 
views,  —  no  comments  on  the  civil  and  rehgious  liberties  of  the  coun- 
try, —  little  said  of  the  Puritans  or  of  the  penal  statutes  against  the 
Papists,  —  the  conduct  of  Queen  Elizabeth  not  properly  criticized,  — 
and  the  whole  what  one  might  expect  from  an  honest,  diligent  man, 
whose  patron  was  Cecil,  and  who  wrote  during  the  reign  of  James 
the  First,  at  a  time  when  history  had  not  assumed  her  modern  char- 
acter of  philosophy  teaching  by  examples.  This  Camden  is  the  cele- 
brated antiquarian ;  and  from  the  Biographia  Britannica  of  Kippis  it 
appears  that  great  pains  were  taken  with  this  work,  and  that  it  was 
much  admired  in  its  day.  Camden  had  access  to  all  the  state  papers 
of  Lord  Burleigh  and  of  the  public  offices.  —  The  publications  of 
Birch  maybe  consulted,  —  "Birch  the  indefatigable,"  as  he  was 
called  by  Grray. 

The  Journals  of  the  Parliaments  (folio  edition,  1682),  by  Sir 
Simonds  D'Ewes,  is  a  work  of  authority  connected  with  the  reign  of 
Queen  EHzabeth.  The  preface  is  worth  reading ;  it  is  animating,  it 
is  edifying,  to  see  the  piety  and  industry  of  these  venerable  men  of 
former  times.  "  Yet  I  have  already,'^  says  he,  "  entered  upon  other 
and  greater  labors,  conceiving  myself  not  to  be  born  for  myself 

alone These  I  have  proposed  to  myself  to  labor  in, 

like  him  that  shoots  at  the  sun,  not  in  hopes  to  reach  it,  but  to  shoot 

as  high  as  possibly  his  strength,  art,  or  skill  will  permit Yet, 

if  I  can  but  finish  a  little  in  each  kind,  it  may  hereafter  stir  up  some 

able  judgments  to  add  an  end  to  the  whole I  shall  always  pray, 

as  I  do  sincerely  desire,  that  by  all  my  endeavours  God  may  be  glori- 
fied, the  truth,  divine  or  human,  vindicated,  and  the  pubHc  benefited. 

'  Sic  mihi  contingat  vivere,  sicque  mori.' " 

Most  of  what  is  to  be  found  in  Sir  Simonds  may  be  seen  in  the 
Parhamentary  History,  as  pubhshed  by  Cobbett,  with  valuable  addi- 
tions from  Strype. 

From  these  debates  some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  manners  of 
the  times,  and  of  the  minds  of  the  great  men  that  appeared  in  them ; 
some  idea,  too,  of  the  constitution. 


JAMES   THE  FIRST  241 

Sergeant  Heyle  said,  —  "  I  marvel  much  that  the  House  will  stand 
upon  granting  of  a  subsidy,  or  the  time  of  payment,  when  all  we 
have  is  her  Majesty's."  "At  which  all  the  House  hemmed,  and 
laughed  and  talked."  —  Page  633. 

"  He  that  will  go  about  to  debate  her  Majesty's  prerogative  royal," 
said  Dr.  Bennet,  "  had  need  walk  warily."  —  Page  645.  See,  too. 
Secretary  Cecil's  speech,  page  649.  But  the  queen,  after  all,  gave 
up  the  monopolies  complained  of. 

Sir  Edward  Coke  speaks  very  strongly  in  favor  of  the  antiquity 
of  the  Commons,  page  515.  "  At  the  first  we  were  all  one  house, 
and  sat  together,  by  a  precedent  which  I  have  of  a  Parliament  holdoii 

before  the  Conquest,  by  Edward,  the  son  of  Etheldred ; 

but  the  commons,  sitting  in  presence  of  the  king,  and  amongst  the 

nobles,  disliked   it, and   the   house  was  divided,  and 

came  to  sit  asunder."  The  facts  do  not  seem  to  agree  with  this 
representation,  our  present  House  of  Commons  not  being  the  same  as 
the  "■  communitas  "  of  the  ancient  Parliament.  And  again,  to  the 
same  eifect  Sir  Edward  Coke  speaks  in  another  place. 

The  chief  points  of  interest  in  these  debates  are  the  speeches 
and  queries  of  Peter  Wentworth  for  freedom  of  speech,  &c.,  dis- 
cussions on  the  privileges  of  the  Commons  in  case  of  arrests,  &c., 
and  on  monopolies,  when  the  queen's  prerogative  came  into  ques- 
tion. 

In  Sir  Simonds's  reports  the  Puritans  and  the  penal  laws  against 
Papists,  &c.,  do  not  make  the  appearance  that  might  be  expected. 
The  notions  -then  entertained  on  subjects  of  political  economy  ap- 
pear particularly  in  the  speeches  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon  ;  and  from 
the  mistakes  of  such  a  man,  and  such  men  as  were  then  around  him, 
may  be  estimated  the  merits  of  Adam  Smith,  and  the  progress  of 
improvement  in  the  course  of  a  century  and  a  half. 

The  forms  of  Parliamentary  proceedings  and  ceremonies  may  be 
studied  in  this  work  of  Sir  Simonds  D'Ewes. 

The  same  interest  which  belongs  to  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  belongs 
still  more  to  the  Parliamentary  proceedings  in  the  reign  of  James 
the  First.  The  Commons  and  the  sovereign  seem  of  like  disposition 
with  their  predecessors ;  but  the  former  far  more  advanced  in  wis- 
dom, and  the  latter  in  folly.  The  great  contest  between  prerogative 
and  freedom  may  be  seen  still  ripening  into  fatal  maturity  ;  and  the 
parties  'and  maxims  which  so  distinguished  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
First  are  clearly  visible. 

The  proceedings  in  Parliament,  and  the  speeches  of  the  king,  are 
most  of  them  marked  by  expressions  and  reasonings,  the  perusal  of 
which  can  alone  convey  an  adequate  picture  of  the  times,  and  of  the 
revolution  which  was  approaching.  Many  of  them  are  very  remark- 
able ;  one  document  more  particularly,  entitled,  "  An  Apology  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  made  to  the  King,  touching  their  Privileges." 
31  u 


242  LECTURE  XIV. 

It  was  presented  to  the  House  bj  one  of  their  committees.  It  is  net 
easy  to  see  how  the  cause  of  the  people  of  England  could  be  stated 
more  reasonably  or  more  ably.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  written 
by  tlie  great  Bacon,  and  is  so  excellent  as  to  seem  quite  superior  to 
the  age  to  which  it  belongs,  and  almost  to  induce  a  doubt  of  its  au- 
thenticity. Its  authenticity,  however,  seems  on  the  whole  not  to  be 
controverted.  You  will  see  it  in  Cobbett,  and  alluded  to  in  Hume's 
notes. 

The  king  appears  to  have  formed  one  idea  of  the  constitution,  and 
the  Commons  another.  Before  the  end  of  his  reign  he  was  brought 
to  express  himself  in  a  manner  somewhat  more  agreeable  to  the  gen- 
eral spirit  of  the  laws  and  customs  of  the  realm,  yet  his  reign  wa3 
marked  by  a  continual  state  of  warfare,  and  an  open  ruptare  was  at 
last  the  result. 

Understanding  that  a  protestation  had  been  drawn  up  by  the 
House  on  the  subject  of  their  privileges,  he  sent  for  their  journal- 
book,  and  tore  it  out  with  his  own  hand.  This  protestation  had 
affirmed,  that  the  liberties,  franchises,  privileges,  and  jurisdiction  of 
Parliament  are  the  ancient  and  undoubted  birthright  and  inheritance 
of  the  subjects  of  England ;  had  asserted  the  competence  of  Parliar 
ment  to  consider  such  affairs  as  the  king  thought  exclusively  the  ob- 
jects of  what,  in  the  pride  of  his  folly,  he  called  his  state-craft ;  had 
laid  down  the  freedom  of  speech,  the  immunity  from  arrest,  and  the 
illegality  of  the  king's  giving  credence  (as  it  was  called)  with  re- 
spect to  the  conduct  of  the  members. 

Such  were  the  reasonable  positions  which  the  king  resisted,  and 
with  such  violence.  The  leading  members  of  the  Commons  were  at 
that  time  such  men  as  Sir  Edward  Coke  and  Mr.  Selden.  James 
seems  not  to  have  been  a  sovereign  determined  in  his  character  like 
Elizabeth,  or  brutal  in  his  disposition  like  Henry  the  Eighth,  but  he 
was  in  theory  always,  and  in  practice  sometimes,  a  despot ;  and  the 
tendency  of  all  his  exertions  was  to  render  his  successors  so.  The 
people  of  England  have,  therefore,  an  eternal  obligation  to  the  great 
and  virtuous  men  who  opposed  his  pretensions. 

There  is,  however,  one  circumstance  which  took  place  in  his  reign, 
not  noticed  by  Millar,  which,  as  far  as  it  can  now  be  understood, 
seems  favorable  to  the  good  intentions  of  this  moparch,  but  at  the 
same  time  strongly  indicates  how  Httle  the  actors  in  a  scene  can  ap- 
preciate their  own  situation.  I  will  state  shortly  the  circumstances, 
which  do  not,  I  think,  appear  to  have  been  sufficiently  noticed  by  our 
historians. 

On  the  decline  of  the  feudal  system,  the  king  was  left  to  depend 
for  the  support  of  his  own  state,  and  even  for  the  expenses  of  foreign 
war,  first,  on  the  claims  of  his  feudal  rights,  and  on  the  exercise  of 
his  proiogauve,  and,  secondly,  on  the  supplies  of  Parliament.  These 
^bikivl  t.W\.i  and  exercises  of  the  prerogative  were  daily  becoming, 


JAMES  THE  FIRST.  24S 

from  the  changes  that  had  taken  plaee  in  the  world,  less  valuable  to 
the  crown,  and  yet  more  injurious  and  offensive  to  the  subject.  But 
if  these  were  to  be  entirely  withdrawn,  the  sovereign  was  then  to  be 
left  totally  dependent  on  the  favor  of  the  Commons.  It  was  neither 
in  itself  just,  nor  in  any  respect  agreeable  to  the  best  interests  of 
the  people,  that  the  sovereign  should  be  thus  deprived  of  all  proper 
funds  for  the  maintenance  of  his  personal  dignity  and  constitutional 
importance.  The  only  expedient  for  avoiding  all  the  evils  that  might 
ensue  was,  that  the  king  should  give  up  the  feudal  rights  and  pre- 
rogatives which  his  predecessors  had  exercised,  and  the  Commons,  in 
return,  secure  him  an  adequate  revenue,  a  revenue  which  might  be 
collected  from  the  subjects  with  less  injury  to  their  civil  freedom  and 
growing  prosperity. 

In  a  few  years  after  the  king's  accession,  a  scheme  of  this  sort 
was  actually  in  agitation.  The  Lords  mediated,  as  usual,  between 
the  king  and  Commons.  Even  the  terms  of  the  bargain,  or  what 
was  then  very  properly  called  the  Grreat  Contract,  were  all  adjust- 
ed. The  Parliament  was  prorogued  in  the  summer  to  October  ;  and 
all  that  remained  was,  that  they  should  state  the  manner  in  which 
the  sum  agreed  upon  (two  hundred  thousand  pounds  per  annum) 
was  to  be  secured.  But  though  the  conferences  and  committees 
were  resumed,  no  effectual  progress  was  made,  and  the  Parliament 
was  dissolved  in  December,  —  nothing  done.  This  great  chance  for 
avoiding  all  the  evils  that  were  impending  was  thus  lost  for  ever. 

We  in  vain  inquire,  by  whose  fault,  by  what  unhappy  traui  of  cir- 
cumstances, this  golden  opportunity  was  lost.  The  Journals  of  the 
Commons  are  here  wanting ;  the  Journals  of  the  Lords  give  little  or 
no  information ;  nor  do  the  contemporary  historians  assist  us.  The 
king  in  his  proclamation,  after  alluding  to  the  affair,  says  only,  that, 
"  for  many  good  considerations  known  to  himself,  he  hath  now  deter- 
mined to  dissolve  this  Parliament."  When  he  called  a  new  one,  four 
years  afterwards,  he  only  observes  in  his  speech,  that  he  "  will  deal 
no  more  with  them  like  a  merchant,  by  way  of  exchange,"  —  that 
he  "  will  expect  loving  contribution  for  loving  retribution," — that 
"  to  come  to  account  with  them  how  and  what  was  too  base  for  his 
quality."  In  another  speech  he  alludes  to  some  who  had  done  ill 
offices  between  him  and  his  Commons.  The  probability  seems,  that 
the  higgling  manner  of  the  Commons  had  naturally  disgusted  the 
king,  and  that  two  hundred  thousand  pounds  per  annum  was  a  sum 
larger,  at  that  time,  than  they  on  their  part  durst  commit  to  the  ex- 
clusive disposal  of  the  crown ;  and  this  conjecture  is  confirmed  by  a 
few  words  which  I  observe  in  a  passage  of  one  of  Sir  John  Eliot's 
speeches,  made  some  time  after. 

In  a  few  months,  this  new  Parliament  was  likewise  dissolved,  and 
in  great  ill-humor  ;  yet  nothing  occurs  in  the  speeches  of  the  ^  mem- 
bers, or  elsewhere,  with  the  casual  exception  just  mentioned  in  Sir 


244  LECTURE  XIV. 

John  Eliot's  hint,  that  throws  any  light  on  this  important  transaction, 
Neither  the  leaders  of  the  Commons,  therefore,  with  all  their  real 
ability,  nor  the  king,  with  all  his  "  state-craft,"  nor  the  historians  at 
the  time,  much  less  the  people,  appear  to  have  seen  the  crisis  in 
which  the  realm  was  already  placed,  or  that  the  best,  perhaps  only, 
system  had  been  struck  upon,  and  yet  abandoned,  for  saving  alike 
the  people  and  the  monarch  from  the  dangers  to  which  they  were  ex- 
posed. These  dangers  were  now  inevitable.  The  Commons  had 
publicly  stated  the  maxims  of  their  conduct,  —  the  principles,  as  they 
conceived,  of  the  constitution.  The  king  had  indignantly  torn  them 
from  theii  journals,  as  inconsistent  with  his  rights  and  the  honor  of 
his  crown,  The  great  question  of  prerogative  on  the  one  side,  and 
of  privilege  on  the  other,  was  therefore  at  issue ;  and  it  would  have 
required  far  other  abilities  and  virtues  than  those  which  his  successor 
Charles  possessed,  to  have  been  a  guardian  minister  of  good  to  his 
unhappy  country,  in  a  situation  so  little  understood,  and,  however 
understood,  so  encompassed  with  difficulties. 

Making  every  allowance  for  the  imperfection  of  human  judgment, 
making  every  allowance  for  the  impossibility  which  seems  always  to 
exist  either  for  king  or  people  properly  to  comprehend  their  situation, 
when  these  dreadful  revolutions  are  approaching,  still  the  conduct  of 
Charles  appears  totally  infatuated.  Admit  that  he  entertained  the 
same  notions  of  the  royal  prerogative  which  his  father  had  done,  that 
he  thought  himself  bound  in  honor  to  defend  it,  was  it  not  clear  that 
he  must  then  adopt  a  system  of  economy,  and  avoid  expense  at  home 
and  wars  abroad  ?  If  his  Parliaments  differed  with  him  about  his 
rights,  could  he  on  any  other  system  do  without  them?  Admit, 
again,  that  he  lived  in  a  religious  age,  when  Papist  and  Protestant, 
when  Roman  Catholic,  Lutheran,  and  Calvinist,  gave  each  of  them 
the  most  unreasonable  importance,  as  they  are  always  disposed  to  do, 
to  their  OAvn  particular  doctrines  and  ceremonies,  had  not  the  nature 
of  the  religious  principle  sufficiently  displayed  itself  ?  Had  not  the 
transactions  in  Germany,  from  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation, 
been  a  subject  of  the  most  recent  history  ?  Had  not  the  efforts  which 
the  Calvinists  made  in  France,  had  not  the  wars  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries, had  not  the  success  of  the  Hollanders,  been  exhibited  im- 
mediately before  his  eyes  ?  Could  he  draw  no  lesson  for  his  own 
conduct  from  instances  like  these  ?  Could  all  that  he  had  even  then 
mtnessed  in  what  is  now  called  the  Thirty  Years'  War  in  Germany 
produ,ce  no  effect  upon  his  understanding ;  and  as  if  the  ability  and 
spirit  of  his  English  Parliaments  were  not  sufficient  for  his  embarrass- 
ment, was  he  still  further  to  increase  his  difficulties,  was  he  to  go  on 
and  summon  to  his  destruction  all  the  furies  of  rage  and  fanaticism 
from  Scotland  ?  The  wisest  monarch,  in  the  situation  of  Charles, 
might,  no  doubt,  have  failed  ;  but  it  seems  scarcely  possible  for  his 
worst  enemy  to  have  advised  more  obvious  and  fatal  mistakes  than 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  245 

those  which,  with  all  our  compassion  for  his  fate,  we  must  allow  that 
he  committed. 

With  this  period  of  our  history  we  are  certainly  called  upon  to 
take  more  than  ordinary  pains.  It  has  been  highly  labored  by 
Hume  ;  it  has  been  considered,  in  his  own  manly  and  decisive  man- 
ner, by  Millar ;  it  has  been  detailed  by  the  virtuous  Clarendon ;  a 
sort  of  journal  of  it  has  been  made  by  Whitelocke  ;  what  a  plain  and 
gallant  soldier  thought  may  be  seen  in  Ludlow ;  a  more  domestic 
view  of  it,  in  the  Life  of  Colonel  Hutchinson ;  and  the  Parliamentary 
proceedings  and  public  documents  may  be  examined  in  Cobbett,  and 
particularly  in  Rushworth.  Much  more  than  this  may  be  found,  if 
sought  for ;  but  less  than  this  can  scarcely  be  sufficient  for  any  one 
who  would  understand  the  history  of  the  constitution  of  England. 

There  is  a  History  of  the  Long  Parliament  by  May ;  a  History  of 
the  Independents  by  the  Presbyterian  Walker ;  papers  collected  by 
Nalson,  who  professes  to  correct  Rushworth ;  and  different  memoirs, 
such  as  the  Memoirs  of  Holies  and  Sir  Philip  Warwick.  Since  I 
drew  up  these  lectures,  the  whole  subject  has  been  considered  by 
Mr.  Brodie,  a  searcher  into  original  records,  and  a  corrector  of 
Hume.  Mr.  Godwin  has  published  a  work  which  must  be  considered 
as  the  defence  of  the  Republican  party.  Miss  Aikin  has  lately  fur- 
nished us  important  Memoirs,  which  become  in  the  course  of  the  de- 
tail by  far  the  best  explanation  and  excuse  for  the  conduct  of  the 
popular  leaders,  and  more  particularly  the  Long  Parliament,  that  have 
as  yet  appeared.  And  on  all  and  on  every  occasion,  and  on  all  the 
critical  points  of  this  memorable  contest,  Ilallam  will  be  found  totally 
invaluable. 

But  we  must,  in  the  first  place,  attend  to  the  philosophical  reflec- 
tions and  statements  of  Hume  and  Millar.  The  situation  of  the 
different  orders  of  the  state,  and  of  ^ae  various  religious  sects,  the 
views  and  interests  of  each,  and  rnose  general  principles  of  gov- 
ernment which  can  apply  to  this  mceresting  period,  —  all  these  are 
very  ably  stated  by  these  writers ;  and  their  account,  Avhen  compared 
with  the  documents  in  Rushworth,  with  the  Parliamentary  speeches, 
and  with  the  sincere,  though  apologetical,  narrative  of  Clarendon, 
may  enable  every  reader  to  draw  his  own  conclusions.  I  must  by 
no  means  forget  the  important  work  of  Rapin,  always  unaffected  and 
laborious,  a  work  which  may  readily  and  ought  always  to  be  com- 
pared with  Hume. 

But  having  referred  my  hearer  to  these  histories  and  documents,  I 
must  leave  him  to  the  perusal  of  them  in  the  whole  or  in  part.  They 
are  too  numerous,  various,  and  interesting  even  to  be  properly  de- 
scribed ;  they  can  only  be  mentioned.  In  like  manner,  the  reflec- 
tions of  Hume  and  Millar  are  all  of  them  far  too  valuable  to  be  pre- 
sented to  you  in  any  garbled  manner  here,  and,  indeed,  are  far  too 
well  expressed  to  ^e  produced  in  any  words  but  their  own.     All  that 

u* 


246  LECTURE  Xir. 

I  can  attempt,  therefore,  in  the  ensuing  lectures  is  this,  —  to  offer  a 
few  observations,  such  as  I  conceive  may  possibly  be  of  use  to  those 
who  undertake  the  perusal  of  all  or  any  of  the  books  I  have  recom- 
mended, such  as  may,  perhaps,  enable  them  to  exercise  their  own 
diligence  and  their  own  powers  of  reflection  with  the  better  effect. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  I  would  suggest  that  there  are  two  leading 
considerations  in  this  subject  which  should  always  be  kept  in  view^ 
The  first  is  this :  —  What  was  the  effect  of  these  transactions  on  the 
constitution  ultimately,  —  on  the  whole  F  Secondly,  What  were  the 
comparative  merits  and  demerits  of  the  contending  parties  ? 

The  first  consideration  must,  of  course,  be  suspended  till  we  can 
turn  and  look  back  from  a  very  distant  point  of  view,  such  as  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  when  these  disputes  were  brought  to  a  species  of 
close.  It  is  the  second  consideration,  the  merits  and  demerits  of  the 
contending  parties,  which  is  more  within  the  reach  of  our  attention 
at  present.  And  even  in  this  last  question  the  first  will  be  found 
continually  implicated. 

With  respect  to  this  last  inquiry,  the  comparative  merits  and  de- 
merits of  the  parties,  what  I  would  recommend  is,  that  the  whole  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  should  be  separated  into  different  intervals,  and 
an  estimate  and  comparison  made  of  the  conduct  of  the  parties  during 
each  of  these  intervals.  This  estimate  may  be  very  different  during 
different  intervals ;  and  it  is  from  a  consideration  of  the  whole  that  a 
verdict  must  at  last  be  pronounced. 

I  shall  in  this  and  the  ensuing  lectures  endeavour  to  give  you  a 
more  distinct  idea  of  what  I  have  just  proposed,  and  I  shall  attempt 
to  do  in  a  summary  manner  what,  as  I  conceive,  you  may  with  some 
advantage  execute  hereafter  more  regularly  for  yourselves,  as  you 
read  the  history  and  the  proper  documents  connected  with  it. 

•  The  first  period  which  I  select  as  an  interval  is  from  the  accession 
of  Charles  to  the  dissolution  of  his  third  Parliament,  in  1629,  an  in- 
terval of  four  years. 

But  before  this  interval,  or  any  part  of  the  question,  be  examined, 
one  observation  must  be  made  ;  it  is  this :  that,  in  appreciating  the 
comparative  merits  of  the  two  contending  parties,  it  is  most  important 
to  consider  what  was  their  conduct  at  the  commencement  of  their 
differences,  and  before  the  rupture  actually  took  place,  —  that  is, 
which  was  at  first  the  offending  party.  Afterwards  it  is  too  late  for 
either  of  them  to  be  wise.  Offences  and  injuries  generate  each  other, 
from  the  very  nature  of  human  infirmity ;  the  decision  is  soon  com- 
mitted to  violence  and  force  ;  and  those  are  the  most  guilty  who  have 
been  the  original  means  of  reducing  themselves  or  their  opponents  to 
such  dreadful  extremities. 

This  being  premised,  we  are  to  examine,  in  the  next  place,  this 
short,  but,  for  the  reason  I  have  just  mentioned,  this  most  critical 
period,  this  first  interval  of  four  years.  • 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  M7 

And  to  me  it  appears  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  liow  the  king 
could  have  conducted  himself  in  a  manner  less  deserving  of  our  ap- 
probation. Read  the  history,  and  then  consider,  were  not  his  notions 
Inconsistent,  not  only  with  the  civil  liberty  which  belongs  to  a  free 
monarchy,  but  with  the  measure  of  civil  freedom  which  at  that  time 
belonged  to  the  English  monarchy  ?  Again,  had  his  people  any 
other  hold  upon  him  but  their  House  of  Commons  ?  Had  the  Com- 
mons any,  but  his  necessities  ?  Did  they,  therefore,  in  the  last 
place,  push  their  power  of  extorting  concessions  in  return  for  their 
supplies  to  any  extent  not  required  by  the  public  good,  or  rather,  to 
any  extent  not  required  by  the  constitution,  even  as  then  under- 
stood ? 

Take,  for  a  specimen  of  the  whole  subject,  the  proceedings  on  the 
famous  Petition  of  Right. 

When  we,  in  the  first  place,  read  the  history,  and  observe  all  the 
shifts  and  efforts  of  the  king  to  evade  it,  and  all  the  anxiety  and 
labor  of  the  Commoi|^  to  prepare  it,  and  when  we  afterwards  come 
to  read  the  petition  itself,  the  first  sensation  is  surely  that  of  extreme 
surprise ;  for  it  actually  appears  to  contain  no  declaration  and  no 
provisioi^  that  we  should  not  have  hoped  that  Charles,  or  any  other 
English  monarch  from  the  time  of  Magna  Charta,  would  have  assent- 
ed to  with  cheerfulness. 

One  observation,  however,  is  to  be  made  :  the  Petition  of  Right 
did,  in  fact,  endeavour  to  settle,  or  rather,  to  confirm,  for  ever,  one 
particular  point,  which  may  not,  at  the  first  reading  of  the  petition, 
sufficiently  occur  to  you  j  this  point  was  the  personal  liberty  of  the 
subject. 

This  petition,  and  this  particular  question  of  the  personal  liberty 
of  the  subject,  have  been  considered  at  length  and  with  due  dili- 
gence by  Hume,  and  his  observations  must  be  well  examined  and 
weighed.  The  personal  liberty  of  the  subject,  you  will  observe,  is 
the  great  point. 

There  is  a  pofitical  difficulty,  no  doubt,  in  the  question.  Thus,  it 
is  fit  that  every  government  should  have  a  power  of  imprisonment, 
even  without  shoiving  cause  ;  because  very  extraordinary  occasions 
may  arise  ;  a  rebellion,  for  instance,  may  be  reasonably  apprehended. 
But  this  Petition  of  Right  gives  no  such  occasional  power,  allows  of 
no  exceptions  in  any  supposed  case,  but  lays  down  the  personal  free- 
dom of  the  subject  in  all  situations  but  those  in  which  the  subject 
has  already  become  obnoxious  to  the  existing  laws.  This,  therefore, 
does  not  seem  a  proper  adjustment  of  the  great  question  of  the  per- 
sonal liberty  of  the  subject: 

It  must,  however,  be  observed,  that  it  was  on  account  of  no  theo- 
retical objection  of  this  kind  that  Charles  was  resolved,  if  possible, 
not  to  assent  to  the  Petition  of  Right.  The  real  reasons  of  Jiis  op- 
position were  these  :  because  he  had  no  means  of  raising  money  by 


248  LECTURE  XIV. 

the  exertions  of  his  prerogative,  unless  he  could  throw  men  mt* 
prison  without  showing  cause,  if  they  resisted  his  requisitions  ;  and 
because  he  had  no  expedient  for  controlling  the  freedom  -of  speech  in 
the  houses  of  Parliament,  unless  it  was,  on  the  whole,  understood 
that  the  members  were  within  reach  of  what  he  and  the  Lords  called 
his  sovereign  power.  There  can  surely,  therefore,  be  no  doubt,  that, 
if  the  Commons  had  not  made  provision  against  this  claim  of  the 
crown,  it  would  soon  have  been  totally  unsafe  and  impossible  for  any 
member  in  Parliament,  or  any  subject  out  of  it,  to  offer  any  legal  re- 
sistance to  the  arbitrary  measures  of  the  king ;  and  the  contest  must 
at  length  have  terminated  entirely  against  the  constitution.  Charles 
had  exercised  a  power  of  imprisonment  on  pretences  and  for  pur- 
poses totally  incompatible  with  all  liberty ;  what  was  left  for  the 
Commons  but  to  insist  upon  it,  as  a  fixed  principle,  that  no  man  should 
be  imprisoned  without  cause  shown  ? 

But  what  are  we  to  say,  when  we  find  that  this  had  always  beet 
the  language  of  the  constitution,  from  Magna ^Charta  down  to  that 
moment  ?  "  The  truth  is,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  the  Great  Charter 
and  the  old  statutes  were  sufficiently  clear  in  favor  of  personal  lib- 
erty. But  as  all  kings  of  England  had  ever,  in  cases  of  ciecessity 
or  expediency,  been  accustomed  at  intervals  to  elude  them,  and  as 
Charles,  in  a  complication  of  instances,  had  lately  violated  them,  the 
Commons  judged  it  requisite  to  enact  a  new  law,  which  might  not  be 
eluded  or  violated  by  any  interpretation,  construction,  or  contrary 
precedent.  Nor  was  it  sufficient,  they  thought,  that  the  king  prom- 
ised to  return  into  the  way  of  his  predecessors.  His  predecessors  in 
all  times  had  enjoyed  too  much  discretionary  power,  and,  by  his  re- 
cent abuse  of  it,  the  whole  world  had  reason  to  see  the  necessity  of 
entirely  retrenching  it."     These  are  the  words  of  Mr.  Hume. 

But  upon  this  statement  of  Mr.  Hume,  does  not  the  conduct  of  the 
Commons  appear  perfectly  constitutional  and  perfectly  reasonable  ? 
With  what  propriety  is  Mr.  Hume,  at  the  close  of  this  subject,  to  use 
the  following  expressions  ?  —  "It  may  be  affirmed,  Avithout  any  ex- 
aggeration, that  the  king's  assent  to  the  Petition  of  Right  produced 
such  a  change  in  the  government  as  was  almost  equivalent  to  a  revo- 
lution." How  could  this  enactment  of  the  Petition  of  Right,  this 
confirmation  of  Magna  Charta  and  the  old  statutes,  which  were  al- 
ready so  clear  in  favor  of  personal  liberty,  —  how  can  this  new  asser- 
tion of  what  had  always  been  asserted,  this  new  assertion  in  times  of 
such  extreme  peril  to  the  constitution,  —  how  can  this  be  represented 
as  equivalent  to  a  revolution  ? 

The  great  political  difficulty  of  tliB  personal  liberty  of  the  subject, 
which  was  thus  decided  by  the  Commons  entirely  in  favor  of  the  sub- 
ject, according  to  the  ancient  laws  and  constitution  of  the  realm,  was 
not  settled  with  philosophical  accuracy  by  the  Petition  of  Right.  To 
have  expected  this  in  such  times  was  to  expect  too  much.     After- 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  249 

wards  it  was  more  skilfully  provided  for,  as  is  well  known,  by  making 
effective  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus,  in  the  first  place,  and  by  the 
occasional  suspension  of  the  writ,  in  the  second.  In  consequence  of 
this  writ,  made  at  last  available,  no  man  can  now  be  kept  in  prison 
without  cause  shown ;  and  when  the  writ  is  to  be  suspended,  and  men 
are  to  be  kept  in  prison  without  cause  shown,  the  suspension  is  asked 
for  by  the  executive  power,  and  is  assented  to  by  the  legislative 
power  for  a  time  specified,  and  on  reasons  first  produced  and  deemed 
sufiicient.  The  general  freedom  of  the  subject  is  thus  secured,  and 
the  very  necessary  interference  of  government  in  an  arbitrary  man- 
ner, occasionally,  to  protect  the  community  from  the  concealed  prac- 
tices of  foreign  or  domestic  traitors,  is  thus  admitited.  This  is,  I 
conceive,  a  very  happy  adjustment  of  one  of  the  greatest  difficulties 
that  belong  to  the  science  of  government. 

Observe,  however,  it  is  quite  clear,  that,  from  the  moment  the  "writ 
of  Habeas  Corpus  is  suspended,  and  the  executive  power  can  throw 
men  into  prison  without  showing  cause,  the  government  is  at  once 
changed  from  a  free  to  an  arbitrary  government ;  and  that  the  liber- 
ties of  the  country  are,  from  that  instant,  left  to  depend  on  the  spirit 
of  freedom,  and  on  the  habits  of  right  thinking,  that  have  already 
been  generated  by  that  free  constitution,  not  only  in  the  houses  of 
Parliament,  the  judges  of  the  land,  and  the  people,  but  even  in  the 
executive  power  itself.  The  question,  therefore,  that  remains  is, 
'whether  this  justly  celebrated  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  would  now 
exist  in  our  constitution,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  exertions  of  the 
Commons  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First,  and  more  particularly  on 
this  occasion  of  the  Petition  of  Right,  —  and  whether,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  these  exertions,  an  order  from  a  secretary  of  state,  and  the 
Tower,  might  not  have  been  as  common  in  England,  as  lettres  de 
cachet  and  the  Bastile  were  once  in  France. 

I  will  now  select  another  general  specimen  of  these  times,  and  of 
the  struggle  before  us,  —  the  question  of  tonnage  and  poundage. 

To  mg  it  appears,  I  confess,  that  the  only  point,  on  which  the  ex- 
act propriety  of  the  conduct  of  the  Commons,  during  the  whole  of 
this  period  of  the  first  three  Parliaments,  may  be  at  all  questioned, 
lies  here  ;  —  I  do  not  mean  their  original  resistance  to  the  crown,  in 
the  question  of  tonnage  and  poundage,  but  their  final  management 
and  behaviour  at  the  close  of  this  transaction. 

The  king  had  in  this  instance,  as  in  all  the  rest,  acted  most  unskil- 
fully and  unjustifiably ;  still,  he  had  at  last  given  up  the  right,  and 
that  pubUcly.  But  this,  it  seems,  did  not  content  the  Commons ; 
they  proceeded  immediately  to  carry  the  right,  thus  admitted,  into 
practical  and  visible  effect.  They  insisted  upon  granting  the  duties 
for  a  year  only,  with  a  view  to  alter  the  customary  mode  of  granting 
them,  and,  by  thus  exemplifying  their  right,  to  settle  the  question 
for  ever.        • 

32 


250  ,  LECTURE  XIV. 

Now  this  appears  to  me  to  have  been  wrong ;  it  was  harsh,  of- 
fensive, and  had  the  air  of  a  triumph  over  a  fallen  adversary.  It 
would  have  been  better  to  have  made  allowance  for  the  king's  situa- 
tion and  feelings ;  to  have  been  satisfied,  for  the  present^  with  the 
king's  surrender  of  the  point  in  theory ;  to  have  sacrificed  something 
of  constitutional  precision,  for  the  sake  of  an  object  so  important  as  a 
sincere  accommodation  with  the  executive  branch  of  the  legislature  ; 
in  short,  to  have  indulged  the  sovereign,  even  in  his  unreasonableness 
and  mistakes,  since  the  contest  had  evidently  turned  in  their  favor, 
and  they  could  do  it  without  hazard.  In  all  political  struggles,  there 
is  no  duty  so  seldom  practised,  and  so  necessary  to  society,  as  a  for- 
bearance and  4j[iagnanimity  of  this  nature.  The  Commons  thought 
otherwise,  and  I  do  not  deny  that  their  situation  was  very  critical, 
and  that  much  may  be  urged  in  opposition  to  what  I  have  thus  sug- 
gested. 

The  second  and  next  interval  which  I  would  select  is  from  the  end 
of  the  first  four  years  of  Charles's  reign,  from  1629,  to  1640,  —  a 
most  remarkable  interval  of  eleven  years,  and  which  is  extremely 
important. 

Here  a  new  scene  opens.  We  have  no  longer,  as  hitherto,  the 
king  caUing  Parliaments,  and  then  demanding  the  grant  of  supphes, 
as  the  condition  of  his  favor  ;  and  the  Commons,  in  their  turn,  requir- 
ing the  admission  of  constitutional  claims,  as  the  condition  of  their 
subsidies.  We  have  no  longer  prorogations,  dissolutions,  imprison- 
ment of  the  members,  and,  during  the  intermission  of  Parliament, 
loans  and  benevolences.  But  we  have  now  a  resolution  to  call  Par- 
liaments no  more ;  we  have  what  were  before  occasional  expedients 
converted  into  a  system  of  regular  government ;  we  have  every  effort 
exerted  to  make  the  prerogative  of  the  crown  supply  the  place  of  Par- 
liaments ;  and  this  plan  of  government  persevered  in  for  eleven  years 
together. 

Now  it  is  very  evident,  that,  if  this  experiment  had  succeeded,  — 
if  "Charles  the  First  could  have  ruled  without  Parhaments,  as  he  was 
to  be  followed  by  such  princes  as  his  sons  really  were,  and  must 
necessarily  have  been  made,  —  no  difierence  could  have  long  re- 
mained between  the  English  monarchy  and  the  French ;  and  Charles 
the  First,  though  amiable  in  private  life,  a  man  of  virtue  and  of  re- 
ligion, would,  in  fact,  have  been  the  destroyer  of  the  liberties  of  his 
country,  and,  in  this  important  respect,  precisely  on  a  level  with  the 
perfidious  and  detestable  tyrant  of  France,  Louis  the  Eleventh. 

This  part  of  the  history  ought  to  be  well  observed.  The  illegal 
expedients,  or,  as  Mr.  Hume  calls  them,  the  irregular  levies  of 
money,  that  were  resorted  to,  and  the  cruel  sentences,  or,  as  Mr. 
Hume  denominates  them,  the  severities^  of  the  Star-Chamber  and 
High  Commission,  may  be  gathered  even  from  one  of  Mr.  Hume'a 
own  chapters,  the  fifty-second,  which  you  must  particularly  observe* 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  251 

The  Puritans  everywhere  fled,  preferring  to  the  fair  lands  of  Eng- 
land the  savage  and  untamed  wilds  of  America,  —  wilds  where  their 
persons  were  yet  free,  and  their  minds  their  0"\vn.  Haslerig,  Pym, 
and  Cromwell,  even  Hampden,  had  emharked,  but  were  prevented 
from  proceeding  by  an  order  of  government. 

This  last  anecdote  has  been  shown  to  be  a  mistake  of  the  historians 
by  Miss  Aikin,  who  was  the  first  to  suspect  and  examine  into  the 
truth  of  this  statement,  with  her  usual  discernment  and  diligence. 
Of  course,  the  conclusions  I  h^d  drawn  from  a  circumstance  so  strik- 
ing as  the  flight  of  such  leaders  are  nwv  omitted. 

But  I  shall  conclude  this  lecture  by  endeavouring  to  present  to 
you  the  danger  to  which  the  constitution  of  this  country  was  in  reality 
exposed  from  another  point  of  view.  It  may  be  collected,  I  con- 
ceive, even  from  the  manner  in  which  so  intelligent  a  philosopher  as 
Hume  and  so  sincere  a  patriot  as  Lord  Clarendon  have  thought 
proper  to  express  themselves  on  this  occasion.  The  passages  I  mean 
to  quote  are  a  little  longer  than  I  €ould  wish ;  but  I  conceive,  that, 
.when  fairly  stated,  they  exemplify  so  completely  the  peculiar  perils 
of  our  free  government  at  this  particular  period  of  our  history,  that  I 
do  not  venture  to  abridge  them  much,  and  certainly  not  to  make  any 
alterations  in  the  expressions  or  sense. 

Mr.  Hume,  after  detailing  in  the  fifty-second  chapter  a  series  of 
incidents  which  show  that  the  person  and  property  of  every  man  of 
spirit  in  the  country  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  court,  begins  the  next 
chapter  with  the  following  words  :  —  "  The  grievances  under  which 
the  EngHsh  labored,  when  considered  in  themselves,  without  regard 
to  the  constitution,  scarcely  deserve  the  name ;  nor  were  they  either 
burdensome  on  the  people's  properties,  or  anywise  shocking  to  the 
natural  humanity  of  mankind.  Even  the  imposition  of  ship-money, 
independent  of  the  consequences,  was  rather  an  advantage*  to  the 
public,  by  the  judicious  use  which  the  king  made  of  the  money  levied 
by  tkat  expedient.''  Again  :  —  "  All  ecclesiastical  affairs  were 
settled  by  law  and  uninterrupted  precedent ;  and  the  Church  was 
become  a  considerable  barrier  to  the  power,  both  legal  and  illegal, 
of  the  crown.  Peace,  too,  industry,  commerce,  opulence,  —  nay, 
even  justice  and  lenity  of  administration,  notwithstanding  some  very 
few  exceptions,  —  all  these  were  enjoyed  by  the  people,  and  every 
other  blessing  of  government,  except  liberty,  or  rather  the  present 
exercise  of  liberty  and  its  proper  security." 

Observe  now  Lord  Clarendon  ;  observe  the  facts  that  he  first  lays 
down,  and  then  the  remarks  which  he  thinks  it  necessary  to  subjoin. 
His  facts  are  thef-e  :  — r "  Supplemental  acts  of  state  were  made  to  sup- 

*  This  is  the  reading  of  the  earlier  editions.  But  his  subsequent  reflections  seem  to 
have  impressed  M: .  Kume  with  a  deeper  sense  of  the  merits  of  tliis  imposition,  and  he 
accordingly,  in  the  .nal  revision  of  his  work,  substituted  the  expression,  "a  great  and 
evident  advantage."  —  N. 


252  LECTURE  XIV. 

ply  defect  of  laws ; obsolete  laws  were  revived  and  rigorously 

executed  ; the  law  of  knighthood  [was  revived] ,  which 

was  very  grievous ;  and  no  less  unjust  projects  of  all  kinds,  many  ri- 
diculous, many  scandalous,  all  very  grievous,  were  set  on  foot ; 

the  old  laws  of  the  forest  were  revived ; lastly,  for  a  spring  and 

magazine  that  should  have  no  bottom,  and  for  an  everlasting  supply 
of  all  occasions,  a  writ  was  framed  in  a  form  of  law,"  &c.,  &c.,  — 
the  writ  of  ship-money.  He  tells  us,  that,  "  for  the  better  support 
of  these  extraordinary  ways,  and  to  protect  the  agents  and  instru- 
ments who  must  be  employed  in  them,  and  to  discountenance  and 
suppress  all  bold  inquiries  and  opposers,  the  Council-Table  and  Star- 
Chamber  enlarge  their  jurisdictions  to  a  vast  extent,  *  holding,'  as 
Thucydides  said  of  the  Athenians,  '  for  honorable  that  which  pleased, 
and  for  just  that  which  profited ' ;  and,  being  the  same  persons  in 
several  rooms,  grew  both  courts  of  law  to  determine  right,  and  courts 
of  revenue  to  bring  money  into  the  treasury :  the  Council-Table,  by 
proclamations,  enjoining  to  the  people  what  was  not  enjoined  by  the 
law,  and  prohibiting  that  which  was  not  prohibited ;  and  the  Star- 
Chamber  censuring  the  breach  and  disobedience  to  those  proclama- 
tions, by  very  great  fines  and  imprisonment ;  so  that  any  disrespect 
to  any  acts  of  state,  or  to  the  persons  of  statesmen,  was  in  no  time 
more  penal ;  and  those  foundations  of  right,  by  which  men  valued 
their  security,  to  the  apprehension  and  understanding  of  wise  men, 
never  more  in  danger  to  be  destroyed." 

And  yet  at  the  close  of  his  description  of  this  most  alarming  state 
of  England,  what  are  his  observations  ?  They  are  these  :  —  "  Now 
after  all  this,  I  must  be  so  just  as  to  say,  that,  during  the  whole  time 
that  these  pressures  were  exercised,  and  those  new  and  extraordinary 
ways  were  run,  this  kingdom  enjoyed  the  greatest  calm,  and  the 
fullest  measure  of  felicity,  that  any  people,  in  any  age,  for  so  long 
time  together,"  that  is,  for  the  above-mentioned  eleven  or  twv^lve 
years,  "  have  been  blessed  with,  to  the  wonder  and  envy  of  ull  the 
other  parts  of  Christendom."  Soon  after  he  adds,  having  first  given 
a  more  distinct  enumeration  of  the  blessings  which  England  enjoyed, 
these  words :  —  "  Lastly,  for  a  complement  of  all  these  blessings, 
they  were  enjoyed  by  and  under  the  protection  of  a  king  of  the  most 
harmless  disposition,  the  most  exemplary  piety,  the  greatest  sobriety, 
chastity,  and  mercy,  that  any  prince  hath  been  endowed  with." 
Such  are  the  words  of  Lord  Clarendon. 

Now  what  I  have  to  press  upon  your  reflections  is  this :  —  If  men 
like  these,  —  a  calm,  deliberating  philosopher  like  Hume  (though 
favorable  to  monarchy,  yet  certainly  not  meaning  to  be  unfavorable 
to  the  interests  of  mankind),  —  if  Hume,  at  the  distance  of  more 
than  a  century,  in  the  security  of  his  closet,  and  Clarendon,  a  lover 
of  the  constitution,  of  his  country,  a  patriotic  statesman,  while  de- 
livering, as  he  rightly  conceived,  a  work  to  posterity,  —  if  such  men 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  253 

could  think  that  these  were  observations  on  the  subject  too  reasonable 
to  be  withheld  from  the  minds  of  their  readers,  how  difficult  must 
it  have  been  for  men  at  the  time  to  escape  from  the  soothing,  the 
fatal,  influence  of  such  considerations, —  this  supposed  prosperity  of 
their  country,  this  peace,  this  order,  these  domestic  virtues  and  piety 
of  their  king,  their  safety  under  his  kind  protection !  how  difficult  to 
be  generous  enough  to  think  of  those  Englishmen  who  were  to  follow 
them,  rather  than  of  themselves !  how  difficult  to  encounter  the  ter- 
rors of  fines  and  imprisonments,  for  the  sake  of  any  thing  so  vague, 
so  abstract,  so  disputed  (such  might  have  been  their  language),  as 
the  constitution  of  their  country  !  how  difficult  to  resist  all  those  very 
prudent  suggestions  with  which  sensible  men,  like  Hume  and  Claren- 
don, not  to  say  the  minions  of  baseness  and  servility,  could  have  so 
readily  supplied  them !  how  difficult,  when  all  that  was  required  of 
them  was  a  little  silence,  and  the  occasional  payment  of  a  tax  of  a 
few  shillings ! 

Yet,  if  our  ancestors  had  not  escaped  from  the  soothing,  the  fatal, 
influence  of  such  considerations,  —  if  they  had  not  thought  that 
there  was  something  still  more  to  be  required  for  their  country  than 
all  this  peace,  and  industry,  and  commerce,  this  calm  of  felicity,  this 
protection  and  repose,  under  the  most  virtuous  and  merciful  of  kings, 
—  if  they  had  not  resisted  with  contempt  and  scorn  all  the  very  pru- 
dent suggestions  with  which  their  minds  might  have  been  so  easily 
accommodated,  —  if  they  had  not  been  content  to  encounter  the  ter- 
rors of  fines  and  imprisonments,  the  loss  of  their  domestic  comforts, 
the  prospects  of  lingering  disease  and  death,  for  the  sake  of  their 
civil  and  rehgious  liberties,  —  if  they  had  not  had  the  generosity  and 
magnanimity,  the  virtue  and  the  heroism,  to  think  of  their  descend- 
ants as  well  as  thems^ves,  —  what,  it  may  surely  be  asked,  would 
now  be  the  situation  of  those  descendants,  and  where  would  now  be 
the  renowned  constitution  of  England  ? 


LECTURE   XV. 


CHARLES  THE   FIRST. 


In  my  last  lecture  I  proposed  to  my  hearers,  when  they  came  t< 
the  examination  of  this  most  interesting  reign  of  Charles  the  First, 
to  divide  it  into  different  intervals,  and,  during  these  intervals,  t< 
compare  the  conduct  of  the  king  and  his  Parliaments,  the  better  to 

V 


254  LECTURE  XT. 

appreciate,  on  tlie  whole,  the  merits  and  demerits  of  the  contending 
parties. 

Disquisitions  of  this  kind  form  an  important  part  of  the  instruction 
of  history ;  the  great  principles  of  human  conduct  are,  on  these  oo^ 
casions,  examined  and  reflected  upon,  and  we  are  thus  ena^bled  to 
draw  general  conclusions.  The  language,  for  instance,  which  I  yes- 
terday quoted  from  Lord  Clarendon,  constituted,  no  doubt,  much  of 
his  conversation  to  those  around  him  at  the  time ;  we  see  it  after- 
wards the  language  of  Hume  ;  it  will  be  the  language  of  a  certain 
portion  of  the  community,  and  that  by  no  means  the  least  respecta- 
ble, at  all  times,  whenever  the  conduct  of  any  government  becomes 
the  subject  of  inquiry  and  remark.  I  therefore  draw  your  attention 
to  it.  But  I  observed  then,  and  I  must  repeat  now,  that  such  senti- 
ments would  have  been  fatal  to  our  ancestors  and  ourselves,  if  they 
had  prevailed  in  the  time  of  Charles.  Their  tendency  is  more  or 
less  fatal  in  every  period  of  society ;  and  when  a  mixed  and  free  con- 
stitution has  been  at  length  established,  and  general  prosperity  has 
been  the  natural  result,  this  turn  of  thinking  seems  to  be  one  of  the 
last,  but  certainly  one  of  the  most  formidable,  enemies  which  any 
such  mixed  and  free  constitution  has  to  encounter. 

After  dividing  the  reign  of  Charles  into  two  intervals,  —  the  first, 
of  four  years  from  his  accession,  the  next,  of  eleven  years  immedi- 
ately succeeding,  —  I  mentioned  to  you,  as  a  specimen  of  the  trans- 
actions that  took  place,  the  Petition  of  Right  and  the  question  of 
tonnage  and  poundage.  They  gave  occasion  to  the  quotations  I  rec- 
ommended to  your  attention  from  Clarendon  and  Hume. 

It  is  to  this  second  interval  that  belongs  the  celebrated  question 
of  ship-money.  The  very  name  of  Hampden  will  recall  it  to  your 
mind.  Observe  the  instruction  which  is  to  he  derived  from  some  of 
the  circumstances  that  took  place  ;  observe  the  manner  in  which  the 
great  leaders  of  the  popular  party  could  be  brought  over  to  the 
court ;  how  even  a  man  so  able  and  so  severe  as  the  celebrated  Noy, 
the  attorney-general,  could  be  so  misled,  or  so  flattered,  as  to  be- 
come, in  fact,  the  author  of  the  writ  for  ship-money ;  how  the  judges 
themselves  could  be  tampered  with ;  how  an  opinion  which  they  pro- 
nounced theoretically,  and  in  the  abstract,  could  be  abused  in  prac- 
tice, and  turned  to  the  most  illegal  purposes  ;  how  an  exercise  of  the 
prerogative,  confined  and  bounded  in  its  original  application,  could 
be  extended  indefinitely,  and  converted  into  a  regular  mode  of  legis- 
lation, which  it  was  no  longer  necessary  in  the  court  to  justify,  or 
allowable  for  the  subject  to  question  :  when  remarks  like  these  have 
been  made,  we  may  surely  see  but  too  plainly  how  many  are  the 
dangers  to  which  all  civil  liberty  must  be  for  ever  exposed,  —  how 
precarious,  as  well  as  precious,  is  the  blessing.  Let  us  honor,  as  we 
ought,  the  constitution  of  England,  but  let  us  consider,  as  we  ought, 
how  and  from  whom  we  have  received  it,  and  we  may  then  learn  to 
pronounce  with  gratitude  and  reverence  the  name  of  Hampden. 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  255 

Such,  indeed,  have  been  the  sentiments  with  which  that  name  has 
always  been  pronounced  by  Englishmen.  The  historian,  Hume  him- 
self, seems  affected  for  one  short  moment  by  the  common  enthusiasm, 
when  he  arrives  at  this  part  of  his  narrative.  When  this  assertor 
of  the  public  cause,  says  he,  had  resisted  the  levy  of  ship-money, 
"  the  prejudiced  or  prostituted*  judges,  four  excepted,  gave  sentence 
in  favor  of  the  crown.  Hampden,  however,  obtained  by  the  trial  the 
end  for  which  he  had  so  generously  sacrificed  his  safety  and  "his  quiet ; 
the  people  were  roused  from  their  lethargy,  and  became  sensible  of 
the  danger  to  which  their  liberty  -was  exposed.  These  national  ques- 
tions were  canvassed  in  every  company,  and  the  more  they  were  ex- 
amined, the  more  evidently  did  it  appear  to  many  that  liberty  was 
totally  subverted,  and  an  unusual  and  arbitrary  authority  exercised 
over  the  kingdom.  Slavish  principles,  they  said,  concurred  with 
illegal  practices  ;  ecclesiastical  tyranny  gave  aid  to  civil  usurpation  ; 
iniquitous  taxes  were  supported  by  arbitrary  punishments  ;  and  all  the 
privileges  of  the  nation,  transmitted  through  so  many  ages,  secured 
by  so  many  laws,  and  purchased  by  the  blood  of  so  many  heroes  and 
patriots,  now  lay  prostrate  at  .the  feet  of  the  monarch  !  What,  though 
pubhc  peace  and  national  industry  increased  the  commerce  and  opu- 
lence of  the  kingdom  ?  This  advantage  was  temporary,  and  due 
alone,  not  to  any  encouragement  given  by  the  crown,  but  to  the  spirit 
of  the  Enghsh,  the  remains  of  their  ancient  freedom.  ^Vhat,  though 
the  personal  character  of  the  king,  amidst  all  his  misguided  councils, 
might  merit  indulgence,  or  even  praise  ?  He  was  but  one  man ;  and 
the  privileges  of  the  people,  the  inheritance  of  millions,  were  too  val- 
uable to  be  sacrificed  to  his  prejudices  and  mistakes." 

Here  Mr.  Hume,  as  if  conscious  what  might  be  the  influence  of 
the  eloquent  reasonings  and  just  statements  which  he  was  exhibiting, 
stops  short,  —  it  was  certainly  high  time  ;  and,  as  if  unwilling  that 
his  reader  should  be  excited  to  a  sentiment  of  patriotism  too  unqual- 
ified, he  immediately  subjoins  :  —  "  Such,  or  more  severe,  were  the 
sentiments  promoted  by  a  great  party  in  the  nation.  No  excuse,  on 
the  king's  part,  or  alleviation,  however  reasonable,  could  be  hearkened 
to  or  admitted  ;  and  to  redress  these  grievances,  a  Parliament  was 
impatiently  longed  for,  or  any  other  incident,  however  calamitous, 
that  might  secure  the  people  against  those  oppressions  which  they 
felt,  or  the  greater  ills  which  they  apprehended  from  the  combined 
encroachments  of  church  and  state." 

My  hearers  will  easily  conceive  that  it  is  impossible  for  me  in  the 
slightest  manner  to  enter  into  any  detail  of  the  merits  or  demerits  of 

*  In  the  editions  containing  Hume's  final  corrections  this  epithet  is  expnngedj 
doubtless  as  being  one  of  the' "  many  rillanous,  seditious  Whig  strokes  "  which  he 
says  "  had  crept  into  the  work,"  in  consequence  of  "  the  plaguy  prejudices  of  Whig 
gism  with  which  lie  was  too  much  infected  when  he  began  it!"  See  Burton's  Lifi( 
and  Correspondence  of  Hume  (Edinburgh,  1846),  Vol.  ii.  pp.  144,  434.  — N. 


256  LECTURE  XV. 

the  political  questions  that  were  agitated  and  of  the  struggle  that  ex- 
isted during  these  two  intervals  of  four  and  of  eleven  years.  I  have 
attempted  to  do  what  alone  I  can  hope  to  do  ;  I  have  pointed  out  a 
few  of  the  more  leading  topics  of  political  dissension,  as  specimens 
of  the  whole,  and  have  offered  such  observations  upon  them  as  I  am 
willing  to  believe  my  hearers,  when  they  come  to  examine  the  histo- 
ry, will  think  reasonable.  But  we  must  now  look  at  this  subject  from 
another  point  of  view. 

1  have  already  apprised  you  that  the  Reformation  had  produced 
in  England,  as  well  as  in  other  countries,  great  differences  of  opinion 
on  religious  subjects,  and  that,  therefore,  the  religious  principle  got 
at  length  entangled  in  the  political  questions  that  agitated  the  nation. 
This  will  be  immediately  apparent.  I  have  already  touched  upon  a 
few  of  the  points  of  civil  dispute  between  the  sovereign  and  his  Par- 
liaments ;  I  must,  therefore,  now  allude  to  those  of  a  religious  na- 
ture, and  therefore  to  the  system  of  measures  which  Charles  pursued 
with  respect  to  the  neighbouring  kingdom  of  Scotland. 

It  is  observed  by  Mr.  Hume,  in  the  beginning  of  his  fifty-third 
chapter,  that  "it  was  justly  apprehended  that  such  precedents," 
(alluding  to  those  that  took  place  on  the' disuse  of  Parliaments,)  "  if 
patiently  submitted  to,  would  end  in  a  total  disuse  of  Parliaments, 
and  in  the  estabhshment  of  arbitrary  authority"  ;  but  that  "  Charles 
dreaded  no  opf)Osition  from  the  people,  who  are  not  commonly  much 
affected  with  consequences,  and  require  some  striking  motive  to  en- 
gage them  in  a  resistance  of  established  government." 

This  inertness  and  want  of  foresight,  which  the  historian  so  justly 
supposes  to  belong  to  the  mass  of  every  community,  would  be,  of  all 
the  characteristics  of  our  nature,  one  of  the  most  beneficial,  if  the 
rulers  of  mankind  would  not  ungenerously  abuse  it ;  but  this  they 
are  always  ready  to  do,  often  to  the  injury  of  the  pubhc,  and  some- 
times even  to  their  own  destruction. 

Charles  had  been  persevering  in  this  faulty,  or  rather  criminal 
course,  for  some  time  after  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign  ;  but  as  he 
added  folly  to  his  political  transgressions,  he  at  last  supplied  his  sub- 
jects with  that  "  striking  motive  "  which  the  historian  justly  repre- 
sents as  so  necessary  to  rouse  a  people  into  rebellion. 

Unfortunately  for  his  royal  house,  both  he  and  his  father  lived  in 
a  religious  age,  and  their  particular  temperaments  impelled  them  to 
introduce  the  religious  principle  into  politics ;  an  unworthy  direction, 
which,  of  itself,  it  would  have  been  but  too  apt  to  take  in  the  exist- 
ing circumstances  of  the  world.  James  the  First  had  pronounced 
the  celebrated  maxim  of  "  No  bishop,  no  king."  The  divines  of  the 
Church  of  England  were  in  these  times  not  wanting  in  their  endeav- 
ours to  establish  the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience ;  it  was,  indeed, 
supposed  to  be  the  unqualified  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures.  A  sym- 
pathy and  a  supposed  bond  of  interest,  to  be  carried  blindly  to  any 


CHARLES   THE  FIRST.  257 

unconstitutional  length,  were  thus  unhappily  formed  between  th3  re- 
gal and  episcopal  power.  Add  to  this,  that  the  religion  of  Charles 
and  the  famous  Laud  was  narrow  and  intolerant ;  and  in  a  fatal  hour 
it  was  resolved  to  introduce  the  canons  and  liturgy  of  the  Church  of 
England,  or  rather  a  modification  of  them,  that  was  even  more  offen- 
sive, into  Scotland. 

It  is  needless  to  speak  of  the  injustice  as  well  as  the  imprudence 
of  such  an  experiment ;  but  it  is  too  important  a  feature  in  the 
portrait  of  these  times  not  to  require  the  most  perfect  consideration 
of  every  reader  of  our  history.  All  that  can  be  said  in  extenuation 
of  Charles  may  be  seen  in  Clarendon  and  in"  Hume  ;  but  you  will  do 
well  to  peruse  much  of  this  part  of  the  history  in  Burnet;  and 
certainly  in  Rush  worth's  Collections,  where  the  dissimulation,  obsti- 
nacy, and  folly  of  the  king  are  more  fully  shown  than  in  Hume  or  in 
Clarendon,  and  where  the  fanaticism  of  the  members  of  the  Scotch 
Church,  or  of  the  Kirk,  may  also  be  seen  more  completely,  by  being 
displayed  in  the  very  words  and  expressions  which  they  themselves 
used,  and  of  which  no  adequate  description  can  be  given.  Their 
Solemn  Le^ue  and  Covenant,  no\rthat  we  are  out  of  the  reach  of 
it,  is,  in  spite  of  the  seriousness  of  the  subject,  and  the  tremendous 
effects  it  produced,  such  a  specimen  of  the  Presbyterians  and  of  the 
times,  as  to  be,  I  had  almost  said,  amusing.  I  do  not,  upon  the 
whole,  think  it  proper  to  be  quoted  here,  but  you  will  of  course 
peruse  it  attentively. 

It  was  in  vain  that  Charles  at  length  made  concessions  to  his 
Scottish  subjects ;  these  concessions  were  never  made  in  time,  and 
were  never  sufficient  for  the  occasion.  They  never  deserved  the 
praise  of  magnanimity ;  and  they  therefore  never  reaped  the  benefit 
of  it.  From  the  first,  his  cause  in  Scotland  was  continually  verging 
to  defeat  and  disgrace.  However  necessary  he  and  Laud  might  coa- 
ceive  their  own  ecclesiastical  institutions  to  be,  the  Covenanters  wei'e 
equally  clear  that  such  relics  and  images  of  Popery  were  quite  fatal 
to  all  rational  hopes  of  acceptance  with  the  Deity.  The  king  drew 
the  sword,  —  the  obvious  consequence,  but  the  last  fatal  consumma- 
tion of  his  impolicy  and  intolerance.  On  the  one  hand,  contributions 
were  levied,  by  the  influence  of  Laud,  on  the  ecclesiastical  bodies  of 
England  ;  while,  on  the  other,  the  pulpits  of  Scotland  resounded  with 
anathemas  against  those  who  went  not  out  to  assist  the  Lord  against 
the  mighty:  "  Curse  ye  Meroz,  curse  ye  bitterly,"  &c.,  &c.  The 
result  was,  as  it  is  desirable  it  may  always  be,  that  the  cause  of  in- 
tolerance was  successfully  resisted. 

But  the  effects  of  this  attempt  of  Charles  and  Laud  were  not  to 
end  with  Scotland.  The  king  could  not,  wage  war  without  expense, 
nor  encounter  expense  without  pressing  upon  his  Enghsh  subjects. 
After  having  made  a  pacification  with  the  Scots,  the  king  could  not 
persuade  himself  fairly  to  give  up  the  contest,  and  he  therefore  once 
33  V* 


258  LECTURE  XV. 

more  collected  an  army,  —  an  army  which  he  could  not  pay ;  and 
for  the  purpose  of  paying  it,  he  was  at  last  obliged  to  summon  once 
more  an  English  Parliament,  —  and  this,  after  an  intermission  of 
eleven  years,  and  after  all  his  tyrannical  expedients  to  do  without 
one. 

And  here  commences  a  third  interval,  which  I  should  propose  to 
extend  only  to  the  king's  journey  into  Scotland  in  the  August  of 
1641.  This  interval  includes  the  ivliole  sitting  of  the  Parliament 
now  called,-  and  the  first  period  of  the  proceedings  of  the  next,  the 
noted  Parliament,  afterwards  called  the  Long  Parhament;  it  is  a 
short  interval  of  about  a  year ;  but  it  is  clearly  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  two  former  intervals,  when  the  conduct  of  the  king  was  so 
deserving  of  reprobation,  and  again  from  the  fourth  or  last  interval, 
when  the  conduct  of  the  Parhament  was  unequivocally  wrong. '  Even 
in  this  third,  this  intermediate  interval,  the  king  was  still,  as  I  con- 
ceive, to  be  blamed,  and  the  Parhament  to  be  praised ;  but  this 
blame  and  this  praise  become  now  more  questionable,  and  not  to  be 
given  without  some  hesitation  and  reserve. 

When  the  Parhament  met,  it  was  soon  evident  that  th^  king  only 
wanted  money ;  while  the  Commons,  on  their  part,  were  chiefly  anx- 
ious for  proper  admissions  on  his,  to  secure  the  hberty  of  the  subject. 
He  could  not  wait,  he  said,  for  the  result  of  discussions  of  this  nature  ; 
and  desired  to  be  supphed  in  the  first  place,  and  to  be  trusted  on 
his  promise  for  a  subsequent  redress  of  their  grievances.  The  Par- 
liament civilly  evaded  his  request,  and  would  not  comply,  —  that  is, 
would  not,  in  fact,  trust  his  promise  ;  they  were  therefore  dissolved  in 
haste  and  anger. 

This  important  measure,  which  was  decisive  of  his  fate  and  of  the 
peace  of  the  community,  will  be  found,  on  examination,  though  it 
may  not  at  first  sight  appear  so,  impohtic  and  unjustifiable.  "  The 
vessel  was  now  full,"  says  Lord  Bohngbroke,  "  and  this  last  drop 
made  the  waters  of  bitterness  overflow."  It  was  the  subject  of  the 
most  sincere  lamentation,  and  evidently  a  measure  much  disapproved 
by  Lord  Clarendon,  then  Mr.  Hyde,  and  a  most  valuable  member  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  valuable  both  to  the  king  and  people. 

This  unfortunate  prince  seems  to  have  been,  even  at  this  advanced 
period  of  these  dissensions,  totally  unable  to  comprehend  his  own 
situation,  or  make  the  slightest  provision  for  future  contingencies. 
As  money  could  not  be  raised  by  Parhament,  the  former  illegal  ex- 
pedients were  renewed.  And  we  are  here  to  consider  what  was  the 
object,  all  this  time,  which  the  king  was  so  resolved  to  accomplish. 
Was  it  justifiable,  —  the  introduction  of  Laud's  canons  and  liturgy 
into  Scotland  ?  The  event  -syas,  that  an  army  undisciplined  and  ill 
paid  was  led  against  the  Scots,  and  found  unfit  to  contend  with  them ; 
and  every  thing  being  reduced  to  a  state  of  exasperation  and  despair, 
the  king,  after  calling  a  council  of  the  peers  at  York,  once  more 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  259 

thoiiglit  proper  to  summon  a  Parliament.  It  was  the  last  he  ever  did 
summon ;  it  was  the  Long  Parliament. 

Hitherto  the  feelings  of  Englishmen  will  sufficiently  sympathize 
with  the  proceedings  of  the  Commons.  But  as  the  contest  between 
prerogative  and  privilege  was  longer  continued,  and  grew  more  and 
more  warm,  it  must  necessarily  be  expected  that  the  hazards  and  per- 
plexities of  the  great  leaders  of  the  House  of  Commons  were  to  in- 
crease, and  that  right  decisions  were  to  be  attained  with  more  diffi- 
culty. After  having  been  tried  in  the  perilous  warfare  of  doubtful 
and  dangerous  contest,  a  severer  trial  yet  remained,  that  of  success. 
They  were  now,  if  possible,  though  successful,  to  be  wise  and  mod- 
erate. 

In  civil  dissensions  it  is  quite  impossible  to  suppose  that  misconduct 
will  be  found  only  on  one  side.  Outrage  and  folly  in  one  party  are 
necessarily  followed  by  similar  offences  in  the  other ;  and  from  the 
condition  of  human  infirmity,  it  must  inevitably  happen,  that,  in  ex- 
amining the  merits  and  demerits  of  actors  in  scenes  hke  these,  the 
question  is  soon  altered,  and,  ceasing  to  be  an  inquiry  of  which  is  in 
the  right,  becomes  rather  an  investigation  of  which  is  least  in  the 
wrong. 

To  the  lasting  honor  of  the  Long  Parliament,  and,  by  implication, 
of  the  Parliaments  that  preceded,  it  does  not  appear  that  its  measures 
were,  for  a  certain  period,  with  one  exception,  the  attainder  of  Lord 
Strafford,  and  perhaps  also  the  vote  for  their  own  continuance,  at  all 
censurable  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  were  highly  laudable.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  Long  Parliament  would  surely  have  been  unworthy  of 
their  office,  if  they  had  not  provided  for  the  meeting  of  Parliaments, 
the  integrity  of  the  judges,  the  extinction  of  monopolies,  and  the  abo- 
lition of  the  Council  of  York,  and  the  courts  of  Star-Chamber  and 
High  Commission. 

Lord  Falkland  and  Lord  Clarendon  concurred,  for  a  time,  with  the 
measures  of  the  popular  party  of  this  Long  Parliament ;  and  "  the 
major  part "  of  the  House  is  stated  by  the  latter  to  have  "  consisted  of 
men  who  had  no  mind  to  break  the  peace  of  the  kingdom,  or  to  make 
any  considerable  alteration  in  the  government  of  church  or  state." 
Mr.  Hume  himself,  in  his  fifty-fourth  chapter,  gives  the  following 
opinion ;  —  observe  the  very  considerate  candor  of  his  remarks  :  — 
*'  In  short,  if  we  take  a  survey  of  the  transactions  of  this  memorable 
Parliament,"  that  is,  the  Long  Parhament,  "  during  the  first  period 
of  its  operations,"  the  period  we  are  now  considering,  "  we  shall  find, 
that,  excepting  Strafford's  attainder,  which  was  a  complication  of 
cruel  iniquity,  their  merits  in  other  respects  so  much  outweigh  their 
mistakes,  as  to  entitle  them  to  praise  from  all  lovers  of  liberty.  Not 
only  were  former  abuses  remedied  and  grievances  redressed,  great 
provision  for  the  future  was  made  by  law  against  the  return  of  like 
Qomplaints ;  and  if  the  means  by  which  they  obtained  such  advantage* 


260  LECTURE  XV. 

savor  often  of  artifice,  sometimes  of  violence,  it  is  to  be  considered 
that  revolutions  of  government  cannot  be  effected  by  the  mere  force 
of  argument  and  reasoning,  and  that,  factions  being  once  excited, 
men  can  neither  so  firmly  regulate  the  tempers  of  others,  nor  their 
own,  as  to  insure  themselves  against  all  exorbitancies.'^  -The  admis- 
sions  of  Mr.  Hume  are  often  very  striking. 

Down,  therefore,  to  the  king's  journey  into  Scotland  in  August, 
1641,  the  student  will  find,  that,  Avith  the  exceptions  before  stated, 
the  attainder  of  Lord  Strafford,  and  perhaps  the  vote  of  their  own 
continuance,  he  may  consider  his  country  as  for  ever  indebted  to 
those  who  thus  far  resisted  the  arbitrary  practices  of  prerogative  ; 
that  thus  far  they  are  perfectly  entitled  to  the  highest  of  all  praise, — 
the  praise  of  steady,  courageous,  and  enlightened  patriotism. 

The  next  interval  that  may  be  taken  is  the  period  that  elapsed  be- 
tween the  king's  journey  to  Scotland  in  August,  1641,  and  the  com- 
mencement of  hostilities.  During  this,  the  fourth  interval,  the  meas- 
ures of  the  Commons  became  violent  and  unconstitutional.  That 
this  should  be  the  case  may  be  lamented,  but  cannot,  for  the  reasons 
already  mentioned,  excite  much  surprise.  There  were,  however, 
various  circumstances  which  still  further  contributed  most  unhappily 
to  produce  these  mistaken  and  blamable  proceedings.  I  will  mention 
some  of  them ;  they  must  be  considered  as  explanations  and  pallia^ 
tives  of  the  faults  that  were  committed. 

For  instance,  and  in  the  first  place,  Lord  Clarendon,  after  giving 
the  testimony  which  I  have  quoted,  to  the  general  good  intentions  of 
the  Long  Parliament,  distinguishes  the  great  hody  of  the  House  from 
some  of  the  great  leaders  of  the  popular  party,  —  from  Pym,  Hamp- 
den, St.  John,  Fiennes,  Sir  Harry  Vane,  and  Denzil  Holies,  &c. 
That  men  like  these,  men  of  great  abihty,  should  be  found  in  an  as- 
sembly like  the  House  of  Commons  is  not  to  be  wondered  at ;  nor 
that  such  men  should  be  of  a  high  and  impetuous  nature,  or  should 
succeed  in  their  endeavours  to  lead  the  rest,  —  men  of  calmer  sense 
and  more  moderate  tempers.  Finally,  we  cannot  be  surprised  that 
moderate  men  of  this  last  description  should  be  deficient  in  their  at- 
tendance on  the  House,  should  be  w^anting  in  activity,  and,  above  all, 
in  a  just  confidence  in  themselves.  That  all  this  should  happen,  as, 
according  to  the  noble  historian,  seems  to  have  been  the  case,  may 
readily  be  supposed.  This  inactivity,  however,  this  want  of  confi- 
dence in  themselves,  was  fatal  to  the  state ;  and  it  is  from  circum- 
stances like  these  that  this  period  of  our  history  is  only  rendered 
still  more  deserving  of  the  study  of  every  Englishman,  and  of  all 
posterity  ;  that  men  of  genius,  who  are  the  more  daring  guides,  may 
learn  the  temptations  of  their  particular  nature,  and  that  men  of 
colder  sense,  who  are  the  more  safe  guides,  may  be  taught  their 
own  value,  —  may  be  made  to  feel  that  it  is  they  alone  who  ought, 
not  indeed  to  propose,  but  ultimately  to  decide,  and,  though  they 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  261 

may  not  apparently  lead,  at  least  determine  and  in  fact  prescribe  the 
course  that  is  to  be  pursued,  —  that  it  is  their  duty  in  this,  their 
proper  province,  to  exert  themselves  manfully  and  without  ceasing. 

For  instance,  the  great  occasion  on  which  the  moderate  party 
failed  was  in  the  prosecution  of  Lord  Strafford.  That  he  was  to  be 
impeached  by  the  leaders  must  have  been  expected  ;  that  he  deserv- 
ed it  may  be  admitted  ;  but  that,  when  the  existing  laws  did  not  sen- 
tence him  to  condign  punishment,  when  no  ingenuity  could  prove 
that  he  had  capitally  offended,  then  for  the  leaders  to  bring  in  a  bill 
of  attainder,  that  is,  a  bill  to  execute  him  with  or  without  law,  by  the 
paramount  authority  of  Parliament,  or  rather  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, acting  merely  on  their  o^vn  moral  estimation  of  the  case, —  all 
this  was  what  no  moderate,  reasonable  men  should  ever  have  admit- 
ted ;  and  they  ought  surely  to  have  considered,  that,  if  they  were 
once  to  be  hurried  over  an  act  of  injustice,  a  real  crime  against  the 
laws,  like  this,  it  was  impossible  to  say  into  what  offences  they  might 
not  afterwards  be  plunged,  by  the  violence  of  which  they  saw  their 
leaders  were  certainly  capable,  on  the  one  part,  and  by  what  they 
already  knew  of  the  indiscretion  and  arbitrary  nature  of  the  king, 
on  the  other. 

The  very  animated  and  eloquent  Lord  Digby  exerted  his  great 
powers  on  this  occasion.  There  is  something  of.  a  doubtful  shade 
hangs  over  the  purity  of  his  conduct  in  these  transactions.  But  his 
speech  to  the  House  of  Commons  is  on  record,  and  ought  to  have 
decided  the  vote  of  every  member  present.  It  should  by  all  means 
be  read  ;  you  will  find  it  in  Cobbett.  The  proceedings  of  the  House, 
and  the  fate  of  the  speech,  —  for  it  was  too  just  and  sensible  not  to 
excite  indignation  at  the  time  and  to  be  burnt  by  the  common  hang- 
man, —  afford  a  lesson  which  should  never  be  forgotten. 

The  multitude,  ever  clamorous  for  punishment  and  public  execu- 
tions, ever  careless  of  those  forms  of  law  in  which  they  are  of  all 
others  so  deeply  interested,  might  well  have  terrified  even  the  Com- 
mons themselves,  and  made  them  pause  ;  a  very  Httle  self-examina- 
tion might  have  enabled  these  legislators  to  discover  that  they  saw 
displayed  in  the  furious  looks  and  voices  of  the  mob  only  a  ruder  im- 
age of  their  own  intemperate  thirst  for  vengeance  and  dangerous  dis- 
regard of  the  establishe'd  f)rinciples  of  justice. 

But  to  proceed  with  my  siibject.  I  will  now  moition  another  rea- 
son to  account  for  the  unconstitutional  proceedings  of  the  Commons, 
in  addition  to  the  reason  just  alluded  to,  the  inertness  of  the  moder- 
ate men.  It  is  this  :  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  times  in  which  the 
great  leaders  of  the  Commons  happened  to  live.  The  age  of  the 
Long  Parliament  was  a  religious  age.  A  very  lively  portrait  of  the 
different  sects  and  parties,  and  their  principles  of  speculation  and 
action,  may  be  seen  in  Hume,  in  Millar,  and  in  Clarendon.  Now  the 
nature  of  this  rehgious  principle,  and  its  effects  on  all  men,  must 


LECTURE  XV. 

serve  to  excuse  the  effects  which  it  also  produced  on  the  condjict  of 
the  members  of  the  Long  Parhament. 

No  further  observation  is,  I  think,  necessary  on  this  part  of  the 
subject.  In  the  authors  I  have  just  mentioned  you  will  see  all  that 
you  may  readily  conceive ;  you  will  see  how  the  religious  principle 
so  interfered,  as  to  render  all  the  different  parties  in  the  state,  not 
only  the  king  and  Laud,  but  also  the  members  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, obstinate,  unforgiving,  and  unreasonable,  till  all  the  real  lovers 
of  their  country  were  buried,  with  themselves,  in  a  common  destruc- 
tion. 

Again,  and  in  the  third  place,  it  must  be  observed,  that  various 
incidents  occurred  of  the  most  untoward  nature  (the  Irish  rebellion, 
for  instance),  all  contributing  to  mislead  those  who  directed  the  pa- 
triotic party,  and  to  increase  the  perplexities  and  calamities  of  the 
scene. 

But  I  will  mention  one  circumstance  more,  in  the  fourth  and  last 
place,  to  account  for  the  mistakes  and  faults  and  unconstitutional 
proceedings  of  the  Long  Parliament.  It  is  this  :  the  conduct  of  the 
king  himself.  This  conduct  was  marked  with  such  a  total  want  of 
foresight  and  prudence  as  made  all  reasonable  system  in  his  oppo- 
nents impossible.  To  adopt,  for  the  sake  of  illustration,  a  familiar 
allusion,  —  you  cannot  play  a  game,  if  your  opponent  observes  not 
the  common  rules  of  it.  The  student  may  take,  as  an  instance,  his 
visit  to  the  House  of  Commons  to  seize  the  five  members. 

Such  are  the  four  heads,  under  some  of  which  may  be  included  all 
those  very  peculiar  events  and  circumstances  which  I  conceive  should 
be  taken  into  consideration,  when  we  decide  on  the  blamable  proceed- 
ings and  objectionable  temper  of  the  Long  Parliament  ^  they  will 
certainly  explain  and  extenuate  all,  —  excuse,  perhaps,  if  not  justify, 
much  of  their  conduct :  —  1.  The  inertness  of  the  moderate  men  ; 
2.  The  pecuhar  nature  of  the  times,  and  the  religious  nature  of 
them  ;  3.  The  various  untoward  incidents  that  occurred,  —  the  Irish 
rebellion,  for  example  ;  4.  The  totally  unreasonable  conduct  of  the 
king,  which  made  any  reasonable  system  in  his  opponents  so  difficult 
and  impossible. 

The  result  of  the  whole  was,  that  the  Parliamentary  leaders  did 
not  choose  to  trust  the  king  ;  and  they  required  from  him,  for  their 
o-wu  security,  and,  the  security  of  the  subject  (which,  it  must  be  ob- 
served, was  now  identified  with  their  own,  for,  if  they  had  failed,  no 
further  resistance  could  have  been  again  expected),  —  they  required, 
I  say,  such  concessions  as  trenched  on  the  prerogative  of  the  crown 
more  than  any  precedents  warranted,  more  than  any  constitutional 
view  of  the  subject  would  have  authorized  in  any  ordinary  situation 
of  the  political  system,  more  than  would  have  been  favorable  to  the 
interests  of  England  at  any  subsequent  period.  The  question,  there- 
fore, which  we  have  at  length  to  decide,  is  this :  —  whether  these 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  268 

leaders  were  justified  in  this  distrust  of  the  crown,  or  not ;  whether 
they  demanded  more  than  was  necessary  for  their  own  security,  and 
the  security  of  the  constitution,  which,  as  I  have  before  observed, 
were  now  identified  ;  for  if  they  failed,  as  I  must  repeat,  no  subse- 
quent effort  could  have  been  expected  from  others. 

And  this  question  ought,  in  candor,  to  be  argued  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  king  was  in  reality  as  deeply  impressed  with  the  rights 
01  his  prerogative  as  ever,  —  as  httle  disposed  as  ever  to  rule  by 
Parliaments,  if  he  could  do  without  thepa,  —  as  httle  disposed  as  ever 
to  consider  the  exertions  of  the  leaders  of  the  Commons  in  opposition 
to  his  authority  as  any  other  than  disobedience  and  rebelhon,  which 
ought  to  be  punished,  according  to  their  various  degrees,  by  fine,  im- 
prisonment, or  death ;  for  these  are  the  inferences  that  may  clearly 
be  drawn  from  his  character,  his  education,  and  all  the  speeches  and 
actions  of  his  reign,  down  to  the  very  period  to  which  we  now  allude. 

But,  though  this  appears  nothing  more  than  a  fair  statement  of  the 
case,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  Parliamentary  leaders  should,  there- 
fore, not  have  trusted  the  king,  or  should  not  have  thought  them- 
selves sufficiently  safe  and  successful,  after  they  had  once  secured, 
by  law  and  by  his  public  concessions,  such  material  points  as  the  call- 
ing of  Parliaments,  the  right  of  taxation,  and  the  abolition  of  the 
courts  of  Star-Chamber  and  High  Commission. 

We  are  called  upon  to  examine  whether  they  did  not  underesti- 
mate their  own  strength,  —  whether  they  appear  to  have  considered 
how  great  was  the  victory  which  they  had  obtained,  —  whether  they 
seem  to  have  asked  themselves  the  reason  of  it,  —  whether,  in  short, 
they  did  not  make  the  same  mistake  which  is  so  naturally,  so  con- 
stantly, made  by  all  who  engage  in  contests  of  this  or  any  other  kind, 
the  mistake  of  never  supposing  that  an  opponent  has  been  sufficiently 
depressed. 

The  same  mistake  was  made  in  the  late  revolution  in  France.  The 
patriotic  party  of  that  country,  the  leaders  of  the  Constituent  Assem- 
bly of  1789,  could  never  bring  themselves  to  believe  that  they  were 
sufficiently  secure  from  the  court  and  their  opponents,  —  that  the 
executive  power  was  sufficiently  weakened ;  and  the  same  difficulty 
or  error  operated,  as  in  our  own  country,  to  the  destruction  of  the 
king  and  themselves. 

It  is  scarcely  to  be  expected,  that,  in  these  dreadful  conjunctures 
of  human  affiiirs,  this  particular  mistake  should  not  often  be  made, — 
so  many  are  the  causes  which  concur  to  produce  it ;  but  I  think  it 
must  be  allowed  that  the  mistake  was  committed  by  the  Parliamentary 
leaders. 

The  mistake,  however,  be  it  made  when  it  may,  is  sure  to  be  at- 
tended bj  the  most  fatal  eifects.  The  old  system,  which  those  who 
have  loved  their  country  meant  only  to  improve,  is  inevitably  de- 
stroyed ;  and  the  early  patriots,  the  men  of  sense  and  virtue,  are 


264  LECTURE  XV. 

overwhelmed  in  the  general  calamity.  They  have  grasped  the  pillais 
of  the  temple  ;  the  temple  falls,  and,  like  the  strong  man  of  holy  writ, 
they  bury  in  the  ruins  themselves  as  well  as  their  opponents. 

After  all,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that,  if  the  question  had  been  a 
question  of  prerogative  and  privilege  only,  the  proceedings  of  the 
Commons  would  have  been  far  more,  and  perhaps  sufficiently,  moder- 
ate and  constitutional ;  but  the  misfortune  was,  that  these  dissensions 
were  not  merely  of  a  civil,  but  also  of  a  religious  nature.  How  and 
to  what  extent  they  were  of  a  religious  nature  should  now  be  ex- 
plained to  you. 

But  here,  as  at  every  moment  during  these  particular  lectures  on 
the  times  of  Charles  the  First  and  the  Commonwealth,  I  could  wish 
the  pages  of  Hume  and  Millar  quite  present  to  your  minds.  It  is 
very  disagreeable  to  me  to  be  so  conscious  as  I  must  be,  that  I  am 
leaving  great  blanks  behind  me,  as  I  go  on ;  it  is  like  exhibiting  to 
you  the  anatomy  of  the  human  form,  by  way  of  a  portrait.  I  comfort 
myself  with  believing  that  Hume  and  Millar  are  books  which  you  can- 
not but  read,  and  you  will  then  see  how  impossible  it  would  have 
been  for  me,  on  the  one  side,  to  have  discussed  any  topics  but  those 
they  have  selected,  and  yet,  on  the  other,  how  impossible  to  have 
given  here  from  their  works  any  extracts  sufficiently  copious,  — 
their  reasonings  are  so  many,  so  beautiful,  and  so  weighty.  On  this 
present  occasion,  for  instance,  you  can  only  in  their  writings  find  a 
masterly  and  adequate  exhibition  of  the  religious  as  well  as  civil 
nature  of  this  contest ;  the  different  sects,  their  views,  mistakes,  and 
merits. 

I  can  simply  mention  here,  what  you  must  from  this  time  remem- 
ber, that  there  were,  more  particularly,  four  different  descriptions 
of  religious  opinion,  —  the  Roman  Catholics,  the  members  of  the 
Church  of  England,  the  Presbyterians,  and,  lastly,  the  Independ- 
ents ;  that,  of  the  four  descriptions  of  religious  opinion  that  existed  in 
the  country  at  the  time,  the  Presbyterians  and  Independents  were 
naturally  separated  from  those  of  the  Roman  CathoHc  and  Church  of 
England  communion  ;  and,  however  differing  from  each  other  in  the 
most  important  points,  were  united  in  their  common  hatred  to  the 
hierarchy,  and  in  their  common  wish  for  a  form  of  worship  more  simple 
than  that  estabhshed ;  at  all  events,  they  Avere  both  resolved  to  have 
no  bishops. 

As  Charles  and  Laud  could  not  be  satisfied  unless  they  attempted 
to  introduce  Episcopacy  into  Scotland,  the  Puritanical  interest  in 
England  thought  their  labors  and  patriotism  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons imperfect,  unless  they,  in  like  manner,  improved,  according  to 
their  own  particular  notions,  the  church  government  of  England.  In 
their  debates,  therefore,  their  petitions  and  their  remonstrances  to 
the  king,  instead  of  finding  the  great  principles  of*  civil  government, 
and  those  only^  insisted  upon,  we  are  totally  fatigued  and  overpower- 


CHARLES   THE  FIRST.  265 

ed  by  eternal  complaints  and  invectives  against  Popish  priests,  the 
non-execution  of  penal  laws,  diabolical  plots,  and  malignant  counsel- 
lors. It  is  not  only  Strafford  that  is  impeached,  but  also  Laud ;  it  is 
not  only  the  right  of  the  Commons  to  concur  in  the  taxation  of  the 
people  that  is  to  be  asserted,  but  the  bishops  are  to  have  no  vote  in 
the  House  of  Lords ;  and  when  the  mobs  assemble  about  the  doors  of 
the  houses  of  Parliament,  the  streets  resound,  not  with  the  cry  of 
Parhament  and  privilege,  but  of  "  No  Popish  prelates,  n(^  rotten- 
hearted  lords,*"  &c.,  &c. ;  and  it  is  not  corrupt  counsellors  or  arbitrary 
judges,  but  it  is  the  bishops,  that  escape  with  difficulty  from  the  fury 
of  this  theological  populace.  We  must  therefore  consider  whether  the 
Long  Parliament  would  have  acted  as  they  did  in  any  ordinary  state 
of  their  minds  and  feelings,  —  whether  the  king  would  have  found  it 
so  difficult  to  satisfy,  at  least  to  appease  them,  —  whether  their  jealousy 
would  have  been  so  sensitive,  their  dissatisfaction  so  constant,  their 
complaints  so  ceaseless,  captious,  and  unreasonable,  if  they  had  not 
been,  in  a  word,  sectarians  as  well  as  patriots.     • 

The  celebrated  Remonstrance  which  was  at  last  presented  to  the 
king,  and  was  so  fitted  by  its  tedious  ill-humor  to  drive  him  to  any 
possible  extremity,  was  with  great  difficulty  carried,  and  if  it  had  not 
been  carried,  Cromwell  told  Lord  Falkland  he  would  have  quitted 
the  kingdom :  that  is,  in  other  words,  this  manifesto,  upon  which  sub- 
sequent events  so  materially  turned,  was  vitally  dear  to  the  Independ- 
ents ;  and  would  probably  not  have  been  proposed,  much  less  voted, 
if  the  great  constitutional  question  of  prerogative  and  privilege  had 
not  been  interwoven  with  others  of  a  theological  nature,  —  questions 
by  which,  it  unfortunately  happens,  that  the  minds  of  men  may  at 
any  time  be  exasperated  and  embittered  to  any  possible  degree  of 
fury  and  absurdity.  It  remains,  therefore,  to  consider,  lastly,  how 
far  the  Presbyterians  are  to  be  censured  for  this,  their  resolution  to 
have  the  government  altered  in  church  as  well  as  in  state. 

Those  among  ourselves,  living  in  a  subsequent  age,  who  have  been 
properly  enlightened  by  the  past,  who  not  only  see  the  duty  of  mutu- 
al tolerance,  but  act  ^upon  it,  and  who  do  not  think  it  necessary  that 
our  own  particular  notions  in  religion  or  poKtics  should  be  estabhshed 
and  made  to  take  the  lead,  merely  because  we  believe  them  true,  — 
those. of  us  who  so  properly  understand  the  principles  of  Chrigtianity 
and  the  duties  of  civilized  society,  such  of  us,  if  any  there  be,  may 
perhaps  have  some  Httle  right  to  censure  the  Presbyterian  faction. 
But  no  such  censure  could  be  exercised,  at  that  unhappy  period,  by 
any  of  the  actors  in  the  scene  ;  —  not  by  Charles  himself,  nor  Laud, 
nor  the  Episcopalian  party,  for  they  had  attempted  the  same  in  Scot- 
land ;  not  by  any  church  or  sect  then  existing,  for  it  was  an  age  ol 
religious  wars  and  mutual  persecution. 

In  our  moral  criticisms,  therefore,  on  the  parties  of  these  times, 
when  we  are  speaking,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  not  of  the  early 
34  w 


266  LECTURE  XV. 

patriots,  but  of  the  members  of  the  Long  Parliament,  we  have  some, 
and  yet  but  little,  preference  to  make.  Charles  and  the  Episcopa- 
lians were  guilty  of  the  first  act  of  hostility,  —  at  least,  of  the  first 
violent,  and  even  cruel  proceedings,  —  the  Presbyterians,  of  urging 
their  victory  too  far.  If  Charles  and  Laud  had  succeeded,  the  civil 
and  religious  liberties  of  England  would  have  perished ;  and  subse- 
quently the  Presbyterians  could  not  succeed,  but  by  such  measures 
as  rendered  a  civil  war  inevitable.  It  may  be  possible  to  determine 
which  alternative  is  the  worst,  but  mankind  can  have  nb  greater  ene- 
mies than  those  who  reduce  them  to  either. 

Charles  was  guilty  of  a  great  want  of  political  sagacity,  in  not 
perceiving  the  growing  strength  of  the  Commons,  and,  when  he  saw 
the  increasing  number  of  the  sectaries,  in  not  considering  well  the 
cautious  and  moderate  system  which  he  was  to  adopt  when  such  men 
were  to  be  opposed  to  his  designs. 

But  the  Presbyterians,  in  like  manner,  seem  inexcusable  for  not 
taking  into  their  account  the  growing  strength  and  the  increasing 
numbers  of  the  Independents.  The  most  violent  of  the  Presbyteri- 
ans had  no  intention  to  overthrow  the  monarchy.  But  when  they 
ceased  to  act  on  a  system  of  accommodation  "with  the  king,  they  ex- 
posed every  thing  to  the  ultimate  decision  of  violence.  They  might 
themselves  wish  only  for  a  limited  monarchy,  and  for  presbyters  in 
the  Church  instead  of  bishops  ;  but  a  set  of  men  remained  behind 
them,  the  Independents,  indisposed  to  all  monarchy  and  ecclesiastical 
government  whatever ;  and  they  were  guilty  of  the  fault,  either  of 
not  properly  observing  the  numbers  and  tenets  of  such  men,  or  of  not- 
perceiving,  that,  if  they  urged  their  differences  with  the  king  to  the 
decision  of  the  sword,  or  even  to  the  immediate  chance  of  it,  men  of 
this  violent,  unreasonable  character  must  multiply,  and  be  produced 
by  the  very  urgencies  of  the  times,  and  could  not  fail  of  ultimately 
overpowering  the  king,  the  Parhament,  and  all  who  diifered  with 
them. 

It  must  at  the  same  time  be  confessed,  that  it  is  the  great  misfoi> 
tune  of  all  critical  periods  like  these,  that  parses  cannot  very  imme- 
diately be  distinguished  from  each  other.  They  advance  together 
under  the  same  standards  to  a  certain  point,  and  then,  and  not  be- 
fore, they  separate  and  take  different  directions  ;  and  as  fury  and 
absurdity  are  sure  to  be  the  most  relished  by  the  multitude,,  and  at 
some  time  or  other  to  have  the  ascendant,  moderate  men  perceive  not 
in  time,  that,  on  public  as  well  as  on  private  grounds,  there  is  more 
danger  to  be  apprehended  from  many  of  those  who  appear  to  go 
along  with  them  than  from  those  who  are  their  visible,  decided,  and 
declared  opponents. 

Observations  of  this  kind  have  been  again  illustrated  by  the  lato 
revolution  in  France,  and  may  therefore  seem  to  indicate  princjiples 
m  human  nature,  that  on  such  dreadful  occasions  will  always  exlubit 
themselves. 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST,  267 

The  vote  of  the  Kemonstrance  is  an  epoch  in  this  calamitous  con- 
test. The  Commons  are  not  to  be  justified  in  presenting  this  Remon- 
strance, nor  to  be  justified  in  their  subsequent  measures.  It  may  be 
very  true,  that  their  proceedings,  till  the  king's  departure  into  Scot- 
land in  1641,  with  the  exception  of  Lord  Strafford's  attainder,  and 
perhaps  the  vote  for  their  own  continuance,  were  (more  particularly 
in  the  more  early  periods  of  the  contest)  most  laudable  and  patriotic, 
but  that  they  never  were  so  afterwards.  They  had  obtained  all  the 
great  points  necessary  to  the  constitution  ;  and  the  king  told  them 
in  June,  when  he  had  finished  his  concessions  by  taking  away  the 
courts  of  Star-Chamber  and  High  Commission,  and  with  reason  told 
them,  that,  if  they  would  consider  what  he  had  done  in  that  Parlia- 
ment, "  discontent  would  not  sit  in  their  hearts."  "  I  hope  you  re- 
member," he  added,  "I  have  granted  that  the  judges  hereafter  shall 
hold  their  places,  quamdiu  bene  se  gesserint ;  I  have  bounded  the 

forests  ; I  have  established  the  property  of  the  subject ; 

I  have  established,  by  act  of  Parliament,  the  property  of  the  subject 
in  tonnage  and  poundage ; I  have  granted  a  law  for  a  trien- 
nial Parliament ; I  have  given  free  course  of  justice  against 

delinquents  ;  I  have  put  the  laws  in  execution  against  Papists  ;  nay, 
I  have  given  way  to  every  thing  that  you  have  asked  of  me,  and 
therefore,  methinks,  you  should  not  wonder,  if,  in  some  things,  I  be- 
gin to  refuse : I  will  not  stick  upon  trivial  matters,  to  give 

you  content." 

I  would  therefore  fix  the  attention  of  the  student  on  the  famous 
Remonstrance,  and  the  proceedings  relating  to  it,  as  the  particular 
poipt  where  his  opinion  must,  as  I  conceive,  begin  most  materially  to 
,  alter.  After  this  celebrated  Remonstrance,  the  papers  on  each  side 
(which  were,  in  fact,  appeals  to  the  people,  as  was,  indeed,  the  Re- 
monstrance itself)  become  very  voluminous,  and  will  somewhat  over- 
power you.  Some  general  idea  must  be  formed  of  them  by  some 
sort  of  general  perusal ;  but  the  king's  cause  may,  from  this  time,  be 
rested  on  this  very  Remonstrance  alone,  a  paper  drawn  up  by  the 
Parliament  itself,  and  quite  decisive  of  the  comparative  merits  of  the 
king  and  the  House  of  Commons,  from  the  moment  that  it  was  de-' 
livered. 

Once  more,  therefore,  and  finally,  to  recall  to  your  minds  what  I 
conceive  are  the  points  of  this  great  question.  During  the  first  in- 
terval of  four  years,  the  conduct  of  the  king  seems  infatuated  and 
highly  reprehensible ;  and  during  the  second  interval  of  eleven  years, 
even  more  and  more  to  be  reprobated,  I  had  almost  said  to  be  abhor- 
red. During  the  third  interval,  of  little  more  than  a  year,  the  blame 
still  remains  with  the  king,  and  the  praise  with  the  Commons ;  —  clear- 
ly, however,  with  one  exception,  the  execution  of  Strafford ;  and  per- 
haps with  another,  their  vote  for  their  own  continuance.  During  the 
fourth  interval,  hoWever,  from  the  journey  to  Scotland  in  August, 


268  LECTURE  XVI. 

1641,  to  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  the  Commons,  in  theii  turn, 
became  wrong  ;  but  the  question  of  their  conduct  is  still  for  some 
time,  in  the  opinion  of  ma*ny,  somewhat  difficult ;  the  question  is, 
whether  thej  were  pushing  their  victory  too  far,  or  only  securing 
their  ground.  Hyde  decided  one  way,  and  Hampden  another  ;  and 
perhaps  the  student  may,  at  this  distance  of  time,  and  after  the 
event,  on  the  whole  perceive  that  Hyde  was  the  more  rational  patriot 
of  the  two. 

I  have  thus  proposed,  not  to  your  acquiescence,  but  to  your  exam 
ination,  such  general  conclusions  upon  the  different  intervals  which  I 
haVe  selected  as  the  transactions  which  they  exhibit  appeared  to  me 
fairly  to  suggest.  But  these  transactions  were  so  numerous,  yet  all 
so  important,  that  not  only  was  it  impossible  for  me  to  give  any  de- 
tail of  them,  but  it  was  impossible  to  state  all  the  observations  to 
which  they  successively  gave  rise,  even  in  my  own  mind.  What 
alone  I  have  been  able  to  offer  to  your  consideration  has  been  general 
results,  founded  on  such  observations.  I  would  recommend  a  similar 
course  to  each  of  my  hearers  :  let  such  reflections  as  strike  him, 
while  he  reads  the  history,  be  immediately  noted  do^vn  -at  the  time  ; 
let  the  whole  chain  be  then  surveyed,  g»nd  general  results  and  esti- 
mates formed  ;, otherwise  the  later  impressions  which  the  mind  re- 
ceives, in  the  course  of  the  perusal,  will  have  an  effect  more  than 
proportionate  to  their  comparative  weight  and  importance.  Do  not 
turn  away  from  investigations  of  this  nature.  There  are  those,  no 
doubt,  who  proceed  not  in  this  manner;  —  practical  men,  men  of  the 
world,  and  respectable  and  even  laborious  writers  :  with  them  every 
thing  on  the  one  side  is  right,  and  on  the  other  is  wrong.  Th^  is 
not  the  way,  in  my  opinion,  to  read  history.  It  is  not  the  way  to, 
judge  of  our  fellow-creatures,  or  to  improve  ourselves. 


LECTURE    XVI 


THE   CIVIL  WAR. 


Tn"  my  last  two  lectures  I  offered  to  your  consideration  the  results 
of  such  observations  as  had  occurred  to  me  on  the  great  contest  that 
subsisted  between  the  king  and  Parliament  prior  to  the  breaking  out 
of  the  Civil  War,  more  particularly  with  regard  to  their  comparative 
merits  and  demerits. 

The  mihtary  transactions  of  the  Civil  War  that  ensued  may  be 


THE  CITIL  WAR.  269' 

collected  from  Hume,  and  still  more  in  the  detail  from  Clarendon. 
In  the  former  author  will  also  be  found  a  philosophic  estimate  of  the 
strength  and  resources  of  the  contending  parties,  and  of  their  sepa- 
rate probabilities  of  success.  Disquisitions  of  this  kind,  more  par- 
ticularly from  such  an  author,  are  highly  deserving  of  your  attention. 
The  entertainment  and  instruction  of  history  can  never  be  properly 
felt  or  understood,  as  I  cannot  too  often  remark,  unless  you  meditate 
upon  the  existing  circumstances  of  the  scene,  suppose  them  before 
you,  and  estimate  the  probabilities  that  they  present ;  then  marking 
the  events  that  really  take  place,  thus  derive  a  sort  of  experience  in 
the  affairs  of  mankind,  which  may  enable  you  to  determine  with 
greater  precision  and  success,  on  occasions  when  you  may  yourselves 
be  called  upon  to  act  a  part,  and  w^hen  the  happiness  of  your  country 
and  your  own  may,  more  or  less,  be  affected  by  the  propriety  of  your 
decisions.  Materials  for  such  disquisitions,  and  such  exercise  of  the 
judgment,  are  often  supplied  by  Clarendon,  and  they  constitute,  in- 
deed, one  material  and  appropriate  part  of  the  value  of  all  original 
writers  of  history.  In  original  writers,  the  real  scene  is  presented  to 
you  in  colors  more  vivid  and  more  exact. 

The  king  seems  to  have  been  every  way  unfortunate.  With  suffi- 
cient courage  and  ability  to  make  him  the  proper  general  of  his  own 
forces,  he  was  still  not  possessed  of  that  military  genius  which  is  fit- 
ted to  triumph  over  difficulties,  which  can  turn  to  its  own  purposes 
the  dispositions  of  men  and  the  opportunities  and  unsuspected  advan- 
tages of  every  situation,  which  can  seem  by  these  means  to  control 
the  decisions  of  chance  and  to  command  success.  That  a  soldier, 
however,  of  this  description  should  arise  against  him  on  the  popular 
side  was  to  be  expected ;  a  captain  like  Cromwell  was  sure  to  appear, 
at  least  to  exist,  in  the  ranks  of  his  opponents.  But  that  such  a 
general  as  Fairfax  should  be  found  among  the  mei^  of  distinction  in 
the  country,  and  yet  be  opposed  to  his  cause,  this  might  surely  be 
considered  by  the  king  as  a  hard  dispensation  of  fortune  ;  still  hard- 
er, if  it  be  considered  that  Fairfax  was,  of  all  men  that  history  pre- 
sents, the  most  fitted  for  the  purposes  of  a  soldier  like  Cromwell: 
too  honest  to  have  criminal  designs  of  his  own  ;  too  magnanimous  to 
suspect  them  in  those  around  him  ;  superior  to  every  other  in  the 
field  ;  inferior  in  the  cabinet ;  enthusiastic  enough  to  be  easily  de- 
ceived, but  not  enough  to  be  a  hypocrite  and  to  deceive  others. 

The  character  of  Cromwell  seems  the  natural  production  of  the 
times,  though,  it  must  be  confessed,  the  most  complete  specimen  of 
their  influence  that  can  well  be  imagined ;  still,  the  character  itself 
consists  but  of  the  common  materials,  —  courage,  fierceness,  decisive 
sense,  clear  sagacity,  and  strong  ambition ;  all,  no  doubt,  given  in  a 
very  eminent  degree,  added  to  such  qualities  as  resulted  from  an  age 
of  religious  dispute  ;  and  the  whole  nourished  and  drawn  out  in  the 
most  extraordinary  manner,  by  the  temptations  and  urgencies  of  a 

w* 


2T0      .  LECTURE  XVI. 

revolutionary  period.  Hampden  early  predicted  his  future  -eminence, 
on  one  supposition,  —  the  breaking  out  of  a  civil  war. 

From  the  moment  that  the  sword  was  drawn,  all  wise  and  good 
men  must,  Avith  Lord  Falkland,  have  been  overpowered  with  the  most 
afflicting  expectations.  One  of  two  alternatives,  equally  painful, 
could  alone  have  occurred  to  them  as  probable  :  either  that  the  king 
would  conquer,  and  the  privileges  of  the  subject,  and  all  future  de- 
fence of  them,  be  swept  away  in  his  triumph ;  or  that  the  Parliament 
would  prevail,  and  the  result  be,  that  the  whole  government,  for  want 
of  some  proper  constitutional  head,  would  fall  into  the  disposal  of  the 
army,  and  be  seized  upon  by  some  of  its  great  captains,  to  the  total 
degradation,  and  probably  to  the  destruction,  of  the  existing  mon- 
arch, —  perhaps  eveii  of  the  ancient  forms  of  monarchy  itself. 

I  must  leave  you  to  examine  for  yourselves  the  various  events  of 
the  Civil  War,  —  the  military  operations  in  the  field,  and  the  trans- 
actions in  Parliament,  —  all  of  them  very  interesting.  They  may  be 
found  in  the  regular  historians  (particularly  Clarendon),  and  in  the 
accounts  that  have  come  do-wn  to  us  of  the  debates  in  the  Long  Par- 
liament. I  can  only  make  a  few  observations  on  some  of  the  leading 
transactions,  chiefly  those  of  a  civil  nature. 

Among  other  objects  of  attention,  the  Self-denying  Ordinance 
should  be  noticed.  On  this  occasion,  the  parties  came  to  issue,  — 
the  Presbyterians  and  Independents  ;  the  one,  who  wished  for  Pres- 
bytery and  monarchy ;  the  other,  who  had  abandoned  themselves  to 
their  own  imaginary  schemes  of  perfection  in , religion  and  govern- 
ment ;  most  of  them,  probably,  without  any  settled  notions  in  either. 
Violence  and  enthusiasm,  the  great  banes  of  all  public  assemblies  in 
times  of  disorder,  at  last  prevailed,  and  the  Self-denying  Ordinance 
was  carried.  By  this  ordinance,  the  members  of  both  houses  were 
excluded  from  all  the  important  civil  and  military  employments.  The 
Presbyterians,  who  were  in  power,  were,  by  this  contrivance,  obliged 
to  resign  it.  Yet,  when  the  evasion  of  the  ordinance  by.  Cromwell  is 
also  considered,  a  more  barefaced  political  expedient  cannot  easily  be 
imagined.  The  very  idea  of  it,  not  to  say  the  success  of  it,  as  de- 
scribed by  Lord  Clarendon,  and  as  seen  in  the  speeches  and  subse- 
quent conduct  of  Cromwell,  who  contrived  to  elude  it  and  retain  his 
command,  is  quite  characteristic  of  this  strange  period  of  our  his- 
tory. It  was,  in  truth,  an  expedient  to  clear  the  army  from  all  the 
more  moderate  men  who  were  then  in  command. 

After  the  Self-denying  Ordinance,  the  treaty  of  Uxbridge  must  be 
considered  as  the  next  principal  object  of  attention.  The  proceed- 
ings are  very  fully  detailed  by  an  actor  in  the  scene,  Lord  Claren- 
don ;  and  as  this  was  quite  a  crisis  in  the  contest,  the  question  is, 
when  the  negotiation  did  not  lead  to  accommodation  and  peace, 
"Which  party  was  in  fault  ?  To  me,  I  confess,  the  conclusion  from 
the  whole  seems  to  be,-  that  the  Presbyterians  were  in  fault,  and  that 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.  271 

they  cannot  be  forgiven  for  not  closing  with  the  king  immediately  on 
the  terms  which  he  proposed,  not  merely  from  a  sense  of  propriety 
and  justice,  but  from  the  apprehension  with  which  Cromwell  and  the 
Independents  ought  to  have  inspired  them.  It  even  appears,  from  a 
curious  conference  mentioned  by  Whitelocke,  which  was  held  one 
night  at  Essex  House,  before  the  Self-denying  Ordinance  had  been 
moved  in  the  House,  that  Cromwell  was  already  dreaded  ;  yet  no 
danger,  no  distress,  could  produce  any  reasonable  effect  either  on  the 
Presbyterians  in  Parliament  or  on  the  king.  Eeligious  considerations 
had,  unhappily,  interfered  to  make  what  was  difficult  impossible. 
The  king  could  not  entirely  give  up  Episcopacy,  and  the  Presby- 
terians, with  still  more  of  theological  infatuation,  were  determined  to 
have  their  Presbytery  exclusively  established.  All  hopes  of  accom- 
modation were  at  an  end.  "  Most  sober  men,"  says  Whitelocke, 
"  lamented  the  sudden  breach  of  the  treaty." 

The  victory  of  Naseby  followed,  and  the  cause  of  the  king  was 
desperate.  This  is,  again,  a  sort  of  epoch  in  this  contest.  Charles, 
not  possessed  of  the  genius  that  can  sometimes  make  even  a  desperate 
cause  at  last  triumphant,  repaired,  without  speculating  very  long  or 
reasonably  upon  the  consequences,  to  the  Scotch  army.  The  Scotch 
army  could  discover,  in  their  new  situation,  no  better  course  to  pur- 
sue than  at  all  events  to  make  the  king  a  means  of  procuring  their, 
arrears  from  the  English  Parliament,  and  to  barter  the  person  of 
their  sovereign  for  the  money  that  w^as  due  to  them.  It  might 
be  thought  that  a  common  question  of  account  might  have  been 
settled  by  the  godly  (so  they  termed  themselves),  on  each  side  of 
the  Tweed,  on  the  usual  principles  of  arithmetic  and  honesty,  —  cer- 
tainly without  so  unusual  a  transfer  as  the  person  of  their  monarch ; 
but  not  so :  it  was  in  this  manner,  it  seems,  that  the  differences  be- 
tween the  two  parties  could  best  be  adjusted.  The  bargain  was 
settled,  the  king  was  delivered  up,  and  the  Scotch  retired  to  their 
own  country.  Their  posterity  have  ever  since  been  ashamed  of  this 
coarse  and  disgraceful  transaction,  for,  after  every  explanation  of  it, 
such  it  is ;  and  if  the  Enghsh  were  ashamed  also,  they  would  do 
themselves  no  injustice. 

From  this  period  we  must  be  occupied  in  observing  the  mistakes 
and  faults  of  the  king  and  the  Presbyterians  on  .the  one  side,  the  guilt 
of  Cromwell  and  the  Independents  on  the  other. 

In  the  first  places  we  must  cast  our  eyes  on  the  conduct  of  the 
army.  The  scene  that  by  reasonable  men  must  have  been  long  ex- 
pected now  opened.  The  army,  having  no  enemy  to  contend  with  in 
the  field,  began,  under  the  direction  of  Cromwell,  to  control  the  Par- 
liament, the  Presbyterians.  The  proceedings  of  an  armed  body  of 
men  like  this,  on  such  an  occasion,  are,  unhappily,  but  too  deserving 
of  our  very  particular  observation. 
'    But  the  conduct  of  the  Presbyterians,  and  of  those  in  the  Houso 


272  LECTURE  XVI. 

who  meant  well,  continued  as  injudicious  as  ever.  The  soldiers  had 
real  cause  of  complaint,  and  the  Parliament  made  the  usual  mistake 
of  all  regular  assemblies,  when  dealing  with  irregular  combinations 
of  men :  they  did  not  take  care,  in  the  first  place,  to  do  them  justice  ; 
they  did  not  take  care,  as  soon  as  possible,  to  put  themselves  entirely 
in  the  right ;  they  were,  as  usual,  too  proud  to  be  wise  ;  they  therefore, 
no  doubt,  gave  Cromwell  and  those  who  meant  ill  every  advantage. 
They  even  committed  other  mistakes  still  more  unpardonable,  by 
sending  down  to  the  army  Cromwell  and  the  very  incendiaries  them- 
selves to  compose  differences.  When  the  Parliament  became  more 
reasonable  and  just,  it  was,  as  is  usually  the  case,  too  late. 

And  now  was  the  season  when  the  king  was  to  commit  Ms  politi- 
cal mistakes.  While  he  was,  in  fact,  at  the  disposal  and  in  the  hands 
of  the  ai-my,  he  had  to  deal  with  the  Parliament  and  the  Presbyterian 
faction  and  the  Scotch  Covenanters,  as  one  party,  —  with  the  army 
and  Independents,  as  another.  There  is  something  of  doubt  hangs 
over  the  intentions  of  Cromwell  and  the  army  on  this  occasion,  — 
whether  they  really  meant  to  support  the  king,  and  restore  him  to 
his  constitutional  authority,  or  not.  Sir  John  Berkley's  Memoirs 
speak  of  a  very  fair  and  reasonable  negotiation  on  their  part.  His 
account  may  be  found  also  incorporated  into  the  history  of  Ludlow. 
Clarendon  seems  not  to  think  much  of  the  importance  of  this  nego- 
tiation ;  but  he  did  not  like  Berkley.  It  is  on  the  whole,  however, 
plain,  that  Charles  unfortunately  supposed  he  should,  in  the  existing 
situation  of  the  parties  of  the  state,  be  called  in  as  an  umpire  ;  many 
prudent  men,  according  to  Lord  Clarendon,  expected  the  same ;  and 
in  this  fatal  indecision  and  vain  wish  to  keep  well  with  all  descrip- 
tions of  men,  Charles  could  not  be  properly  trusted  by  any,  least  of 
all  by  men  violent  and  decided  like  Cromwell  and  Ireton.  Charles 
was  no  controller  of  circumstances  and  of  the  minds  of  others,  and 
no  discerner  of  characters  and  opportunities.  He  made  no  advan- 
tage of  his  situation,  and  insensibly  approached  his  scaffold,  not  his 
throne. 

The  last  specimen  of  political  infatuation  in  the  Presbyterians  and 
the  king  yet  remained,  —  their  conduct  during  the  treaty  in  the  Isle 
of  Wight :  another  important  point  of  attention.  The  army  had,  in 
the  most  illegal  manner,  interfered  with  the  Parliament,  had  become 
their  masters,  and  perfectly  tyrannized  over  them.  In  this  state  of 
things,  insurrections  in  favor  of  the  king  appealed  in  different  parts 
of  the  kingdom  ;  and  a  regular  attempt  was  made  by  the  Scotch  with 
all  their  forces  in  favor  of  him  and  of  the  Parliament.  For  one  precious 
interval,  therefore,  the  Presbyterians  were  relieved  from  the  domina- 
tion of  Cromwell  and  the  army,  who  were  sent  to  put  down  these  in- 
surgents. As  the  Presbyterians  were  all  of  them  attached  to  a  mon- 
archical form  of  government,  there  was  once  more  a  possibility  of  a 
conciUation  between  them  and  the  king.     Cromwell  and  his  army 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.  273 

were  employed,  and  at  such  a  distance  that  they  could  give  no  inter- 
ruption. A  treaty  was  begun,  but  no  adequate  progress  was  made, 
—  no  progress,  till  the  army  returned,  —  returned  triumphant,  and 
with  all  their  counsels  of  violence  and  guilt :  the  opportunity  of  peace 
was  lost  for  ever. 

The  question,  then,  is  here,  as  before  in  the  treaty  of  Uxbridge, 
Was  the  king  or  the  Parliament  most  in  fault  ?  The  great  load  of 
poUtical  folly,  even  of  moral  criminality,  must  fall  upon  the  Parlia- 
ment; for  their  terms  were  abominably  unfeeUng  and  unjust.  In 
consequence  of  the  pertinacious,  dilatory,  impolitic  conduct  of  the 
Presbyterians,  before  the  king's  final  propositions  for  peace  could  be 
adjusted  and  debated,  Cromwell  and  the  army  had  marched  to  the 
metropolis,  and  every  member  of  the  House  who  delivered  an  opinion 
consonant  to  right  and  justice,  and  favorable  to  any  accommodation 
with  the  king,  did  it  at  the  hazard  of  imprisonment  and  death. 

In  this  calamitous  state  of  things,  the  famous  Prynne  rose  up  in 
his  place,  and  delivered  a  speech  in  defence  of  the  king's  answers  to 
the  propositions  of  Parliament.  Long  as  it  is,  I  cannot  but  recom- 
mend it  to  an  entire  and  attentive  perusal.  Allow.ance  must  be  made 
for  the  violence  of  the  author's  prejudices  in  favor  of  Presbytery  and 
against  Popery,  and  when  this  allowance  has  been  made,  it  will  be  * 
found  that  a  train  of  persuasion  more  fairly  drawn  out  and  more 
clearly  conducted  to  effect  a  particular  purpose  has  seldom  been  pro- 
duced before  a  pubhc  assembly.  You  will  see  it  in  Cobbett.  Cer- 
tainly a  more  striking  exhibition  of  principle  never  occurred.  Prynne 
was  speaking  in  an  assembly  overawed  by  soldiers,  in  a  situation  that 
might  have  made  a  Roman  shrink.  Every  reason  that  could  irritate 
the  heart  of  man  concurred  to  render  him  inveterate  against  the  king. 
He  had  to  preface  his  arguments  with  relating  what  he  had  endured 
from  him.  He  said,  that  at  two  different  times  he  had  suffered  muti- 
lations in  the  most  barbarous  manner  (these  are  specimens,  it  is  to  be 
observed,  of  the  conduct  of  Charles  and  Laud,  —  note  them)  ;  that 
he  had  been  set  upon  three  several  pillories  ;  that  his  hcensed  books 
had  been  burnt  before  his  face  by  the  hangman ;  that  two  fines,  each 
of  five  thousand  pounds,  (what  a  sum  in  those  days !)  had  been  im- 
posed upon  him  ;  that  he  had  been  expelled  out  of  the  Inns  of  Court 
and  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  degraded  in  both ;  that  he  had  lost 
his  calling  almost  nine  years'  space  ;  that  his  books  had  been  seized, 
and  his  estate ;  that  he  had  been  eight  years  imprisoned  in  several 
prisons ;  that  four  of  these  years  had  been  spent  in  close  imprison- 
ment and  exile,  at  Caernarvon  and  in  the  Isle  of  Jersey,  where  he 
was  debarred  the  use  of  pen,  ink,  paper,  and  all*books  almost  but  the 
Bible,  without  the  least  access  of  any  friend,  or  any  allowance  of  diet 
for  his  support ;  —  and  all  this  for  his  good  service  to  the  state  in  op- 
posing Popery  and  regal  tyranny. 

Yet  did  this  virtuous  man  continue  to  reason  out  his  conclusion, 
35 


^T4  LECTURE  XVI. 

hour  after  hour,  with  the  most  patient  and  penetrating  sagacity,  — 
continue  to  show  himself  superior  alike  to  the  meanness  of  fear  from 
Cromwell  and  the  soldiers,  and  the  remembrance  of  all  the  ferocious 
insults  and  all  the  abominable  pains  and  penalties  which  he  had  en- 
dured from  Charles  and  his  advisers ;  in  defiance  of  all,  he  continued 
to  enforce  upon  the  House,  by  the  exertion  of  every  faculty  he  could 
command,  his  own  upright  declaration,  that  they  were  bound  in  honor, 
prudence,  justice,  and  conscience,  to  proceed  upon  the  king's  propo- 
sitions to  the  speedy  settlement  of  the  peace  of  the  kingdom. 

Still  further  to  the  credit  of  human  nature,  it  is  to  be  mentioned, 
that  this  speech  had  a  most  clear  and  positive  effect,  —  that  many 
members  were  converted  to  his  side,  —  that  his  opinion  prevailed,  and 
would  probably  have  prevailed  by  a  far  larger  majority,  if  nearly  one 
third  of  the  House,  from  age  and  infirmities,  had  not  been  obliged  to  re- 
tire.   The  debate  had  lasted  without  intermission  for  a  day  and  a  night. 

The  subsequent  events  are  but  too  well  known.  Cromwell  and  the 
army  sent  Colonel  Pride  to  clear  the  House  of  all  who  were  disposed 
to  an  accommodation  with  the  king.  The  pubhc  execution  of  the 
sovereign  followed.' 

This  cruel  and  dreadful  outrage  has  given  occasion  to  much  reason- 
ing with  respect  to  the  nature  of  government,  and  the  original  grounds 
of  civil  obedience.  No  subject  can  be  more  interesting,  and  it  may 
very  properly  employ  your  meditations  when  you  afrive  at  an  event 
so  afflicting  and  so  awful  as  the  public  execution,  in  the  midst  of  a 
civilized  community,  of  the  great  and  high  magistrate  of  the  realm. 

On  such  a  subject,  the  observations  of  such  a  writer  as  Hume  will 
naturally  engage  your  attention.  "  Government,"  says  this  philo- 
sophic historian,  "  is  instituted  in  order  to  restrain  the  fury  and  in- 
justice of  the  people;  and  being  always  founded  on  opinion,  not  on 
force,  it  is  dangerous  to  weaken  the  reverence  which  the  multitude 

owe  to  authority The  doctrine  of  obedience  ought  alone  to  be 

inculcated,  and  the  exceptions,  which  are  rare,  ought  seldom  or  never 
to  be  mentioned  in  popular  reasonings  and  discourses.  Nor  is  there 
any  danger  that  mankind,  by  this  prudent  reserve,  should  universally 
degenerate  into  a  state  of  abject  servitude.     When  the  exception 

really  occurs, it  must,  from  its  'very  nature,  be  so  obvious 

and  undisputed,  as  to  remove  all  doubt,  and  overpower  the  restraint, 
however  great,  imposed  by  teaching  the  general  doctrine  of  obedi- 
ence.    But  between  resisting  a  prince  and  dethroning  him  there  is  a 

wide  interval, and  between  dethroning  a  prince  and  punishing 

him  there  is  anotherirery  wide  interval We  stand  astonished, 

that,  among  a  civilized  people,  so  much  virtue  [as  was  possessed  by 
Charles]  could  ever  meet  with  so  fatal  a  catastrophe." 

To  this  weighty  reasoning  something  must  be  added  (and  it  is  not 
added  by  the  historian),  or  the  discussion  of  this  subject  will  surely 
be  left  most  materially  imperfect.     Government  is,  no  doubt,  insti- 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.  275 

tuted  for  the  restraint  of  the  people,  but  it  is  also  instituted  for  the 
promotion  of  their  happiness ;  and  while  obedience  is  the  duty  that 
should  be  inculcated  on  the  people,  resistance  is  the  doctrine  that 
should  be  ever  present  to  the  rulers.  There  may  be  intervals  be- 
tween resisting,  dethroning,  and  executing  a  sovereign,  and  the  last 
may  be  an  extremity  which  ought  never  to  be  supposed  possible  ;  but 
there  is  a  wide  interval,  in  like  manner,  between  rational  obedience 
and  servile  submission ;  and  though  rational  obedience  be  necessary 
to  all  human  society,  servile  submission  is  inconsistent  with  all  its 
purposes  and  enjoyments.  No  people  can  long  be  happy  that  do  not 
reverence  authority ;  but  no  governors  will  long  do  their  duty  who 
do  not  respect  the  public. 

"  Obedience,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  is  the  doctrine  to  be  alone  incul- 
cated ;  nor  is  there  any  danger  that  mankind  should  degenerate  into 
a  state  of  servitude  :  when  the  exception  occurs,  it  will  overpower 
the  restraint  imposed  by  the  general  doctrine."  But  is  no  resistance 
to  begin  till  such  extremes  of  oppression  arise  as  create  an  exception 
to  all  general  rules  ?  If  such  is  to  be  the  nature  of  resistance  and 
obedience,  as  Mr.  Hume  seems  to  suppose,  it  will  then  be  found,  that 
resistance,  when  it  does  come,  has  come  too  late,  —  it  will  then  be 
found  that  the  people  can  seldom  resist  their  governors  without  fatal- 
ly injuring  themselves. 

This,  therefore,  is  neither  the  resistance  nor  the  obedience  that  is 
wanted,  and  something  very  different  from  either  must  be  generated 
by  some  means  or  other  in  a  community,  or  the  great  political  prob- 
lem of  the  public  happiness  and  security  is  neither  solved,  nor  its  so- 
lution in  any  reasonable  degree  even  approached.  It  can  be  solved 
only  by  one  expedient.  Some  power  of  criticism  must  be  given  to 
the  people  upon  the  conduct  of  their  rulers,  —  must  be  introduced 
into  the  political  system,  to  be  so  reasonably  and  yet  so  constantly 
exercised,  that  it  shall  be  respected  in  time  by  those  rulers,  and  be 
so  taken  into  their  account,  while  they  are  forming  their  measures, 
that  it  shall  always  have  an  effective  tendency  to  render  their  pro- 
ceedings sufficiently  agreeable  to  the  public  good.  Some  power  of 
criticism  like  this,  if  by  any  machinery  of  government,  by  represent- 
ative assemblies  for  instance,  it  can  be  made  to  exist,  can  never 
exist  without  being  a  cause  of  the  most  complete  improvement  and 
advantage  to  both  parties,  —  to  those  who  are  to  command,  and  to 
those  who  are  to  obey.  The  constitution  of  a  country,  therefore,  is 
good  exactly  in  proportion  as  it  supplies  this  power  of  peaceable,  yet 
operative,  criticism ;  it  cannot  be  good  without  it ;  and  the  reasons 
for  civil  obedience  are  so  many  and  so  powerful,  that  the  rulers  of 
mankind  are  always  secure  in  their  honors  and  their  situation  while 
they  administer  the  high  office  which  they  bear  with  any  tolerable 
portion  of  wisdom  and  integrity. 

The  character  of  Charles  has  been  drawn  by  the  first  masters,  and 


276  LECTURE  XVI 

may  now  be  considered  as  sufficiently  understood.  The  truth  is,  that 
his  situation  at  successive  periods  of  his  reign  was  so  different,  that 
we  view  him  with  sentiments  the  most  different,  though  his  character 
was  always  intrinsically  the  same.  He  is  no  object  of  our  affection 
and  respect,  but  of  reprehension,  and  almost  of  contempt,  while  we 
observe  him  in  the  early  part  of  his  life,  though  a  prince  destined  for 
empire,  finding  the  friend  of  his  bosom  in  Buckingham,  the  unwor- 
thy favorite  of  his  father,  without  capacity  as  a  minister,  or  virtue  as 
a  man. 

For  the  first  few  years  after  his  accession,  his  conduct  is  fitted 
to  create  in  us  only  very  warm  disapprobation,  strong  dislike  of  his 
measures,  and  suspicion  of  his  intentions.  Afterwards,  from  the 
year  1629  to  1640,  while  endeavouring  to  rule  without  Parliaments, 
he  appears  before  us  in  no  other  light  but  in  that  of  a  prince  of 
narrow  mind  and  arbitrary  nature  ;  incapable  of  respecting  the  civil 
and  religious  liberties  of  his  country ;  hurrying  on  to  the  destruction 
of  them ;  and  the  proper  object  of  our  unequivocal  hatred  and  indig- 
nation. 

These  emotions,  however,  gradually  subside,  soon  after  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Long  Parliament,  as  he  gradually  relinquishes,  though  by 
compulsion,  the  dangerous  prerogatives  he  had  attempted  to  estab- 
lish. But  when  a  still  further  change  of  situation  takes  place,  and 
when  the  Parliament,  in  its  turn,  becomes  unreasonable  and  bigoted, 
his  offences  are  forgotten,  for  he  ceases  to  be  the  offender ;  and  as 
we  begin  to  dislike  the  Parliament,  he  is  necessarily  considered,  first 
with  complacency,  and  then  with  favor. 

But  yet  another  change,  still  more  affecting,  is  to  be  witnessed ; 
and  we  do  not  deny  him,  we  willingly  offer  him,  our  esteem,  when  we 
survey  him  at  last  supporting  with  firmness  and  courage  in  the  field 
the  honor  of  his  crown  against  men  whom  it  was  impossible  to  satisfy 
by  any  fair  concessions  in  the  cabinet.  Once  more  are  our  senti- 
ments altered  ;  and  this  esteem  is  softened  into  kindness  when  his 
fortunes  lower,  when  the  battle  of  Naseby  is  lost,  and  when  the 
sword  which  he  has  drawn  in  vain  must  be  at  last  thrown  down  and 
abandoned. 

But  scenes  still  more  gloomy  and  affecting  are  to  be  opened.  He 
is  to  be  a  monarch  "  fallen  from  his  high  estate " ;  he  is  to  fly  he 
knows  not  whither ;  to  try  expedients  without  hope,  and  plans  with- 
out a  meaning  ;  to  negotiate  with  his  conquerors  ;  to  be  called  upon 
to  proscribe  his  friends,  and  to  stigmatize  his  own  cause  ;  to  be  re- 
quired by  formal  treaty,  and  in  the  face  of  the  world  and  of  poster- 
ity, to  be  his  ovm  accuser,  —  his  own  accuser,  and  the  accuser  of 
every  thing  he  holds  venerable  and  dear ;  to  be  passed  from  prison  to 
prison,  and  from  enemy  to  enemy.  We  are  to  see  him  solitary  and 
friendless  ;  his  "  gray  discrowned  head,"  with  none  to  reverence  it ; 
and,  alone  and  unprotected,  left  to  expostulate  with  enthusiasts,  no 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.  277 

longer  within  the  reach  of  the  common  workings  of  our  nature,  or 
with  ferocious  soldiers,  who  call  aloud,  they  know  not  why,  for  jus- 
tice and  execution,  arraign  him  before  a  court  of  their  own  formation, 
and  proclaim  him  a  traitor  to  his  country  and  the  murderer  of  his 
people  ! 

With  what  sentiments  are  we  now  to  behold  him?  With  our 
former  suspicions  and  dislike,  indignation  and  terror  ?  Is  it  Charles 
that  is  before  us,  —  the  friend  of  Buckingham,  —  the  patron  of 
Laud,  —  the  opponent  of  Hampden,  —  the  corrupter,  the  encour- 
ager,  the  deserter  of  Strafford,  —  the  dissolver  of  Parliaments, — the 
imposer  of  liturgies,  —  the  violator  of  privileges  ?  These  are  im- 
ages of  the  past  no  longer  to  be.  recalled ;  these  are  characters  of 
offence  with  which  he  has  now  no  concern.  It  is  the  monarch  unsub- 
dued by  adversity,  —  it  is  the  hero  unappalled  by  death,  —  it  is  the 
Christian  sublimed  by  piety  and  hope,  —  it  is  these  that  occupy  our 
imagination  and  our  memory.  It  is  the  tribunal  of  violence,  it  is 
the  scaffold  of  blood,  that  banish  from  our  minds  all  indignation  but 
against  his  destroyers,  all  terrors  but  of  the  licentiousness  of  the  peo- 
ple, —  that  render  all  regular  estimation  of  his  character  odious  and 
impossible,  and  that  leave  nothing  in  the  heart  of  the  generous  and 
humane  but  compassion  for  his  misfortunes  and  reverence  for  his  vir- 
tues. 

Sentiments  like  these,  so  natural  at  any  period,  so  powerful  at  the 
time  as  to  have  produced  almost  his  deification,  it  is  not  the  province 
of  true  philosophy  to  destroy,  but  rather  to,  temper  and  enlighten. 
It  is  turning  history  to  no  adequate  purpose,  if  we  do  not  accept  the 
instruction  which  it  offers.  The  lives  and  actions  of  men  have  been 
in  vain  exhibited  to  our  view,  if  we  make  not  our  moral  criticisms, 
even  when  to  make  them  is  a  task  painful  and  repulsive  to  our  nature. 
The  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  must  be  remembered,  as  well 
as  the  close,  —  the  obscure  as  well  as  the  brighter  parts  of  his  im- 
perfect character.  His  faults  should  be  studied,  that  there  never 
may  again  be  a  necessity  for  the  display  of  his  virtues.  Those 
faults  were  the  faults  of  all  those  sovereigns  who,  though  men  of 
principle,  have  involved  themselves  and  their  country  in  calamities. 
Such  sovereigns  have  always  wanted,  as  did  Charles,  that  simplicity 
and  steadiness  which  could  afford  good  men  the  means  of  understand- 
ing and  depending  upon  their  conduct,  —  that  enlightened  benevo- 
lence which  could  make  them  think  more  of  their  people  than  of 
themselves,  —  that  magnanimity  which  might  enable  them  to  call  to 
their  councils  statesmen  who  would  announce  to  them  the  real  senti- 
ments of  the"  community,  not  echo  and  confirm  their  own,  —  and 
lastly,  and  above  all,-  that  political  sagacity  which  could  discern  the 
signs  of  the  times,  the  new  opinions  that  had  arisen,  and  which  could 
draw  forth,  with  equal  wisdom  and  benevolence,  such  principles  of 
improvement  as  the  constitution  of  the  country  contained,  and  adapt 

X 


278  LECTURE  XYI. 

V 

ing  them,  according  to  the  justice  of  the  case,  ere  it  was  too  late,  to 
the  ever-shifting  scene  before  them,  save  the  state  and  themselves 
alike  from  the  fury  of  the  passions  of  the  people  and  the  treachery 
of  their  own. 

At  the  conclusion  of  these  remarks  on  the  contest  between  Charles 
and  his  Parliaments,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  observe  that  there  are 
two  mistakes  which  are  continually  made,  though  it  is  not  very  intel- 
ligible how  they  can  be  made  by  those  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  these  times.  First,  the  execution  of  Charles  is  always 
reasoned  upon  as  if  it  had  received  the  sanction  of  a  regular  Parlia- 
ment, as  if  it  had  been  a  great  national  act ;  but  nothing  can  be  far- 
ther from  the  truth.  On  the  4th  -of  the  preceding  December,  (the 
king  was  executed  on  the  30th  of  January,)  there  were  present  in 
the  House,  as  Mr.  Prynne  informs  us,  three  hundred  and  forty  mem- 
bers. Two  days  after,  Cromwell  and  his  soldiers  expelled  nearly  a 
hundred  and  imprisoned  nearly  fifty,  so  that  the  next  day,  such  was 
the  general  terror,  only  seventy-three  met,  and  after  that  day  never 
more  than  fifty-three.  It  was  by  this  inconsiderable  part  of  a  House, 
to  which  more  than  five  hundred  members  originally  belonged,  that 
all  the  outrageous  proceedings  against  the  king  and  the  constitution 
of  the  country  were  resolved  upon,  and  never  more  than  fifty-three 
members  could  be  collected.  Not  more  than  forty  members  of  the 
House  signed  the  death-warrant  of  Charles.  Only  fifty-eight  com- 
missioners could  be  brought  to  sign  it,  out  of  a  court  consisting  of 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty.  Of  these  one  hundred  and  fifty,  not 
more  than  seventy  could  ever  be  brought  to  sit,  though  recourse  was 
had  to  the  officers  of  the  army,  and  though  the  country  had  been  for 
five  years  inured  to  all  the  disorders  of  a  civil  war,  and  to  the  influ- 
ence of  every  passion  and  every  principle  of  civil  and  religious  hate 
that  can  render  men  barbarous  and  unjust ;  only  seventy  could  be 
found  capable  of  acting.  In  the  House  of  Lords,  not  a  single  peer 
could  be  found  to  countenance  these  proceedings  of  the  soldiery ;  and 
the  assembly  expired  with  their  sovereign. 

The  second  mistake  which  has  been  made  with  respect  to  these  ex- 
traordinary times  is  more  excusable.  The  Presbyterians  have  always 
been  accused  as  the  destroyers  of  the  monarchy.  This  is  not  accu- 
rate. The  Long  Parliament  originally  consisted  of  five  hundred  and 
thirty-four  members ;  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  of  them  (Hyde 
one  of  them)  left  the  House,  and  repaired  to  the  king  at  Oxford. 
On  the  whole,  in  the  progress  of  the  dispute,  two  hundred  out  of  the 
original  five  hundred  and  thirty-four  were  disabled,  and  new  writs 
issued.  Those  that  remained  must,  therefore,  have  been  all  Presby- 
terians and  Independents,  almost  to  a  man. 

Now,  from  all  the  speeches  and  proceedings  and  memoirs  of  the 
times,  it  appears,  that  these  two  parties  continued  in  the  House  al- 
most, to  the  last,  and  that  the  former  at  least,  the  Presbyterians, 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.  279 

tl^ougli  they  were  resolved  to  have  the  Episcopal  form  of  church  gov- 
ernment altered,  never  had  the  least  mtention  of  abolishing  the  mon- 
archy. A  king  limited  by  law,  and  a  church  without  bishops,  these 
were  their  objects,  and  no  other.  More  than  h^lf  a  year  before  the 
execution  of  the  king,  the  leading  Presbyterian  members  of  the 
House,  eleven  in  number,  the  famous  Holies  at  their  head,  men  that 
had  been  the  most  distinguished  through  the  whole  of  the  contest, 
were  impeached,  and,  in  fact,  driven  from  the  House  by  the  menaces 
of  the  soldiery  and  the  Independent  party.  They  had  been  found  in 
the  way,  when  designs  of  violence  and  usurpation  began  to  be  enter- 
tained. The  speech  of  Prynne,  to  which  I  have  alluded,  delivered 
only  two  months  before  the  execution  of  the  king,  shows  clearly  what 
were  the  sentiments  of  the  Presbyterians  to  the  last.  He  was  one 
of  them. 

In  Scotland,  a  large  party  of  the  Presbyterians  appeared  in  arms, 
and  resolved  to  march  into  England  against  the  army,  in  defence  of 
the  Parliament  and  the  royal  cause.  If  the  king  could  have  sub- 
scribed the  Covenant,  the  whole  of  that  part  of  the  island  would  have 
united  in  his  favor. 

The  Memoirs  of  Holies  are  very  decisive  on  this  point,  particularly 
at  the  close.  They  are  worth  reading,  are  not  long,  and  strongly 
paint  the  rage  and  disappointment  of  a  man  of  ability  and  principle, 
at  seeing  his  party  (the  Presbyterian  party)  overpowered  by  men  of 
hypocrisy  and  blood,  like  Cromwell  and  his  associates,  and  the  labors 
of  his  own  life  thus  ending  in  total  despair.  It  is  in  this  book  that 
there  is  the  remarkable  charge  brought  against  Cromwell  of  coward- 
ice. Holies  was  one  of  the  members  who  had  forcibly  held  the 
Speaker  in  the  chair  in  the  year  1628 ;  and,  in  1641,  was  one  of  the 
five  members  whom  the  king  had  meant  to  arrest,  when  he  so  unhap- 
pily entered  the  House  for  the  purpose. 

Even  Walker,  in  his  History  of  Independency,  though  indulging 
himself  in  the  most  unlimited  censures  of  both  parties  as  to  money 
concerns,  speaks  of  the  Independents  (page  200,  part  ii.)  as  men 
who  "  carried  on  the  war  against  the  king  with  an  intent,  from  the  be- 
ginning,'to,  pull  down  monarchy  and  set  up  anarchy  ;  noUvitlistand- 
ing^^^  continues  he,  "  the  many  declarations,  remonstrances,  abortive 
treaties,  protestations,  and  covenants  to  the  contrary,  which  were  ohli- 
gations  from  time  to  time  extorted  from  them  by  the  Presbyterians." 

The  accusation,  therefore,  of  the  Presbyterians  seems  to  be,  not 
that  they  intended  to  overthrow  the  monarchy,  bat  that  they  commit- 
ted political  mistakes  which  enabled  others  to  do  so.  Their  fault 
seems  rather  to  have  been  of  a  religious  nature,  —  their  terror  of 
Popery,  their  hatred  of  bishops,  their  religious  intolerance,  carried, 
indeed,  to  a  most  senseless  and  disgusting  excess.  Much  of  this 
blame  must,  however,  be  shared  by  the  king  himself ;  and  if  his  in- 
tolerance was  more  pardonable,  because  Episcopacy  was  already 


280  LECTURE  XVI. 

establislied,  and  because  his  religious  persuasions  were  not  debased 
bj  cant  and  grimace,  and  were  of  a  more  liberal  and  sober  nature, 
still  his  political  mistakes' were  far' greater  than  those  of  the  Presby- 
terians, and  both  his  religious  and  political  mistakes  (which  is  a  most 
important  point)  were  prior  in  order  of  time. 

The  most  violent  philippics  that  ever  appeared  against  this  party- 
may  be  found  in  the  Prose  Works  of  Milton.  The  invectives  of  this 
great  poet  against  prelates  and  Presbyterians  will  perfectly  astonish 
those  who  as  yet  are  conversant  only  with  his  immortal  work,  his 
descriptions  of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  the  piety  and  innocence  of 
our  first  parents. 

This  period  of  the  Civil  Wars  —  the  most  interesting  in  our  his- 
tory —  has  given  occasion  to  so  many  publications,  that  there  is  some 
danger  lest  the  student  should  be  overwhelmed  by  the  extent  and 
variety  of  his  materials.  In  Rush  worth  he  will  find  an  inexhaustible 
collection  of  important  documents.  These  should  be  consulted,  and 
compared  with  the  collection  of  Nalson,  who  professes  to  correct  his 
faults.  The  Works  of  King  Charles,  pubhshed  by  Royston,  should 
be  looked  at,  particularly  the  king's  letters  taken  at  Naseby.  When 
any  doubt  is  entertained  of  the  conduct  of  Charles,  Mrs.  Macaulay 
may  be  referred  to,  and  a  charge  against  him,  if  it  can  possibly  be 
made  out,  will  assuredly  be  found,  and  supported  with  all  the  refer- 
ences that  the  most  animated  dihgence  can  supply.  These  may  be 
compared  with  the  representations  of  Clarendon  and  his  defenders. 
A  general  summary  of  the  particulars  of  this  reign,  not  very  favorable 
to  the  king,  will  be  found  in  Harris's  Life  of  Charles  the  First.  Har- 
ris fortifies  the  positions  in  his  text,  like  Bayle,  by  copious  notes, 
which  will,  at  least,  bring  the  subject,  and  all  the  learning  that  be- 
longs to  it,  in  full  review  before  the  reader.  There  is  a  History  of 
the  Long  Parliament,  by  May,  which  is  not  without  its  value,  though, 
from  the  shortness  of  the  period  which  it  embraces,  and  the  cold  and 
general  manner  in  which  it  is  written,  it  will  disa^oint  the  reader, 
who  might  naturally  expect  much  more  curious  matter  from  one  who 
was  secretary  to  the  House,  and  wrote  from  the  midst  of  such  unpre- 
cedented scenes.  Clarendon  is  always  interesting,  and  continually 
provides  materials  for  the  statesman  and  the  philosopher.  He  is  par- 
tial, no  doubt ;  but,  as  it  has  been  well  observed  by  Lord  Grcnville, 
in  his  preface  to  the  late  Lord  Chatham's  Letters  (a  preface  Avhich 
is  worth  reading,  even  with  a  reference  to  our  present  subject),  the 
partiality  of  one  who  means  to  tell  the  truth  will  always  be  distinguish- 
able from  his  who  means  to  deceive.  The  Memoirs  of  Holies  I  have 
already  mentioned ;  and  the  History  of  Independency,  by  Walker, 
should  be  looked  into.  But  books  like  these  last  two  cannot  be  at  all 
understood,  unless  a  knowledge  of  the  history  has  previously  been 
obtained.  WhitelockA's  journal  is  a  collection  of  facts,  with  occa- 
sional disquisitions,  very  short  and  very  few,  but  always  very  inter- 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.  281 

esting  and  important.  It  must,  by  all  means,  be  looked  over  in  con- 
junction with  the  more  regular  narrative  of  other  historians. 

On  the  whole,  with  regard  to  books,  I  may  say,  that  the  Parlia- 
mentary History,  or  Cobbett's  edition  of  it,  should  form  the  ground- 
work of  the  student's  perusal ;  and  that  this,  with  the  explanations 
and  comments  of  Hume  and  Clarendon  on  the  one  side,  and  Millar 
and  Rapin  on  the  other,  will  leave  him  little  further  to  seek,  if  he' 
will  but  sufficiently  meditate  on  the  materials  thus  supplied  to  his  re- 
flections. Kapin  is  always  full  and  valuable,  and  a  sort  of  substitute 
in  the  absence  of  all  other  writers. 

Finally,  I  must  remind  you  that  I  have  already  mentioned  the 
great  work  of  Mr.  Hallam  and  the  very  important  Memoirs  of  Charles 
the  First  by  Miss  Aikin.  These  lectures  were  written  many  years 
ago,  but  I  have  thus  been  enabled,  I  hope,  the  better  to  estimate  the 
interest  and  value  of  these  late  pubhcations. 

When 'the  king  had  perished  on  the  scaffold,  the  Independents  and 
the  army  alone  remained  to  triumph.  All  other  parties  —  the  Roy- 
alists and  moderate  patriots  with  Lord  Falkland  and  Hyde,  the 
Presbyterians  with  Holies  —  had  been  swept  away  from  the  field. 
We  are  now,  therefore,  to  observe  what  was  the  conduct  of  the  Inde- 
pendents, and  what  of  Cromwell  and  the  army. 

Those  of  the  Independents  who  were  not  mere  wild  or  drivelling 
fanatics  were  Republicans,  like  Ludlow  and  Hutchinson  ;  and  it  was 
now  their  business  to  estabhsh  their  Commonwealth.  Hume  accuses 
them  of  wanting  that  deep  thought  and'  those  comprehensive  views 
which  might  qualify  them  for  acting  the  part  of  legislators.  This 
may  be  true.  But  it  seems  impossible,  even  at  this  distance  of  time, 
to  propose  any  system  of  conduct  which  could  have  enabled  them  to 
carry  their  political  theories  into  execution.  They  were  now,  at  last, 
themselves  to  pay  the  penalty  of  all  their  violence  and  enthusiasm. 

The  great  difficulty  which  the  Presbyterians  had  not  been  able  to 
overcome  remained,  —  the  army,  —  a  difficulty  now  equally  invinci- 
ble to  the  Republicans.  A  general  like  Cromwell,  and  men  like  his 
soldiers,  were  not  likely  to  acquiesce  in  any  system  of  government 
which  materially  abridged  their  power';  and  unless  their  power  was 
abridged,  th^re  could  be  no  peace  or  security  for  the  subject,  under 
any  form  of  government,  monarchical  or  republican. 

The  Republicans  were  themselves  only  the  last  residue  of  the  Long 
Parliament ;  the  sole  expedient,  therefore,  that  offered,  was  the  disso- 
lution of  this  remaining  garbled  part,  and  the  calling  of  a  nervv  one, 
fully  and  regularly  chosen.  Such  a  Parliament  might  have  been 
considered  as  a  fair  indication  of  the  public  will.  But  this  could 
not  be  attempted  for  some  time,  after  so  enormous  an  act  of  violence 
as  the  king's  execution ;  and  whenever  attempted,  it  must  have  ap- 
peared to  the  Republicans  a  measure  very  doubtful  in  its  success, 
and  likely  to  fill  the  House  with  a  large  majority  of  concealed 
36  X* 


282  LECTURE  XVI. 

Bojalists  and  exasperated  Presbyterians,  neither  of  whom  would  have 
tolerated  the  Independents  or  the  Republic ;  thej  therefore  tempo* 
rized,  and  waited  to  avail  themselves  of  the  chance  of  events. 

But  this  conduct,  though  natural,  was,  after  all,  neither  just  nor 
prudent.  It  was  not  just ;  for,  if  the  political  opinions  of  the  nation 
were  against  their  Republic,  they  had  no  right  to  endeavour  to 
•establish  it,  whether  by  force  or  by  contrivance.  It  was  not  pru- 
dent ;  for  Cromwell  had  already  shown  himself  to  be  a  far  greater 
master  of  the  art  of  managing  events  than  they  could  possibl}^  be ; 
and  none  but  the  most  contemptible  enthusiasts  could  now  be  ignorant 
that  his  hypocrisy  was  unceasing,  his  influence  with  the  army  un- 
bounded, and  his  views  ambitious.  The  only  possible  mode,  there- 
fore, of  controlling  his  conduct,  or  favorably  influencing  his  designs, 
was  the  summoning  of  a  regular  Parliament,  which  might  attract  the 
respect  of  every  man  of  principle  in  the  army  and  in  the  kingdom. 

It  is  true  that  even  this  measure  might  not  have  answered  to  the 
views  of  the  Republicans,  but  it  was  their  only  chance.  To  remain 
as  they  were,  the  last  remnant  that  military  violence  had  spared,  and 
therefore  respected  by  no  party,  — -  to  remain,  ready  to  be  over- 
thrown at  the  first  difference  that  arose  between  themselves  and  the 
army,  was  certain  destruction.  In  this  state,  however,  the  Parlia- 
ment did  remain  during  the  first  year  of  their  administration,  — 
1648. 

In  1649,  Cromwell  and  the  army  were  employed  in  Ireland;  in 
1650,  against  the  Scotch  Presbyterians,  who  had  made  a  very  inju- 
dicious attempt  to  restore  royalty,  or  rather  the  Covenant  and  royalty, 
and  had  persuaded  the  young  king  (afterwards  Charles  the  Second) 
to  commit  himself,  very  thoughtlessly,  to  the  disposal  of  their  intol- 
erance and  fanaticism.  In  both  these  campaigns  Cromwell  and  the 
army  were  victorious.  In  1651,  the  young  king  was  defeated  at 
Worcester.  This  defeat  of  his  enemy  was  what  Cromwell  declared 
to  be  "  the  last  crowning  mercy  of  the  Lord  "  ;  that  is,  it  was  the 
finishing  step  to  his  own  power,  and  the  cause  of  the  Repubhcans  was 
IVDW  more  than  ever  hopeless. 

They  seem  to  have  had  an  opportunity  in  1649,  when  Crom- 
well was  in  Ireland,  to  make  some  effort  for  the  establishment  of 
their  civil  authority,  but  they  lost  it.  In  the  mean  time,  petitions 
with  respect  to  the  settlement  of  the  nation  were  continually  pre- 
sented to  them.  Instead  of  attending,  however,  to  the  public  expec- 
tations and  the  duties  of  their  situation,  they  contented  themselves 
with  returning,  like  other  unwise  governments,  sometimes  menaces, 
punishments,  and  statutes  of  high  treason,  sometimes  plausible  an- 
swers to  gain  time,  and  occasionally  debating  the  question  of  their 
dissolution  and  of  a  new  representation ;  but,  on  the  whole,  coming 
to  no  decision  on  the  subject,  while  it  was  their  best  policy  to  do  so. 
When  at  last  they  did  come  to  a  vote,  in  November,  1651,  after  the 


CROMWELL.  2S3 

power  of  CromAvell  was  finally  established,  their  resolution  was  only, 
that  they  would  dissolve  themselves  three  years  afterwards,  in  1654, 
—  a  resolution  that  could  satisfy  no  one,  but  much  the  contrary. 

They  had,  therefore,  not  chosen  to  make  a  common  cause  with  the 
public,  and  being  thus  mthout  support  from  within  and  from  without, 
Cromwell  took  a  few  soldiers  with  him,  expelled  them  from  the  House, 
and  locked  up  the  doors  of  it,  as  soon  as  he  found  them  an  encum 
brance  to  his  ambition.  He  first,  indeed,  acquainted  them,  "  that 
the  Lord  had  done  with  them."  The  public,  who  never  favor  those 
who  have  no  visible  merits  to  produce,  still  less  those  who  have 
seemed  attentive  chiefly  to  their  own  selfish  interests,  saw  this  new 
act  of  military  violence  with  indifference,  and  probably  with  pleasure. 

Certainly,  these  RepubHcanS,  after  a  trial  of  three  years,  had  en- 
tirely failed  as  politicians,  and  had  established  no  Republic.  But 
they  'had  great  merits  in  endeavouring  to  introduce  improvements 
into  the  law.  The  laudable  efibrts  of  the  Long  Parliament  on  this 
subject  have  never  been  properly  acknowledged.  The  state  of  all 
the  real  landed  property  of  this  kingdom  is,  at  this  moment,  materi- 
ally influenced  by  the  happy  effect  of  their  legislative  provisions  ;  and 
those  men  of  property  who  inquire  will  find  that  their  estates  have 
been  as  much  indebted  as  themselves  to  these  Parliamentary  leaders 
for  any  freedom  that  belongs  to  them ;  both  the  one  and  the  other 
were  emancipated  from  feudal  manacles. 

Cromwell  now  alone  remained,  supreme  and  unresisted  ;  and  thus 
at  length  terminated,  in  the  usurpation  of  a  military  chief,  the  origi- 
nal struggle  betAveen  the  king  and  Parliament.  And  this,  as  I  have 
already  announced  at  the  beginning  of  this  lecture,  has  always  been 
considered  as  the  necessary  issue  of  any  successful  appeal  to  arms 
on  the  part  of  the  people,  —  a  position  to  which  I  do  not  indiscrim* 
inately  assent,  and  on  which  I  shall,  therefore,  offer  some  observa- 
tions in  my  next  lecture. 


LECTURE   XVII. 


CROMWELL.  —  MONK.  —  THE    REGICIDES,  etc. 

Towards  the  conclusion  of  my  last  lecture,  we  had  arrived  at  the 
usurpation  of  Cromwell ;  and  this  usurpation  of  a  military  chief,  I 
then  observed,  has  always  been  considered  as  the  natural  issue  of 
any  successful  appeal  to  arms  on  the  part  of  the  people. 


284  LECTURE  XVn. , 

This  position,  it  appears  to  me,  has  always  been  laid  down  too. 
broadly  and  indiscnminately.  The  question  seem^to  admit  of  a  dis- 
tinction, and  it  is  this  :  —  If  a  people  have  been  long  subject  to  all 
the  evils  of  an  arbitrary  government,  and  at  last  break  out  into  insur- 
rection, it  is  to  be  expected,  no  doubt,  that  the  last  favorite  of  the 
army,  who  survives  the  contest,  will  gradually  procure  for  himself 
tlie  power  which  the  former  sovereigns  had  abused  and  lost.  There 
is  nc  material  shock  here  given  to  those  habits  of  thinking  and  feel- 
ing w^hich,  notwithstanding  all  the  intermediate  troubles,  must  still 
form  the  genuine  character  of  the  great  body  of  the  nation.  But 
the  case  is  materially  altered,  if  we  suppose  a  people  before  possessed 
of  constitutional  rights,  and  endeavouring  to  defend  or  enlarge  them, 
in  opposition  to  those  who  would  limit  or  destroy  them.  Here  the 
event,  if  the  popular  party  succeed;  seems  more  naturally  to  be  the 
ultimate  strengthening  and  enlarging  of  the  prior  constitutional  priv- 
ileges, under  some  form  of  government  similar  to  the  former  one.  In 
this  case,  a  usurpation  is  either  not  attempted,  as  in  the  instances  of 
Switzerland  and  Holland,  and,  in  our  own  times,  of  America,  or,  if 
attempted,  the  usurper  finds  himself  impeded  with  such  political  diffi- 
culties, at  every  "movement  which  he  makes,  that  the  continuance  of 
his  power  is  always  a  matter  of  uncertainty ;  and  the  original  and 
irremediable  disposition  of  the  people,  the  result  of  their  former  bet-, 
ter  government,  is  sure  at  last  to  prevail,  either  over  himself,  or  over 
his  successors. 

In  illustration  of  this  general  reasoning  may  be  cited  the  difficulties 
which  Cromwell  had  to  overcome,  while  he  was  endeavouring  to 
seize  the  power  of  the  state,  and  still  more  while  he  was  laboring  to 
retain  it.  I  will  give  a  general  representation  of  them.  Together 
they  form  a  strong  testimony  to  the  permanent  nature  of  the  EngHsh 
mixed  constitution,  particularly  of  the  monarchical  part  of  it ;  and 
they  go  far  to  prove  that  the  usurpation  of  Cromwell  was  not,  as  has 
been  generally  supposed,  a  successful  one. 

These  are  the  principal  topics  of  reflection  to  which  I  would  at 
present  wish  to  excite  your  attention.  Hume  and  Millar,  and  the 
regular  historians  and  writers,  will  supply  you  with  many  others. 

Cromwell  had  to  subdue,  not  only  the  Royahsts,  but  the  Presbyte- 
rians ;  and  this,  not  merely  by  force,  but  by  the  most  extraordinary 
performances  of  cant  and  hypocrisy  that  human  nature  ever  yet  ex- 
hibited. But  why  ?  Because  these  descriptions  of  men  bore  fresh 
upon  their  minds  the  impression  of  the  constitution  of  I?l?igland,  and 
were  only  solicitous,  according  to  the  best  of  their  judgment,  to  sup 
port  or  improve  that  constitution.  By  the  same  arts  and  means  were 
the  Independents,  the  Republicans,  to  be  overpowered  by  the  usurp- 
er, and .  for  the  same  reason.  They,  too,  were  impressed  with  the 
original  stamp  which  had  been  received  from  the  popular  part  of 
this  constitution ;'  and  they  had  deviated  from  it  only  because  they 


CROMWELL.  285 

thought  that  the  monarchical  part  had  been  found,  from  trial,  incom- 
patible with  the  interests  of  the  country.  That  a  military  usurper, 
that  any  single  person,  should  rule  was  not  in  the  contemplation  or 
wishes,  probably,  of  any  one  disinterested  Enghshman  at  the  time. 

And  it  is  here  that  may  be  found  the  great  proof  of  the  talents  of 
Cromwell,  which  is  not  only,  as  Mr.  Hume  states,  that  he  could  rise 
from  a  private  station  to  a  high  authority  in  the  army,  but  still  more, 
that  he  could  afterwards  bend  the  refractory  spirits  and  direct  the 
disordered  understandings  of  all  around  him  to  the  purposes  of  his 
own  ambition,  to  the  elevation  of  himself  to  the  Protectorate,  in  vio- 
lation of  all  his  former  professions  and  protestations,  public  and  pri- 
vate, and  in  defiance  of  all  the  men  of  principle  and  intrepidity  who 
had  been  so  long  his  associates  and  friends  in  the  Parliament  and  in 
the  army. 

The  gross  and  ignorant  soldiers  might,  indeed,  be  well  content  that 
he  who  gave  them  pay  and  plunder  should  have  every  thing  to  dis- 
pose of;  and  in  their  idolatry  of  a  successful  general,  they  might,  for 
a  time,  forget  their  country,  and  those  forms  of  established  authority 
to  which  they  had  once  been  accustomed.  But  still,  it  was  these 
coarse  and  brute  instruments  upon  which  Cromwell  could  alone  de- 
pend ;  and,  after  all,  as  the  mass  of  an  army  must  always  be  man- 
aged through  the  medium  of  its  officers,  it  was  here,  in  this  manage- 
ment of  the  officers,  that  his  extraordinary  powers  were  exhibited  in 
a  manner  so  striking.  Some  he  could  make  his  creatures  by  mere 
bribery,  by  lucrative  posts  and  expectations ;  but  the  rest,  and  not 
unfrequently  many  of  the  common  soldiers  themselves,  he  was  obliged 
to  cajole  by  every  art  and  labor  of  hypocrisy,  —  to  surround  and  be 
wilder  them  with  a  tempest  of  fanatiQism,  of  sighs  and  prayers,  of 
groans  and  ejaculations,  —  in  short,  to  elevate  and  involve  his  heroes 
and  himself  in  a  cloud,  till  he  was  able  there  to  leave  them,  and  him 
self  to  descend  and  take  undisturbed  possession  of  the  earth. 

Whoever  reads  the  history  of  these  times  cannot  well  believe  that 
this  mihtary  usurper,  daring  and  powerful  as  his  abilities  were,  both 
in  the  cabinet  and  in  the  field,  could  possibly  have  succeeded,  if  the 
religious  principle  had  not  unfortunately  found  its  way  into  every 
part  of  the  dispute  between  the  king  and  his  people,  and  so  disturbed 
the  natural  tendency  of  things,  as  to  render  any  achievement  practi- 
cable, which  could  well  be  conceived  by  a  man  of  military  skill  and 
jjauaticism  united.     But  observe  his  progress. 

When  the  young  king  had  been  finally  defeated  at  Worcester, 
when  the  Republicans  had  been  turned  out  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, when  Cromwell,  with  his  council  of  officers,  was  left  alone  on 
the  stage,  and  when  it  would  generally  be  said  that  the  natural  ter- 
mination of  the  contest  had  arrived  and  Cromwell  had  now  only  to 
enjoy  what  he  had  acquired,  his  difficulties,  on  the  contrary,  seemed 
rather  to  multiply  than  to  cease.     Cromwell,  though  triumphant,  and 


286  LECTURE  XVII. 

without  a  rival,  could  n^ver  be  at  ease,  and  he  was  continually  labor- 
ing to  make  his  government  approach,  as  much  as  possible,  to  the 
model  of  the  old  one,  and  to  those  forms  which  he  knew  could  alone 
be  considered  as  legitimate.  He  was  now  himself  precisely  in  the 
situation  in  which  the  Independents,  the  Repubhcans,  had  lately 
been.  He,  like  them,  durst  not  appeal  to  a  full  and  fair  representa- 
tion of  the  people,  yet  it  was  necessary  to  have  a  Parliament ;  he 
could  not  otherwise  color  his  usurpation ;  he  therefore  proceeded  to 
manufacture  one  with  all  expedition. 

But  as  he  had  violated  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  every  man  of 
principle  and  consideration,  he  could  trust  no  one  who  possessed 
much  of  either ;  and  his  Parliament  contained,  though  with  a  mixture 
of  others  of  a  superior  class,  men  of  low  condition  and  foolish  fanati- 
cism. The  Parliament  which  he  collected  and  made  was  the  Parlia- 
ment known  by  the  ludicrous  appellations  which  were  gravely  as- 
sumed by  many  of  its  members,  —  "  Praise  God  Barebones,"  &c.,  &c. 
These  creatures  he  seems  to  have  let  loose  upon  the  courts  of  law, 
probably  for  the  sake  of  terrifying  the  lawyers.  Courts  of  law  are 
never  very  popular  with  the  vulgar,  and  therefore  senators  like  these 
soon  proceeded  to  the  attack  of  the  Court  of  Chancery,  nem,  con. 
If  you  look  into  Cobbett,  their  language  will  amuse  you.  They 
showed  a  rapidity  of  movement  which  must  have  appeared  not  a  little 
marvellous  to  the  court  itself;  certainly  the  court  could  not  have 
been  taught  to  comprehend  it  from  any  experience  in  its  own  pro- 
ceedings. But  a  Parliament  of  this  kind,  so  little  fitted  to  be  a  part 
of  an  Enghsh  government,  was  found  by  Cromwell,  after  a  few 
months'  trial,  unfit  to  answer  his  purposes ;  so  their  power  was  partly 
resigned,  and  partly  taken  from  them,  and  they  returned  to  their 
more  natural  occupations  in  private  life. 

Still,  a  Parliament  and  a  constitutional  government  of  some  kind 
or  other  were  necessary.  Cromwell,  therefore,  and  his  council  of 
officers  drew  up  an  instrument  of  government,  spread  the  power  of 
representation  over  the  whole  of  England  and  Wales  very  fairly,  and 
began  again.  Even  in  this  instrument  it  is  observable  that  the  su- 
preme legislative  authority  is  made  to  reside  in  one  person  and  in  the 
people  assembled  in  Parliament,  —  that  is,  in  a  king  and  House  of 
Commons,  —  and  that  the  provisions  are  far  more  unfavorable  to  the 
executive  power  than  those  in  the  English  constitution,  with  one  ex- 
ception. This  exception  is  contained  in  those  articles  on  which,  no 
doubt,  Cromwell  depended  for  his  own  protection,  the  twenty-seventh 
and  three  following.  These  provided  for  the  maintenance  of  a  stand- 
ing miUtary  force  of  ten  thousand  horse  and  twenty  thousand  foot. 
The  powers,  however,  that  were  given  to  the  ParUament  might  soon 
have  been  converted  to  the  destruction  of  any  Protector  who  was  not 
a  favorite  with  the  army.  —  Three  hundred  members  assembled,  and 
Cromwell  was  soon  obliged,  on  account  of  the  freedom  of  their  de- 


CROMWELL.  287 

bates,  to  make  them  a  long  harangue,  and  to  declare,  that,  "  after 
seeking  counsel  from  God,  he  must  prescribe  to  them  a  test  to  sign." 
The  debates  still  continued  disagreeable  to  him.  At  length,  after 
the  manner  of  the  very  king  whom  he  had  dethroned,  he  dissolved 
them. 

After  an  interval  of  two  years  and  a  half,*  he  still  thought  it  ex- 
pedient to  call  once  more  a  Parliament,  —  the  third ;  and  every  ef- 
fort was  made  to  pack  together  an  assembly  devoted  to  his  designs ; 
but  all  in  vain.  He  had  to  deny  particular  members  admittance,  was 
resisted  by  a  large  portion  of  the  House,  assailed  by  a  spirited  re- 
monstrance, and  felt  in  his  turn,  like  his  misguided  master,  that  it  is 
in  vain  to  expect  sufficient  countenance  to  illegal  proceedings  from 
any  tolerable  representation  of  the  people  of  England. 

Still  anxious  and  dissatisfied,  still  desirous  to  rest  his  authority 
upon  some  estabhshed  principle,  he  meditated  the  assumption  of  the 
title  of  King.  He  got  the  affair  put  in  motion  in  the  House.  The 
lawyers  told  him,  and  probably  with  great  sincerity,  that  this  title  of 
King  (to  use  their  own  words)  was  a  wheel  upon  which  the  whole 
body  of  the  law  was  carried ;  that  it  stood  not  on  the  top,  but  ran 
through  tjie  whole  veins  and  life  of  the  law ;  that  the  nation  had  ever 
been  a  lover  of  monarchy,  and  of  monarchy  under  the  title  of  King ; 
that,  in  short,  this  title  of  King  was  the  title  of  the  supreme  magiS' 
trate,  which  the  law  could  take  notice  of,  and  no  other.  Cromwell 
desired  time  to  "  seek  God  for  counsel "  ;  that  is,  he  wished  to  know 
the  opinions  of  the  army ;  and  while  he  was  ascertaining  them,  he 
hesitated  from  day  to  day,  and  renewed  from  day  to  day  his  long 
replies,  —  replies  which  gave  no  answer,  and  were  full  of  broken 
sentences,  interrupted  conclusions,  doubts  and  insinuations,  perplexity 
and  more  than  Egyptian  darkness ;  but,  having  at  length  satisfied 
himself  that  the  measure  was  disagreeable  to  his  army^  his  elocution 
cleared  up  in  an  instant,  and  nothing  can  be  more  distinct  than  hia 
short  final  speech,  "  that  he  could  not  undertake  the  government  with 
the  title  of  King." 

Legitimate  authority,  or  even  the  appearance  of  it,  was  now  im- 
possible ;  a  new  settlement  of  the  government  was  therefore  adjusted, 
under  the  form  of  a  Petition  and  Advice,  in  its  articles  still  very  favor- 
able to  the  liberties  of  the  subject,  but  with  the  same  material  excep- 
tion of  the  grant  of  a  revenue  to  maintain  the  army  of  the  executive 
power.  Cromwell  was  to  be  solemnly  inaugurated  Protector;  a 
second  house  was  to  be  added  to  the  House  of  Commons ;  Lords 
were  to  be  called  to  it  by  Cromwell ;  —  that  is,  the  form  of  governr 
ment  was  thus  made  still  more  and  more  to  approach  to  the  model  of 
the  original  constitution. 

*  Only  one  year  and  a  half.  Cromwell's  second  Parliament  was  dissolved  January 
22,  1654-5,  and  this  third  Parliament  was  called  July  10,  1656.  See  Cobbett's  Parlia 
mentary  Histoiy,  Vol.  iii.  col.  1460,  1478.  — N. 


288  LECTURE  XVII. 

Cromwell,  however,  was  still  overpowered  with  impossibilities. 
The  few  real  peers  that  he  summoned  to  his  upper  house,  with  one 
base  exception  (Lord  Eure),  forbore  to  take  their  places;  the  Com- 
mons rehshed  not  their  title  and  questioned  their  authority ;  and  the 
Protector,  enraged  at  their  impracticable  behaviour,  dissolved  them. 
This  was  the  last  experiment  in  the  way  of  a  Parliament  that  he 
made ;  having  dissolved  the  assembly  in  February,  he  died  in  Sep- 
tember. 

Now  this,  after  all,  is  not  a  specimen  of  successful  usurpation. 
lie  maintained  his  power  for  five  years,  but  it  seems  very  doubtful 
whether  he  could  have  done  it  much  longer ;  his  friend  Monk  thought 
not.  His  power  still  continued  to  be,  as  it  began,  merely  that  of  the 
sword ;  no  appearance  of  legitimate  rule  could  be  contrived  for  him  ; 
there  was  no  principle  existing  in  the  English  constitution  which  he 
could  work  up  to  accomplish  his  designs  ;  there  was  no  train  of  habits 
in  the  minds  of  the  people  of  England  which  could  afford  him  any 
foundation  on  which  to  build  authority  for  himself.  He  was  not  as- 
sassinated, but  he  lived  in  continual  apprehensions  of  it ;  he  was  not 
hurled  from  the  government  by  his  soldiers,  but  it  was  the  labor  of 
his  life  to  prevent  it.  Abroad  was  the  young  king;  at. home  were 
the  Royalists,  the  Presbyterians,  the  Republicans,  and  etithusiasts 
of  every  description,  the  most  insane  and  dangerous,  most  of  whom 
he  had  in  turn  deceived,  and  therefore  exasperated.  Even  in  the 
bosom  of  his  family,  the  great  questions  of  religion  and  politics  had 
interfered  to  disturb  his  peace.  And  his  example  seems  to  show,  as 
far  as  the  example  of  so  extraordinary  a  character  in  times  so  ex- 
traordinary can  afford  any  general  conclusion  on  such  points,  that, 
amid  a  people  whose  constitution  has  been  free,  a  brave  and  able 
man  may  sometimes  seize  upon  the  chief  executive  power,  and  even 
possess  it  for  some  time,  but  that  he  will  be  able  neither  to  enjoy  it, 
nor  to  engraft  it  upon  the  former  constitution  of  the  kingdom ;  that 
he  will  not  be  able  to  introduce  a  new  line  of  arbitrary  sovereigns,  — 
himself  the  first ;  and,  on  the  whole,  that,  in  pubHc  as  well  as  private, 
success,  as  it  is  called,  will  be  for  ever  fatal  to  all  ideas  that  even  an 
ambitious  man  can  entertain  of  happiness  and  repose. 

If  this  reasoning  be  just,  (and  the  facts  at  least  I  have  not  mis- 
stated,) the  conclusion  is,  —  first,  a  strong  testimony  to  the  permar 
nency  of  the  monarchical  part  of  our  constitution,  arising  from  the 
steadiness  and  intelligence  of  the  EngUsh  character ;  and  again,  that, 
when  freedom  has  been  at  all  enjoyed  in  any  country,  (for  this  is  the 
supposition,)  resistance  to  arbitrary  encroachments  is  not  necessarily 
followed,  even  if  a  revolution  is  to  be  endured,  by  any  military  usur- 
pation that  will  be  ultimately  successful. 

Cromwell,  I  must  contend,  did  not  succeed  ;  he  could  not  become 
the  peaceful  and  acknowledged  sovereign  of  his  country.  He  did, 
however,  what  alone  it  was  in  his  power  to  do.     He  was  a  good  dis- 


CROMWELL.  289 

cerner  of  character,  and  he  therefore  selected  lawyers  of  ability  from 
the  profession,  and  persuaded  them  to  administer  to  the  people, 
though  he  might  sometimes  disregard  them  himself,  the  known  laws 
of  the  country ;  he  employed  officers  of  courage  and  capacity  by 
land  and  sea ;  he  wielded  with  effect  the  formidable  energies  of  a 
people  that  had  been  lately  and  might  still  be  considered  as  in  a  state 
of  revolution ;  and,  like  other  usurpers,  he  endeavoured  to  hide  in  a 
blaze  of  glory  a  throne  that  was  defiled  with  blood. 

To  understand  the  conduct  of  Cromwell  and  the  Republicans,  not 
only  must  the  Memoirs  of  Holies  be  read,  but  those  of  Ludlow.  Lud- 
low's work  becomes  very  important  after  the  account  of  the  battle  of 
Naseby.  There  is  also  a  book  which  has  been  lately  published,  the 
Life  of  Colonel  Hutchinson,  printed  from  a  manuscript  account 
draAvn  up  by  his  widow,  a  woman  of  singular  merit,  —  who,  if  her 
pohtical  opinions  (the  opinions  of  her  husband)  be  forgiven  her,  will 
appear  without  a  blemish,  will  be  thought  to  have  united  the  opposite 
virtues  of  the  sexes,  and  to  have  been  alike  fitted  to  give  a  charm  to 
existence  amid  the  tranquiUity  of  domestic  life,  and  in  an  hour  of 
trial  to  add  enterprise  and  strength  to  the  courage  of  a  hero.  Both 
of  these  memoirs  (those  of  Ludlow  and  of  Colonel  Hutchinson)  are 
original  works,  and  as  those  parts  that  relate  to  military  concerns 
may  be  slightly  glanced  over,  they  will  be  found  neither  long  nor 
tedious,  and  they  ought,  in  this  manner,  by  all  means  to  be  carefully 
read.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  is  often  a  painter  of  manners  as  minute  and 
far  more  forcible  than  even  Clarendon. 

It  is  evident  from  these  different  memoirs  that  the  character  of 
Cromwell  was  seen  through,  by  the  intelligent  men  of  every  descrip- 
tion of  opinion,  —  not  only  by  Holies,  the  Presbyterian,  but  by  the 
Republicans  Ludlow  and  Hutchinson.  It  appears,  too,  that  Cromwell 
himself  was  unremittingly  employed  in  ascertaining  the  views  and 
character  of  every  one  around  him ;  that  his  whole  life  was  a  con- 
stant train,  not  only  of  political  hypocrisy,  but  of  political  specular 
tion  and  enterprise.  As  specimens  of  his  manner,  LudloAV  may  be 
consulted  at  pages  79,  105,  135,  in  the  quarto  edition,  and  Hutchin- 
son, 287,  309,  340 ;  here  will  be  found  dialogues  that  passed  between 
these  men  and  Cromwell ;  and  no  doubt  he  sounded  all  the  principal 
men  near  him  as  opportunity  offered,  and  those  of  inferior  rank  and 
intelligence  in  ways  far  more  curious  than  those  that  are  here  record- 
ed or  can  now  be  known. 

These  works  are  also  both  of  them  very  interesting,  as  exhibiting 
to  us  those  views  of  this  important  contest,  in  all  its  different  stages, 
which  were  entertained  by  such  of  the  Repubhcans  as  were  men  of 
regular  sense  and  clear  honesty.  The  rapid,  unceremonious  manner 
in  which  Ludlow,  from  the  first,  arrives  at  his  conclusions,  as  well  as 
Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  their  reasonings  and  views  of  the  contest, 
should  be  considered,  not  only  in  contrast  with  those  of  the  King's 
37  Y 


290  LECTURE  XVII. 

State  Papers,  but  in  comparison  with  the  suggestions  of  the  reader's 
own  mind.  It  may  be  useful  to  observe  the  manner  in  which  men 
of  good  understandings  and  good  intentions  may  reach  very  opposite 
extremes  of  opinion,  though  exercising  their  judgments  upon  the 
same  materials.  Habits  of  candor  and  patient  investigation  may  thus 
be  introduced,  and  the  character,  on  the  whole,  improved  and  hu- 
manized. 

Is  it  not  curious,  for  instance,  to  observe  that  Hutchinson  applied 
himself,  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War,  as  his  wife  relates, 
(I  quote  page  78,)  "to  understand  the  things  then  in  dispute,  and 
read  all  the  public  papers  that  came  forth  between  the  king  and  Par- 
liament, besides  many  other  private  treatises,  both  concerning  the 
present  and  foregoing  times,  whereby  he  became  abundantly  informed 
in  his  understanding,  and  convinced  in  conscience,  of  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  Parliament's  cause,  in  point  of  civil  right"?  And, 
again,  is  it  not  affecting  to  perceive,  that,  before  he  signed  the  fatal 
warrant  for  the  execution  of  the  king,  "  he  addressed  himself  to  God 
by  prayer,  desiring  the  Lord,  that,  if,  through  any  human  frailty,  he 
were  led  into  any  error  or  false  opinion  in  these  great  transactions, 
He  would  open  his  eyes,  and  not  suffer  him  to  proceed,  but  that  He 
would  confirm  his  spirit  in  the  truth,  and  lead  him  by  a  right  enlight- 
ened conscience ;  and  finding  no  check,  but  a  confirmation  in  his 
conscience  that  it  was  his  duty  to  act  as  he  did,  he,  upon  serious  de- 
bate, both  privately  and  in  his  addresses  to  God,  and  in  conferences 
with  conscientious,  upright,  unbiased  persons,  proceeded  to  sign  the 
sentence  against  the  king  "  ? 

Many  other  curious  particulars  may  be  drawn  from  this  work: 
that  the  king,  for  instance,  sent  forth  commissions  for  array,  and  the 
Parliament  gave  out  commissions  for  their  mihtia,  so  as  "  in  many 
places  there  were  fierce  contests  and  disputes,  almost  to  blood,  even 
at  the  first "  (page  95)  ;  that  all  the  nobility,  gentry,  and  their  de- 
pendents were  generally  for  the  king,  while  "  most  of  the  middle 
sort,  the  able,  substantial  freeholders,  and  the  other  commons  who 
had  not  their  dependence  upon  the  mahgnant  nobility  and  gentry, 
adhered  to  the  ParHament."  And  from  page  344,  and  other  places, 
we  may  conclude  that  the  Puritans  were  not  always  men  of  minds 
disordered  by  religious  zeal  and  debased  by  vulgar  cant  and  enthusi- 
asm ;  but,  when  men  of  consideration,  like  Colonel  Hutchinson,  were 
very  fair  models  of  the  Enghsh  country  gentleman,  such  as  the  char- 
acter appears  under  its  best  aspect,  men  properly  interested  in  the 
civil  and  religious  liberties  of  their  country,  accomphshed  and  well 
informed  according  to  the  notions  of  their  age,  active  in  the  duties 
of  the  neighbourhood  and  county,  pious,  hospitable,  and  domestic. 

It  must  be  observed  that  this  manuscript  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson  can 
be  valuable  only  to  those  who  have  already  acquainted  themselves 
with  the  English  history.     They  can  thus  only  be  enabled  to  derive 


CROMWELL.  ^    291 

full  benefit  from  her  shorfc,  rapid,  forcible  summaries  and  statements 
of  the  circumstances  and  characters  that  pass  in  review  before  her. 
Her  comment  extends  from  the  time  of  Henry  the  Eighth  to  her 
husband's  death,  after  the  Restoration. 

In  addition  to  Ludlow  and  Hutchinson,  Whitelocke  should  bo 
looked  at.  The  most  important  passages  are  generally  in  Italics  ; 
and  there  are  some  with  respect  to  Cromwell  very  remarkable  :  I 
allude  to  a  dialogue  between  him  and  the  usurper  in  St.  James's 
Park.  There  are  different  editions  of  this  work ;  the  last  is  the  prop- 
er one. 

There  is  a  great  work  of  seven  quarto  volumes,  Thurloe's  State 
Papers,  which  contains  much  matter,  but  it  is  not  often  interesting, 
and  the  whole,  therefore,  would  naturally  be  passed  by ;  yet  this  need 
not  be  the  case,  for  there  is  a  most  excellent  index,  from  which  a  suf- 
ficient idea  of  the  contents  of  the  volumes  may  be  acquired ;  they 
are  sometimes  important,  and  the  reader  may  be  enabled  to  find 
whatever  the  perusal  of  other  works  may  lead  him  to  look  after.  At 
the  end  there  is  given  an  account  of  the  remarkable  conferences  that 
took  place  with  Cromwell  on  the  subject  of  his  assuming  the  title  of 
King,*  most  of  which  should  be  read  :  these  are  the  conferences  I 
alluded  to  at  the  beginning  of  this  lecture. 

With  respect  to  the  situation  of  Charles  the  Second  some  idea  may 
be  formed  from  Clarendon ;  more  particularly,  there  is  an  account  of 
the  young  king's  escape  after  the  battle  of  Worcester,  not  only  in  it- 
self romantic,  but  often  very  descriptive  of  the  manners  of  the  times, 
a  merit  that  generally  belongs  to  this  writer ;  there  is  a  very  curious 
one  also  in  the  Pepys  Library  at  Magdalen. 

Sir  Edward  Walker,  in  his  Historical  Discourses,  gives  an  account 
of  the  young  king's  proceedings  in  Scotland ;  and  in  this  account 
may  be  seen  the  state  papers  of  the  Presbyterians,  in  all  their  own 
ridiculous  cant  and  phraseology ;  for  this  reason  the  work  is  valuable. 
But  with  respect  to  other  particulars,  Hume  has  already  seized  upon 
all  that  were  much  worthy  of  notice,  and  transferred  them  to  his  His- 
^tory. 

There  is  a  work  by  Mr.  Noble,  Memoirs  of  the  Cromwells,  which 
may  occupy  a  morning  or  two  very  agreeably  and  usefully ;  a  variety 
of  information  respecting  the  Protector  and  his  family  is  given,  and 
many  sources  of  further  information  are  presented  to  the  reader,  i^ith 
an  account  of  the  different  lives  that  have  been  written  of  the  Pro- 
tector, and  many  particulars  of  his  government  and  connections,  of 
*  the  persons  he  employed  and  honored,  and  of  some  of  the  leading 
characters  that  appeared  in  these  singular  times. 

*  Professor  Smyth  refers  to  a  quarto  edition  of  Thurloe.  The  folio  edition  of  1742 
is  the  only  one  of  which  I  have  been  able  to  find  any  trace ;  and  the  copies  of  this 
which  I  have  consulted  contain  nothing  whatever  pertaining  to  these  conferences,  ex- 
cept a  speech  of  Cromwell's.  A  full  account  of  them  will  be  found,  however,  ia 
Somers's  Tracts,  2d  Coll.  (London,  1750),  Vol.  iii.  pp.  113-174.  — N. 


292      ^  LECTURE  XVII. 

There  is  a  Life  of  Cromwell  by  Harris,  in  the  manner  of  his  other 
historical  treatises,  and  equally  valuable. 

There  has  been  lately  a  Life  published  by  one  of  his  descendants, 
of  the  same  name,  a  respectable  lawyer  at  the  Chancery  bar  ;  it  is, 
as  might  be  expected  from  its  origin,  very  tedious,  and  soon  ceases 
to  interest,  for  the  reader  perceives  that  the  author  is  too  determined 
a  defender  and  panegyrist  of  his  ancestor  to  deserve  much  attention. 

The  description  of  Cromwell  given  by  Cowley  (his  Vision)  is  well 
known,  and  this  Vision  is  easily  reduced,  and,  as  always  happens  in 
Buch  cases,  is  more  than  reduced,  to  the  standard  of  propriety  and 
truth  by  a  few  calm  observations  from  the  reasoning  and  balancing 
^mind  of  Mr.  Hume.  The  two  paragraphs  in  the  sixty-first  chapter 
of  Hume,  the  quotation  from  Cowley,  and  the  comment,  contrast 
agreeably  enough  the  opposite  merits  of  Cowley  and  Hume,  of  the 
poet  and  the  philosopher. 

At  the  end  of  the  sixtieth  chapter  of  Hume  there  is  a  summary 
of  the  whole  contest,  remarkable,  among  other  accounts,  for  its  ad- 
mission that  "  the  king  had  in  some  instances  stretched  his  preroga- 
tive beyond  its  just  bounds,  and,  aided  by  the  Church,  had  wellnigh 
put  an  end  to  all  the  liberties  and  privileges  of  the  nation." 

Thus  much  for  the  general  topics  that  belong  to  this  period  of  our 
history,  and  the  writings  where  they  may  be  found. 

But  it  is  desirable  that  a  more  intimate  knowledge  should  be  ac- 
quired of  the  revenue  that  was  drawn  from  the  public  during  these 
times  than  can  readily  be  gathered  from  a  perusal  of  the  historians. 
The  work  of  Sir  John  Sinclair  may  be  referred  to,  and  ought  to  be 
consulted ;  our  general  expectations  will  appear  verified  by  the  de- 
tails. These  show  the  profligate  waste  of  eJames  the  First,  the  infat- 
uated expense  and  arbitrary  impositions  of  Charles  the  First,  and  the 
immense  expenditure  and  embezzlement  of  the  pubHc  treasure  during 
the  Civil  Wars  and  the  domination  of  the  Protector.  These  expenses 
of  the  Long  Parhament  and  Cromwell  have  been  produced  to  prove 
that  repubhcs  are  not  less  expensive  than  arbitrary  governments. 
But  no  conclusion,  either  favorable  or  otherwise,  can  be  drawn  from 
cases  of  this  kind,  where  republics  are  struggling  for  existence  amid 
wars  domestic  and  foreign,  in  a  situation  necessarily  exposed  to  every 
species  of  mismanagement  and  irregularity.  The  question  should 
lather  be,  whether  republics  or  arbitrary  governments  are  most  liable 
to  official  extortion  and  plunder,  and  which  are  most  disposed  to  en- 
gage in  wars ;  and  arguments  must  be  drawn  from  the  conduct  of 
each,  when  in  a  state  of  composure,  and  at  liberty  to  follow  the  real 
genius  of  their  respective  constitutions. 

A  far  more  accurate  conclusion  may  be  drawn  from  these  financial 
details  with  respect  to  the  endless  miseries  that  must  have  been  oc- 
casioned by  these  civil  wars, — miseries  such  as  appeared  in  no  siege 
or  field  of  battle,  and  such  as  no  historian  has  delineated,  or  could 


RICHARD  CROMWELL.      '  29S 

delineate.  We  see,  in  the  abstract  of  the  money  raised  from  1640 
to  1659,  three  millions  and  a  half  from  sequestrations  of  the  lands 
from  bishops,  deans,  and  inferior  clergy  for  four  years.  Another 
article  is,  one  million  and  a  half  for  the  tenths  of  all  the  clergy,  and 
other  exactions  from  the  Church,  and  this  at  a  time  when  the  millions 
of  the  subject  did  not  roll  into  the  exchequer  in  the  countless  pro- 
gressions of  modern  times.  Yet,  even  in  these  times  of  our  ances- 
tors, when  the  general  affluence  of  the  country  was  comparatively 
insignificant,  the  figures  of  Sir  John  Sinclair  still  move  onward  into 
rows  of  dreadful  millions,  and  in  the  following  manner  :  — 

Sale  of  church  lands £10,000,000 

Sequestrations  of  the  estates  and  compositions  with 

private  individuals  in  England 4,500,000 

Compositions  with  delinquents  (as  in  the  jargon 
of  civil  hate  they  were  denominated),  those  in 
Ireland 1,000,000 

And  for  the  sale  of  the  estates  of  those  in  England 

more  than 2,000,000 

For  the  sale  of  Irish  lands  more  than  ....  1,000,000 
A  long  list  this,  in  all  of  more  than  £23,000,000,  every  item  of 
which  is  indicative  of  domestic  wretchedness ;  nothing  is  here  in- 
cluded of  subsidies,  poll-money,  assessments,  and  other  levies,  which 
were  £60,000,000  more.  These  are  articles  of  account  that  in 
every  shilling  of  them,  to  the  amount  of  these  £23,000,000,  suppose 
the  loss  of  prosperity,  families  reduced,  the  scenes  of  private  tran- 
quillity filled  with  alarm  and  terror,  the  comforts  of  society  at  an 
end,  and  the  affluent,  the  aged,  and  the  defenceless  often  thrown  into 
a  world  of  violence,  to  encounter  privation,  poverty,  and  every  sad 
mutation  of  fortune  that  can  sink  the  comfort  or  try  the  patience  of 
the  human  heart. 

Such  are  the  afflicting  monuments  of  civil  and  religious  hatred. 
We  do  not  speak  of  the  thousands  that  perished  by  sickness  or  the 
sword. 

Upon  the  death  of  Oliver,  the  Protectorate  was  quietly  transferred 
to  his  son,  and  he  received  addresses  from  all  quarters,  that  left  him 
to  expect  the  peaceable  possession  of  his  honors.  But  the  sky  was 
soon  overcast ;  he  had  fallen  upon  evil  days,  was  unfit  to  control  the 
soldiery,  and,  after  consulting  with  Thurloe  and  other  experienced 
counsellors,  to  learn  how  he  could  best  maintain  his  authority,  tod » 
amiable  to  contend  for  power  by  the  sanguinary  measures  which  were 
proposed  to  him,  and  too  rational,  perhaps,  to  be  much  concerned 
about  the  loss  of  it,  he  dissolved  the  Parliament  which  he  had  assem- 
bled, the  only  civil  authority  that  existed,  and  therefore  the  only 
power  that  could  be  friendly  to  him,  and  left  Fleetwood,  Disbrowe, 
and  the  army  to  dispose  of  the  affairs  of  the  pubUc  as  they  thought 
proper.     Monk  was  in  Scotland  with  an  army,  and  nothmg  very 

Y* 


294  LECTURE  XVIL 

certain  was  known  about  him,  but  that  Lambert  and  he  were  no 
friends. 

And  now  it  was  that  the  nation  very  narrowly  escaped  the  great- 
est of  all  evils,  — the  contentions  of  rival  generals  at  the  head  of  their 
armies,  the  plusquam  dvilia  hella.  Happily,  the  officers  that  Crom- 
well left  behind  him  were  none  of  them,  like  himself,  fit  to  rule  the 
world  when  it  was  wildest.  Of  this  Monk  might  be  sufficiently 
aware.  Lambert  only  could  have  been  an  object  of  apprehension  to 
liim. 

Monk  must  have  been  also  aware  that  not  only  the  Cavaliers,  but 
all  the  Presbyterians,  constituting  together,  as  he  must  have  suspect- 
ed, a  large  majority  of  the  nation,  longed  ardently  for  the  restoration 
of  the  monarchy.  His  own  opinions,  or,  at  least,  ideas  of  interest, 
probably  incUned  the  same  way. 

His  fine  of  conduct  was,  therefore,  clear,  —  that  is,  clear  to  such 
a  man  ;  he  could  attain  to  no  real  consequence  but  by  overpowering 
Lambert  and  the  officers ;  that  danger  he  had  to  risk,  and  that  only ; 
the  Parliament  which  they  had  collected,  and  which  was  the  remain- 
der of  the  Long  Parliament,  were  decided  Repubhcans ;  those  he 
could  easily  keep  on  good  terms  with,  for  they  were  on  bad  terms 
with  their  masters,  the  army ;  and  in  the  mean  time,  by  marching  to 
London,  he  could  ascertain,  as  he  passed  through  the  country  and 
the  city,  the  real  wishes  of  the  people  of  England,  and  be  prepared 
to  provide  for  his  own  safety  and  fortunes,  on  every  turn  of  the  po- 
litical wheel,  whether  to  monarchy  or  republicanism.  The  result 
was,  that,  with  far  less  difficulty  than  could  possibly  have  been  ex- 
pected, he  restored  the  young  king  to  the  throne  of  his  ancestors. 

IMonk  was  a  leader  of  armies  and  of  fleets,  and  upon  every  occa- 
sion displayed  the  most  consummate  valor.  Yet  is  he  never  consid- 
ered as  a  hero  ;  so  inseparable  from  our  idea  of  heroism  is  that  fear- 
less sincerity^  that  open,  impetuous  generosity^  which  formed,  in  fact, 
no  part  of  his  character. 

The  services  of  Monk  were  of  the  most  solid  and  striking  nature ; 
he  rescued  his  country  from  the  domination  of  an  army  that  had 
grown  invincible  among  the  Civil  Wars,  and  that  Uved  upon  her  ruin. 
Yet  has  Monk  never  been  honored  with  the  appellation  of  a  patriot ; 
for  he  interested  not  himself  in  her  laws  and  liberties,  and  temponzed 
tin  he  seemed  to  follow,  rather  than  to  lead,  the  current  of  public 
;Sfentiment. 

Monk  was  originally  the  friend  of  Cromwell.  He  was  employed 
by  the  Repubhc  ;  he  received  their  pay,  and  led  their  armies  ;  he 
has  been,  therefore,  denied  even  the  common  praise  of  a  gentleman 
and  a  soldier,  —  integrity  and  honor.  So  deep  a  shade  will  always 
involve  the  fame  of  him  who  has  ever,  in  politics,  obviously  shifted 
his  ground,  and  at  last  adopted,  whether  from  a  real  change  of  prin- 
ciple or  not,  the  side  which  was  favorable  to  his  interest. 


MONK.  295 

These  sweeping  decisions  of  mankind  on  the  characters  of  public 
men  are  not  to  be  regretted ;  public  men  should  be  taught  that  their 
virtues  are  at  all  events  to  be  clear  and  intelligible,  that  their  con- 
duct is  to  explain  itself.  Such  expectations  in  the  communitj  are 
the  best  discipline  that  public  men  can  conform  to.  Even  when  this 
discipline  has  had  its  full  ejQfect,  under  every  form  of  government,  the 
public  men  will  always  be  too  much  disposed  to  sink  themselves  be- 
neath their  own  natural  standard  of  excellence,  to  be  satisfied  with 
wishes  and  intentions,  rather  than  positive  exertions  and  acts  of  ser- 
vice, and  to  be  too  ready  unworthily  to  yield  to  the  suggestions  of 
shuffling  meanness  and  ingenious  self-interest. 

The  historian,  indeed,  may  come  afterwards  with  the  exercise  of 
that  candor  and  intelligence  which  can  never  be  expected  from  the 
public,  and  it  may  be  his  province,  and  his  more  proper  province,  to 
make  his  distinctions  and  explanations,  and  to  weigh  out  in  his  faith- 
ful balance  those  more  minute  and  doubtful  portions  of  merit  ^hat 
belong  to  the  characters  he  has  to  estimate.  It  may  be  for  him 
finally  to  decide  what  there  is  of  virtue  in  the  vicious,  and  of  fault  in 
the  virtuous.  In  the  instance  before  us,  therefore,  it  is  but  justice 
to  the  memory,  of  a  man  who  acted  so  important  a  part  in  our  history 
as  Monk  did,  not  slightly  to  disregard  the  representation  of  his  char- 
acter by  Hume  ;  it  is  too  favorable,  but  it  is  easily  contrasted  with 
the  severer  estimates  of  opposite  writers. 

There  is  a  Life  of  Monk  by  his  chaplain.  Price,  which  I  have  at 
length  been  able  to  procure,  but  it  disappointed  me.  There  is  another 
by  his  chaplain,  Dr.  Gumble,  who  was  originally  connected  with  the 
Cromwells,  and  writes  like  a  violent  Royalist.  Violence,  on  a  change 
of  party  or  character,  is  not  indeed  very  unusual,  and  it  is  as  dis- 
graceful at  last  as  it  was  at  first.  Gumble's  narrative  is  interesting ; 
from  his  subject,  and  connection  with  Monk,  it  could  not  be  other- 
wise ;  but  his  account  is,  after  all,  what  might  be  expected  from  the 
known  facts  of  the  history,  and  the  particulars  are  interwoven  into 
Hume's  more  concise  account.  There  is  also  a  History  of  Monk  by 
^yebster,  or  rather  by  Dr.  Skinner,  Monk's  physician,  for  Webster  is 
only  the  editor  of  the  Doctor's  manuscript.  This  work  is  also  a 
miimte  and  favorable  account  of  Monk  and  the  Restoration.  Gum 
ble's  Life,  at  least,  should  be  looked  at,  as  it  is  always  quoted. 

Monk  is  represented  by  these  writers  as  always  resolved  in  secret 
to  restore,  if  possible,  the  monarchy  ;  but  as  this,  from  his  professions 
and  dissimulation,  must  always  be  doubtful,  the  clear  merit  of  Monk 
is,  that  he  effected,  without  bloodshed  and  completely,  that  which  it 
w^as  most  desirable  should  be  done  by  some  one,  and  which  at  the  time 
could  be  so  done  only  by  himself.  This  is  his  clear  merit ;  but  the 
clear  accusation  against  him  is  the  heavy  one  of  selfishness  and  base- 
ness. He  received  his  commission  and  his  army  from  the  Republi- 
cans ;  then  converted  them  to  the  purpose  of  restoring  royalty ;  and 


296  LECTURE  XVII. 

above  all,  lie  immediately  afterwards  sat  in  a  court  where  Republicans 
were  tried  for  their  lives  and  condemned. 

But  another  capital  fault  in  him  was,  that  he  made  no  effort  for 
the  security  of  the  liberties  of  his  country,  either  publicly  by  stipula- 
tions made  with  the  king  before  he  came  over,  or  privately  by  expecta- 
tions intimated  to  him  in  the  communications  that  took  place  previous- 
ly to  the  Restoration.  His  great  praise  was  his  advice  to  the  king 
from  the  first  to  pass  an  act  of  indemnity  on  the  past  offences  of  his 
subjects ;  but  even  this  advice,  it  must  be  confessed,  was  at  the  time, 
both  for  himself  and  the  sovereign,  the  best  policy ;  as  the  soldiers 
and  officers  who  had  dethroned  Charles  the  First  might  otherwise 
have  been  rendered  desperate. 

This  part  of  the  history  is  drawn  up  with  great  ability  by  Hume. 
It  may  be  read  in  conjunction  with  the  Parliamentary  proceedings ; 
and  the  journal  of  Whitelocke  now  contains  more  passages  than  usual, 
whibh,  however  short,  are  most  valuable,  from  being  so  descriptive  of 
the  times.  His  papers  seem  to  have  been  burnt  by  his  wife,  in  some 
moment  of  very  natural  alarm ;  still,  there  remains  the  journal,  mark- 
ed occasionally  with  those  hvely  touches  of  personal  observation  and 
feeling  which  can  be  given  only  by  an  actor  in  the  scene.  White- 
locke was  from  the  first  right  in  his  judgment ;  he  took  Fleetwood 
aside,  predicted  the  conduct  of  Monk,  and  told  him  that  he  must 
either  immediately  vanquish  him  in  the  field,  or  anticipate  him  in  an 
accommodation  with  the  young  king. 

Whitelocke's  Memorials  were  published  by  the  Earl  of  Anglesey 
in  1682.  He  took  considerable  liberties  with  the  manuscript. 
Another  edition  was  published  in  1732,  which  restored  many  im- 
portant passages  struck  out  by  the  earl ;  and  hence  the  different 
price  of  the  two  editions,  ten  shillings  or  five  guineas.  Hume  always 
refers  to  the  old  or  truncated  edition.  See  D'Israeli,  page  144, 
vol.  i.  of  second  series  of  Curiosities  of  Literature. 

The  representations  of  the  two  Republicans,  Ludlow  and  Hutchin- 
son, are  also  now  more  than  ever  interesting. 

The  difficulty  of  the  Republican  party  was  always  the  same,  and 
always  insurmountable.  They  never  could  attain  to  power  without 
the  support  of  the  army,  and  they  then  could  never  retain  the  army 
in  civil  obedience.  But  the  ardor  with  which  they  pursued  their  re- 
public is  very  remarkable,  and  it  seems  to  have  blinded  them  to  all 
the  interests  of  the  constitution,  and  of  themselves.  An  important 
distinction  existed  in  their  opinions.  Ludlow  was  prepared  to  borrow 
assistance  for  his  political  measures  from  the  army.  Hutchinson's 
repubhcanism  was  more  pure  and  intelUgent ;  he  always  considered 
such  expedients  as  unlawful,  and  unfit  to  be  resorted  to.  We  follow, 
therefore,  Hutchinson  to  his  retirement  with  stronger  feelings  of  re- 
spect than  Ludlow  to  his  exile. 

Having  now  passed  through  the   usurpation   of  Cromwell,  the 


THE  RESTORATION.  297 

speedy  fall  of  his  son,  and  the  failure  of  the  Republican  party,  I 
must  briefly  notice,  before  I  conclude  my  lecture,  the  opening  scenes 
of  the  Restoration. 

On  the  restoration  of  the  king,  as  public  opinion  is  ever  in  ex- 
tremes, the  probabiUty  was,  that  the  liberties  of  the  country  would 
be  laid  by  the  Parliaments  at  the  feet  of  the  monarch.  But  this 
cannot  with  any  propriety  be  said  of  the  first  Parliament,  —  the 
Convention  or  Restoration  Parliament.  They  sat  from  May  to  the 
end  of  the  year.  They  passed  an  act,  or  rather  confirmed  an  act  of 
the  Long  Parliament,  for  taking  away  the  courts  of  wards  and 
liveries,  together  with  tenures  in  capite,  knights'  service,  tenures  in 
purveyance.  This  was  the  great  legislative  merit  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, to  which  I  alluded  in  my  last  lecture  as  one  not  sufficiently 
noticed  by  historians.  I  must  again  refer  you  to  the  Note-book  on 
the  table.  They  were  careful  of  grants  of  the  public  money ;  they 
did  not  make  the  king  independent  of  the  Parhament,  either  by  the 
revenue  which  they  fixed  upon  him,  or  the  standing  force  which  they 
suffered  to  remain  ;  though,  in  exchange  for  this  court  of  wards,  they 
allowed  him  for  life,  and  very  reasonably,  a  grant  of  particular  im- 
posts on  ale,  beer,  and  other  liquors,  and  left  him  Monk's  regiment, 
about  four  thousand  men,  which  were  not  disbanded,  —  a  standing 
force,  no  doubt,  that,  however  small,  was  still  a  precedent,  and,  as 
such,  dangerous. 

I  stop  for  a  moment  to  observe,  that  the  question  of  a  standing 
army  is  very  different  in  different  situations  of  society.  Our  situation 
now,  in  the  midst  of  our  large  manufacturing  towns  and  counties,  is 
very  difierent  from  what  it  was  in  certain  periods  of  our  history ;  our 
liberties,  that  is,  the  regular  administration  of  the  laws  and  the  main- 
tenance of  order,  can  now  be  secured  only  by  the  very  same  sort  of 
force  by  which  before  they  might  have  been  endangered. 

Now  one  of  the  great  reasons  why  the  general  maxims  of  the  con- 
stitution were  at  this  very  critical  period  tolerably  preserved  must 
have  been  that  so  large  a  number  of  the  Presbyterians  had  been 
elected  into  the  Parliament :  an  important  obligation  this,  wliich,  as 
their  faults  are  remembered,  should  not  be  forgotten. 

The  king  and  Parliament  met  and  parted  with  mutual  expressions 
of  kindness.  And  after  we  have  travelled  through  the  horrors  of  a 
,civil  war,  through  all  the  ill-timed  perseverance  of  the  one  party,  the 
deplorable  cant  of  the  other,  and  the  intolerance  of  all,  it  is  very 
pleasing  to  us  to  hear  at  last  the  Parliament  claiming  to  themselves 
the  title  of  the  Healing  Parliament,  and  the  Chancellor  Clarendon, 
in  one  of  his  speeches,  declaring  that "  the  king  was  a  suitor  to  them, 
that  he  made  it  his  suit  very  heartily,  that  they  would  join  with  him 
in  restoring  the  whole  nation  to  its  primitive  temper  and  integrity, 
to  its  old  good  manner,  its  old  good  humor,  and  its  old  good  nature." 

It  is  on  occasions  like  these  that  the  character  of  this  minister  is 
38 


298  LECTURE  XVn. 

80  attractive  and  respectable.  It  is  understood,  that,  even  during 
the  sitting  of  this  Parliament,  he  dissuaded  the  king  from  an  attempt 
to  procure  an  independent  revenue  for  hfe.  And,  on  the  whole,  it 
sufficiently  appears  that  he  never  failed,  while  he  possessed  any  in- 
fluence, to  use  it  to  purposes  the  most  noble,  by  recalling  his  sover- 
eign's mind,  whenever  a  fair  opportunity  offered,  to  those  great  prin- 
ciples and  free  maxims  of  the  English  constitution  which,  as  the 
chancellor's  good  sense  and  bitter  experience  had  told  him,  were  not 
only  the  safeguard  of  the  liberty  of  the  subject,  but  the  best  security 
of  the  crown. 

The  mind  of  the  chancellor  was  ardent ;  and,  when  the  punishment 
of  the  Regicides  came  to  be  decided  upon,  his  own  sufferings  an  i 
those  of  his  first  unhappy  master  made  him,  and  still  more  the  court 
and  the  lords,  but  too  much  forget  the  recommendations  he  had  so 
well  expressed  in  his  speeches. 

The  trials  of  these  state  criminals  are  not  long,  and  must  by  all 
means  be  read.  Curious  particulars  are  mentioned  in  them  respect- 
ing the  trial  and  condemnation  of  Charles,  and  the  views  and  con- 
duct of  Cromwell  and  his  adherents.  But  the  great  feature  of  the 
whole  is  the  frightful  enthusiasm  of  these  misguided  men,  —  fright- 
ful, because  society  can  never  be  considered  as  perfectly  safe,  since 
human  nature  appears,  from  instances  like  these,  capable  of  so  wide 
a  departure  from  all  sobriety  and  reason.  The  observation  of  Hume, 
which  from  him  might  be  at  first  suspected,  will  be  found  true  :  — 
that  "  no  saint  oi*  confessor  ever  went  to  martyrdom  with  more  as- 
sured confidence  of  heaven  than  was  expressed  by  those  criminals, 
even  when  the  terrors  of  immediate  death,  joined  to  many  indignities, 
were  set  before  them." 

"  I  followed  not  my  own  judgment,"  said  Harrison,  on  his  trial ;  "  I 

did  what  I  did  as  out  of  conscience  to  the  Lord May  be,  I 

might  be  a  Httle  mistaken ;  but  I  did  it  all  according  to  the  best  of 
my  understanding,  desiring  to  make  the  revealed  will  of  God  in  his 
Holy  Scriptures  as  a  guide  to  me."  —  p.  320.* 

"  I  can  say,"  cried  Carew,  another  of  the  regicides,  "  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Lord,  who  is  the  Searcher  of  all  hearts,  that  what  I  did 
was  in  his  fear  ;  and  I  did  it  in  obedience  to  his  holy  and  righteous 
laws."t 

"  I  take  God  to  witness,"  said  Scott,  "  I  have  often,  because  it 
was  spoken  well  of  by  some,  and  ill  by  others,  I  have  by  prayers  and 
tears  often  sought  the  Lord,  that,  if  there  were  iniquity  in  it,  he 
would  show  it  me."  (p.  336.)  —  This  man,  in  the  interval  which 
passed  between  the  going  and  returning  of  the  sledge  that  was  first 
to  take  his  fellow-sufferer  to  execution  and  afterwards  himself,  fell 


*  State  Trials  {3d  ed.,  London,  1742),  Vol.  ii.— N.  t  Ibid.  p.  331.  — N. 

J  It  does  not  appear  upon  what  authority  Scott  is  made  the  subject  of  this  anecdote; 


THE  REGICIDES.  299 

Of  all  spectacles,  the  most  alarming  to  a  reflecting  mind  is  the 
feebleness  of  reason  to  oppose  religious  or  even  political  enthusiasm. 
Not  only  the  vulgar,  but  men  of  education  the  most  liberal,  of 
talents  the  most  brilliant,  men  like  Sir  Harry  Vane,  are  almost 
equally  exposed  to  these  fatal  eclipses  of  the  understanding.  Every 
protection  that  can  be  afforded  to  us  by  the  powers  of  reasoning 
has  been  offered  to  us  by  Locke,  in  his  observations  on  Enthusi- 
asm. Practically,  there  seems  nothing  to  be  added,  in  the  way  of 
caution,  but  in  religion  never  to  lose  sight  of  morality,  and  in  political 
speculation  never  to  depart  from  the  great  leading  forms  and  maxims 
of  the  constitution.  These  humble  principles,  however,  so  obvious 
and  so  safe,  are  soon  despised  by  men  of  ardent  temperament ;  and 
it  is  the  first  symptom  of  religious  or  political  enthusiasm  to  deny  or 
disregard  them. 

The  feelings  of  the  public  do  not  appear  to  have  been  outraged  by 
the  horrid  mode  of  the  execution  of  these  re^cides  ;  and  as  they 
would  be  so  at  the  present  day,  the  national  humanity  must  be  con- 
sidered as  having  most  materially  improved :  an  indication,  this,  of  im- 
provement in  many  other  important  points. 

With  respect  to  the  number  that  were  put  to  death,  the  conclusion 
is,  on  the  whole,  considering  the  nature  of  these  times  and  the  occa- 
sion, tolerably  favorable  to  the  court  and  to  the  kingdom.  About 
thirteen  were  executed ;  but  most  of  the  regicides  lost  their  estates  ; 
and  of  those  who  did  not  fly,  many  were  kept  to  die  in  imprisonment^ 
and  very  improper  cruelty  seems  here  to  have  been  exercised. 

Men  must,  no  doubt,  be  deterred  from  crimes  against  the  state  by 
positive  punishments ;  but  the  more  complete  and  wide  the  acts  of 
indemnity  and  oblivion  are  made  in  national  dissensions,  the  better. 
The  rancor  of  contending  parties  is  thus  softened.  What  is  of  still 
more  consequence,  the  returns  to  peace  in  the  course  of  national 
contests  are  afterwards  more  practicable.  The  great  impediment  to 
conciliation  is  always,  that  the  parties  dare  not  trust  each  other.  He 
who  draws  his  sword  against  the  prince  must  throw  away  the  scab- 
bard. The  steps  between  the  prisons  and  graves  of  princes  are  few. 
These  maxims,  the  dreadful  maxims  of  civil  dispute,  have  been  the 

but  in  the  State  Trials  the  same  circumstance  is  related  of  another  of  the  regicides, 
Scroop,  and  Scott  is  represented  as  haAdng  spent  his  last  hours  in  prayer  and  conversa- 
tion with  his  family  and  friends.  "Wlien  the  time  approached  for  his  execution, 
Mr.  Scott  and  Mr.  Clements  were  first  carried  away  in  the  sleds,  and  the  same  sleds 
were  afterwards  to  come  and  carry  Col.  Scroop  and  Col.  Jones.  During  that  time,  says 
Col.  Scroop,  '  Well,  Brother  Jones,  do  you  spend  your  time  as  the  Lord  shall  direct 
you ;  I  intend  to  take  a  little  sleep,  for  I  slept  not  well  last  night,  and  my  countenance 
is  not  so  fresh  as  I  would  have  it.'  Thereupon  he  laid  him  down,  and  slept  so  sound- 
ly that  he  snored  very  loud,  and  so  continued  until  the  sled  came  for  him ;  whereupon, 
being  awakened,  he  riseth  up,  and  a  friend,  taking  him  in  his  arms,  asked  him  how  he 
did.  He  answers, '  Very  well,  I  thank  God,  never  better  in  all  my  life.  And  "O'^i^ 
gaith  he,  '  will  I  wash  mine  hands  in  innocency ;  so  will  I  compass  thine  altar,  0  Jjyrd. 
And  so  ivith  great  cheerfulness  went  to  execution."  Slate  Trials,  Vol.  ii-  p-  416. 
See,  also,  p.  412.  — N. 


300  LECTURE  XVII. 

cause  of  more  misery  and  destruction  to  sovereigns  and  their  sub- 
jects than  all  the  real  causes  of  contention  that  ever  existed  between 
them. 

The  history  of  our  country  during  these  wars  was  not  defiled  by 
th^se  massacres,  assassinations,  proscriptions,  or,  with  the  exception 
of  the  execution  of  the  king,  with  those  outrages  which  have  marked 
the  progress  of  civil  and  religious  fury  in  other  countries  and  ages : 
a  striking  testimony  to  the  merits  of  the  English  constitution,  which 
alone  could  have  infused  into  all  ranks  those  manly  feelings  which 
are  so  indispensably  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  honorable  war- 
fare ;  an  indirect  proof,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  constitution  had 
not  been  of  the  arbitrary  nature  that  was  by  some  supposed. 

This  lecture  was  written  many  years  ago,  and  there  has  been  late- 
ly published  a  work  on  this  subject  by  Mr.  Godwin.  It  should  by 
all  means  be  read  ;  it  is  always  interesting,  and  sometimes  contains 
anecdotes  and  passages  that  are  curious  and  striking ;  —  Godwin  is 
always  a  powerful  writer ;  —  and,  above  all,  it  is  the  statement  of  the 
case  of  the  Republicans.  . 

But,  on  the  whole,  in  these  volumes  of  Godwin  there  is  no  suffi- 
cient intimation  given  of  the  religious  hypocrisy  and  cant  of  the  Pres- 
byterians first,  or  of  the  Independents  and  Cromwell  afterwards.  The 
history  is  an  effort  in  favor  of  the  Republicans  of  those  times,  found- 
ed on  the  paramount  merit  of  a  republic  at  all  times.  It  is  also  very 
nearly  a  panegyric  of  Cromwell,  —  certainly  so,  as  far  as  regard  for 
the  Republicans  admitted. 

From  these  pages  it  may  be  collected  that  Charles  was  never  sin- 
cere, —  that  is,  would  never  have  adhered  to  any  engagements,  if  he 
could  have  helped  it ;  that  the  Presbyterians  sacrificed  every  thing 
to  their  hatred  of  Episcopacy,  as  Charles  did  to  his  love  of  it ;  that 
the  English  nation  was  never  sufficiently  Republican  for  the  purposes 
of  the  Independents ;  afterwards,  that  Cromwell  could  never  manage 
Royalists,  Presbyterians,  and  Repubhcans,  all  of  whom  united  against 
him.  It  is  not  sufficiently  shown  how  Cromwell  contrived  to  manage 
those  whom  he  did  manage ;  all  is  made  to  depend  on  his  personal 
powers  of  persuasion :  but  it  is  plain  that  his  was  an  unsuccessful 
usurpation,  after  all. 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  801 


LECTURE    XYIII 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND. 

Towards  the  close  of  mj  last  lecture  I  alluded  to  the  opening 
scenes  ^f  the  Restoration.  I  then  reminded  you  of  the  remark  that 
political  reasoners  have  always  made  on  occasions  of  this  nature,  — 
that,  as  mankind  are  ever  in  extremes,  their  resistance  or  rebellion 
no  sooner  ceases  and  changes  into  obedience  than  their  obedience  be- 
comes servility ;  and  that  such  renewals  of  an  ancient  government 
form  an  epoch  of  all  others  the  most  critical  and  dangerous  to  the 
liberties  of  a  people. 

The  scenes  that  took  place  everywhere  in  the  metropolis  and 
through  the  kingdom,  during  the  first  stages  of  the  Restoration,  cer- 
tainly confirmed  such  general  conclusions.  To  a  certain  degree,  so 
did  even  the  proceedings  of  the  Restoration  Parliament.  Still,  it 
must  be  allowed  that  more  care  was  taken  of  the  liberties  of  the  sub- 
ject by  the  House  of  Commons  than  the  general  principles  of  human 
nature  would  have  led  us  to  expect ;  and  this,  as  I  then  observed,  is 
an  important  merit  that  belongs  to  the  Presbyterians,  who  constituted 
so  large  a  portion  of  its  members,  particularly  to  Sir  Matthew  Hale, 
the  judge  so  justly  celebrated.  Hale  is  understood  not  to  have  been 
wanting  to  his  country  at  this  memorable  period.  He  endeavoured 
to  take  proper  securities  for  the  constitution,  —  to  come  to  some  un- 
derstanding with  the  king  on  this  subject  before  he  was  finally  re- 
stored ;  but  all  proposals  of  this  kind  were  overruled. 

You  will  do  well,  therefore,  to  observe  the  events  that  followed  in 
consequence  of  these  securities  not  having  been  taken.  You  will 
observe  the  conduct  of  the  king  through  the  whole  of  his  reign,  and 
finally  the  revolution  that  at  length  became  necessary,  in  the  short 
space  of  less  than  thirty  years  ;  and  that,  at  this  revolution,  the  par 
triotic  party  did  only  take  such  securities  as  Sir  Matthew  Hale  would 
probably  have  proposed  at  the  Restoration.  You  will  then  make 
your  own  inferences  with  respect  to  the  propriety  of  all  principles  of 
general  confidence,  when  interests  so  delicate,  so  fugitive,  so  impor- 
tant are  concerned  as  those  of  civil  liberty.  Men  of  peaceable  dis- 
positions and  refined  minds  are  always  the  first  to  countenance  these 
principles  of  general  confidence  in  rulers  and  government ;  they  are 
the  very  men,  as  I  have  once  before  observed,  who  should  be  the 
last ;  for  they  are  the  very  men  who  of  all  others  would  stand  most 
aghast,  when  things  were  at  last  driven  to  the  dreadful  alternative 
either  of  asserting  the  liberties  of  a  people  by  force  or  losing  them 
for  ever. 


302  LECTURE  XVni. 

We  now  proceed  to  the  history  of  the  reign.  The  first  Parlia- 
ment, the  Convention  or  Restoration  Parliament,  was  soon  dissolved, 
and  a  new  and  regular  Parliament  was  immediately  summoned,  and 
met  in  May,  1661.  This  was  the  Pensionary  Parliament,  as  it  was 
called,  the  Parhament.  that  sat  afterwards  for  so  many  years.  Great 
exertions  had  been  made  by  Clarendon  in  the  elections,  and  it  is  un- 
derstood that  only  about  fifty-three  of  the  Presbyterian  interest  were 
returned. 

The  settlement  of  the  nation  after  the  Rebellion  was  the  great 
work  before  them,  and  was,  in  fact,  intrusted  to  Lord  Clarendon. 
This  settlement  was  principally  to  be  directed  to  two  main  points.  In 
the  first  place,  the  state  of  the  property  was  to  be  adjusted.  Great 
transmutations  had  taken  place,  amid  the  rapine  and  confiscations, 
forced  sales  and  purchases,  which  had  been  made  under  the  author- 
ity of  Parliament  and  the  Protectorate.  The  adherents  of  the  king 
were  visibly  those  who  had  suffered  during  the  commotions. 

This  subject  is  left  in  great  perplexity  by  the  account  of  Claren- 
don ;  but,  comparing  this  account  with  other  representations,  to  be 
found  in  a  note  in  Harris's  Life  of  Charles  the  Second  (vol.  i. 
p.  870),  on  the  whole  it  may  be  concluded  that  such  property  as 
had  been  torn  from  the  royal  party,  and  was  still  in  any  very  visible 
and  distinguishable  shape,  was  after  some  delay  and  management 
seized  upon  by  the  state  and  restored  to  its  original  owners.  The 
crown  lands,  for  instance,  the  Church  lands,  were  taken  from  those 
who  had  purchased  and  held  on  Parliamentary  titles,  and  some  of 
the  estates  of  the  great  families  were  recovered ;  but,  on  the  whole, 
the  good  sense  and  legal  education  of  Clarendon,  and  the  natural 
fears  of  the  king  lest  his  throne  should  be  endangered,  concurred  in 
producing  the  Acts  of  Indemnity  and  Oblivion.  These  were  passed 
in  the  Restoration  Parliament,  and  immediately  confirmed  on  the 
meeting  of  the  new  Parliament.  By  these  acts  men  seem  to  have  been 
in  general  secured  in  the  possession  of  their  estates  and  property,  as 
they  then  stood,  with  such  exceptions  as  I  have  alluded  to,  and  so 
endless  a  subject  of  contention  was  for  ever  put  to  rest. 

The  next  great  subject  was  one  of  even  more  difficulty,  —  the 
final  settlement  of  the  Church.  The  Church  government  had  become 
Presbyterian.  Was  it  to  remain  so  ?  Was  it  to  be  modified  ?  The 
circumstances  were  these.  In  England,  intolerance  had  run,  as  in 
other  countries,  its  natural  course ;  first,  between  the  Papists  and 
Protestants,  as  you  will  see  in  Fox's  Martyrs,  and  Dodd's  Church 
History.  The  Church  of  England  under  Elizabeth  had  waged  war 
also  with  the  Puritans,  still  more  so  under  James  the  First,  and 
again,  yet  more  violently,  under  the  direction  and  counsels  of  Charles 
the  First  and  Laud.  All  this  you  will  see  in  Neal's  History  of  the 
Puritans  ;  you  will  easily  make  out  from  the  prefaces  what  the  chap- 
ters contain.     In  the  Great  Rebellion,  however,  it  had  happened 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  803 

tliat  the  Presbyterians  had  established  themselves,  and  they  perse* 
cuted  the  members  of  the  Church  of  England  in  their  turn.  Oa 
this  head  Walker's  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy  may  be  consulted.  A 
few  pages  of  the  work,  where  the  author  gives  a  general  computation 
of  the  numbers  who  suffered,  and  a  few  more  where  he  describes  the 
different  cases,  will  be  a  sad  and  sufficient  specimen  of  the  subject. 
Finally,  under  these  mutual  injuries,  the  members  of  the  Church  of 
England,  who  had  been  so  distressed  and  overcome,  were  now  once 
more  triumphant  by  the  event  of  the  Restoration.  Such  were  the 
circumstances,  when  the  final  settlement  of  the  whole  awaited  the 
direction  of  Clarendon. 

Now,  that  the  Establishment  should  be  suffered  to  continue  as  it 
then  stood,  to  continue  Presbyterian,  was  not  to  be  expected.  The 
chancellor  had  succeeded  to  the  controversial  opinions  of  his  unfortu- 
nate master,  Charles  the  First.  A  large  description  of  laymen  and 
divines  concurred  with  him,  all,  like  himself,  long  and  highly  exas- 
perated with  the  Presbyterians  ;  and  the  king,  in  the  mean  time,  was, 
in  secret,  chiefly  anxious  that  in  the  settlement  some  kindness  and 
service  might  be  rendered  to  the  Roman  Catholics.  Clarendon  and 
the  Church  could  not  assent  to  those  theological  tenets  which  they 
considered  as  false  ;  nor  could,  in  like  manner,  the  Presbyterians  to 
those  which  they  equally  considered  as  unauthorized  by  the. Scrips 
tures.  The  only  question,  therefore,  was,  whether  all  mention  of  the 
points  in-  dispute  could  not  be  omitted,  and  the  communion  be  thus 
made  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  include  both. 

This  measure  was  practicable,  for  the  Presbyterians  objected  not 
to  the  lawfulness  of  an  Establishment ;  and  their  differences  with  the 
Church  of  England  related  chiefly,  in  doctrine,  to  the  particular  point 
of  the  apostolic  origin  of  Episcopacy,  and  in  discipline,  to  some  few 
others  of  ceremony,  —  such  as  the  wearing  of  the  surplice,  and  the 
bowing  at  the  name  of  Jesus,  relics  of  Popery,  as  they  conceived,  — 
points  which,  whether  in  themselves  important  or  not,  became  impor- 
tant to  the  inferior  sect,  if  the  superior  sect  insisted  upon  them,  and 
if  they  were  not  passed  over  in  silence.  The  question,  therefore, 
was,  whether  points  of  ceremony,  at  least,  could  not  be  passed  oyer 
in  silence  by  Clarendon  and  the  Church  of  England. 

No  adjustment  of  the  kind,  however,  took  place.  The  misfortune 
is,  that  no  men  have  ever  yet  been  able  to  prevail  upon  themselves 
to  adopt  a  system  of  comprehension,  who  had  it  in  their  power  to  do 
otherwise  :  they  cannot  bear  to  omit  in  silence,  for  .the  sake  of  peace, 
and  on  the  principles  of  benevolence  and  policy,  those  points  which 
they  find  disputed  ;  they  are  rather  urged  the  more,  on  that  account, 
to  establish  what  they  believe  to  be  the  doctrines  of  truth.  The 
love  of  truth,  and  impatience  of  opposition,  in  this  manner  become 
passions  that  inflame  each  other,  and  not  only  in  those  who  impose 
the  law,  but  in  those  who  are,  to  receive  it,  in  the  inferior  as  well  M 


804  LECTURE  XVm. 

the  superior  sect.  Vain,  in  the  mean  time,  are  the  convocations,  and 
conferences,  and  discussions  of  theologians ;  and  therefore  the  result 
of  the  whole  is,  that  questions  of  this  nature  have  always  been  deter- 
mined, very  disgracefully  to  mankind,  merely  by  the  opiniono  ^f  the 
strongest  sect. 

In  this  instance,  the  Presbyterians,  as  they  were  the  inferior  sect, 
pressed  hard  for  a  comprehension;  but  their  hopes  had  gradually 
clouded  over  after  the  restoration  of  the  king.  Conferences  were 
appointed  between  their  divines  and  those  of  the  Church  of  England, 
vrhich  may  be  judged  of  by  those  who  pursue  this  subject  through 
Neal,  Baxter,  and  other  writers ;  but  all  to  no  purpose,  and  the  Act 
of  Uniformity  was  at  length  passed ;  the  terms  of  which  turned  out 
to  be  such,  that  the  Presbyterian  ministers  could  not  conscientiously 
conform.  Two  thousand  of  them,  on  the  day  appointed  for  their 
final  decision,  threw  up  their  livings  ;  a  memorable  sacrifice,  no  doubt, 
to  principle,  after  all  that  can  be  said,  and  that  has  been  said,  not 
very  liberally,  to  explain  away  its  merit. 

Lord  Clarendon,  in  the  History  of  his  Life,  gives  a  full  account  of 
this  great  measure,  and  of  all  the  acts  of  his  very  important  adminis- 
tration. Most  of  this  History  of  his  Life  is  extremely  interesting,  — 
this  part  particularly.  But  along  with  this  account  in  Clarendon, 
the  work  of  Neal  should  be  considered :  part  of  the  fourth  chapter, 
and  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  chapters  of  the  second  part  of  the 
second  volume,  should  be  very  attentively  read.  They  are  not  long, 
and,  with  Clarendon,  will  be  sufficient.  But  Burnet  may  be  after- 
wards referred  to. 

Since  these  passing  observations  were  written,  the  Constitutional 
History  of  Mr.  Hallam  has  appeared,  where  the  whole  subject  is  very 
ably  and  impartially  presented  to  the  reflection  of  the  reader,  and 
must  by  all  means  be  read. 

When  the  student  has  arrived  at  the  termination  of  the  subject,  he 
ought  once  more  to  consider  the  short,  but  important,  declaration  of 
the  king  from  Breda ;  and,  again,  his  declaration  after  he  was  restor- 
ed, in  October,  1660,  when  enough  was  promised  for  the  reconcile- 
ment of  the  moderate  of  both  parties :  and  nothing  more  could  have 
been  expected,  if  it  had  been  faithfully  executed.  It  will  scarcely 
be  thought  that  Clarendon  and  the  court  were  sufficiently  observant 
of  the  pledges  they  had  there  given :  all  the  real  spirit  and  meaning 
of  the  king's  promises  were  violated.  Clarendon's  excuse  is  not  suf- 
ficient ;  it  is,  that  these  promises  were  expressly  declared  subject  to 
such  limitations,  exceptions,  and  modifications  as  the  Parliament 
should  afterwards  make.  But  the  acts  of  Parliament  must  necessari- 
ly be  considered,  in  this  case,  as  those  of  the  king  and  his  ministers; 
and  a  splendid  opportunity  was  lost,  first,  of  making  a  benign  and 
wise  effort  for  avoiding  penal  statutes,  and  allaying  religious  differ- 
ences, by  a  scheme  of  comprehension ;  secondly,  of  exemplifying  the 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  305 

high  honor  and  integrity  of  men  in  exalted  stations,  and  the  solidity, 
under  whatever  circumstances,  of  public  engagements. 

The  reign  of  Charles  may  be  divided  into  two  intervals,  by  the  dis- 
grace of  Clarendon.  The  first  part  we  have  now  slightly  touched 
upon ;  and  my  hearers  must  be  referred  to  Clarendon's  own  Life,  and 
the  details  of  the  regular  historians,  Burnet,  and  Hume,  and  Rapin, 
for  proper  information.  We  must  now  turn  to  consider  the  second 
interval  of  the  reign,  —  that  which  begins  after  the  disgrace  of  Clar- 
endon. 

Some  time  after  the  fall  of  this  constitutional  and  upright,  though 
not  blameless  minister,  his  merits  were  fully  attested  by  the  dreadful 
alterations  that  took  place  in  the  counsels  of  the  sovereign.  The 
reader  instantly  perceives,  from  the  first  appearance  of  the  celebrated 
ministry  called  the  Cabal,  to  the  end  of  Charles's  reign,  that  the 
most  important  struggle  is  still  carrying  on  between  the  power  of  the 
crown  and  the  rights  of  the  people  ;  and  that  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Second  is  but  a  sort  of  supplement  to  the  Great  Rebellion  in  the 
time  of  his  father.  It  is  obvious,  through  the  whole  of  this  latter 
period  of  the  reign,  that  the  interests  of  Europe  are  as  much  aban- 
doned by  the  court,  as  is  all  care  of  the  liberties  of  England. 
Abroad  and  at  home,  the  reader's  sympathies  are  excited ;  the 
ambition  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  is  seen,  determined  on  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Dutch  republic  and  of  every  power  that  can  be  opposed  to 
its  injustice ;  while  Charles,  far  from  assisting  the  Dutch,  seems 
rather  engaged  in  an  equally  unprincipled  enterprise  against  the  con- 
stitution of  his  own  country,  and  against  every  thing  that  can  be  an 
impediment  to  his  expensive  profligacy. 

The  subject,  then,  of  the  second  part  of  the  reign,  the  era  which 
succeeded  the  disgrace  of  Clarendon,  is  the  corruption  of  Charles, 
his  connection  with  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  his  designs  against  the 
civil  and  religious  liberties  of  this  country  by  means  of  Louis's  as- 
sistance; these  are  the  pcfints  to  which  your  attention  must  be  di- 
rected. These  designs  were  continued  all  through  the  reign,  and  I 
know  not  how  better  to  attract  your  curiosity  to  this  part  of  the 
reign,  or  better  to  allude  to  the  connection  that  existed  between  the 
two  monarchs  for  the  destruction  of  the  hberties  of  Holland  and  of 
England,  than  by  describing  to  you  the  books  and  documents  which, 
w^hen  you  come  to  examine  the  reign,  will  necessarily  claim  your 
perusal.     This,  therefore,  I  shall  proceed  to  do. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  observed,  that  not  much  can  be  com- 
prehended of  the  secret  and  real  history  of  the  period  that  succeeded 
the  administration  of  Clarendon  from  the  debates  in  the  Houses ; 
they  must  be  read,  but  they  serve  rather  to  illustrate  the  representa- 
tions of  the  historians,  than  to  form,  themselves,  the  materials  of 
history. 

The  work  of  Burnet  is  to  be  perused ;  the  reader  will  there  per- 
39  z* 


306  LECTURE  XVm. 

ceive  in  what  colors  the  scene  appeared  to  a  sensible,  upright,  and 
very  active  observer,  living  at  the  time.  An  account  of  this  kind  is 
always  quoted  by  subsequent  historians,  and  has  an  interest  and  im- 
portance which  the  reader  will  soon  feel  as  he  proceeds,  and  which 
cannot  be  well  described.  After  considering  the  pages  of  Burnet,  I 
would  ask  the  student  whether  his  general  conclusion  is  not  this,  — 
that  the  whole  of  this  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  was  a  conflict  be- 
tween the  crown  and  the  people,  originating  in  the  profligacy  of  the  king, 
which,  requiring  larger  supplies  of  money  than  the  Commons  could  or 
ought  to  grant,  urged  him  on  to  the  most  desperate  attempts  and 
practices  against  the  constitution,  rather  than  deny  himself  the  grati- 
fication of  his  vices,  and  that  it  is  even  very  probable,  upon  the  face 
of  Burnet's  account,  from  the  nature  of  a  licentious  character  like 
this,  that  he  descended  to  the  meanness  and  criminality  of  receiving 
money  from  Louis,  uijder  some  disguise  or  other,  —  sometimes  that 
he  might  consent  to  assist,  and  sometimes  that  he  might  not  impede, 
that  monarch's  unprincipled  enterprises  on  the  Continent  ?  This,  it 
appears  to  me,  would  be  the  general  conclusion,  deducible  from  the 
acknowledged  facts  of  the  times,  though  not  the  slightest  assistance 
could  be  obtained  from  any  private  memorials  or  confidential  docu- 
ments whatever ;  and  this  remark  I  may  have  occasion  to  recall  to 
your  remembrance  hereafter. 

After  Burnet,  we  may  turn  to  Hume,  and  read  him  in  conjunction 
with  the  debates  in  the  Houses.  Nothing  can  be  more  attractive, 
nothing  can  more  strongly  exemplify  the  charms  and  the  merits  of 
his  seductive  pages,  than  his  life  of  Charles  the  Second.  Beady, 
however,  as  every  reader  will  naturally  be  to  give  his  confidence  to 
so  masterly  a  writer,  he  cannot  but  perceive  that  the  character  of 
Charles  the  Second,  as  given  by  the  historian,  reflects  not  to  his  mind 
the  true  image  of  the  original,  but  resembles  rather  one  of  those  por- 
traits which  we  so  often  see  presented  to  us  by  the  skill  of  a  superior 
artist,  where  every  grace  and  beauty  that  can  consist  with  the  like- 
ness is  transferred  to  the  canvas,  while  every,  the  most  inherent,  de- 
formity or  defect  is  withdrawn  or  disguised. 

It  had  not  escaped  the  most  ordinary  politicians  in  the  times  of 
Charles,  that  there  must  have  been  some  secret  alliance  between  the 
king  and  Louis.  It  was,  indeed,  known  as  a  fact  to  some  of  the 
popular  leaders  ;  proofs  of  the  corruption  of  Charles  were  at  last  pro- 
duced, even  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  became  the  apparent 
cause  of  Danby's  impeachment.  All  the  political  writers  of  this 
period  evidently  suppose,  that  not  only  the  House  of  Commons  was 
bribed  by  the  king,  but  the  court  itself  by  France.  In  the  fourth 
page  of  the  eighth  volume  of  Hume,  there  is  a  remarkable  passage, 
in  which  he  says,  that,  on  the  whole,  we  are  obliged  "  to  acknowledge 
(though  there  remains  no  direct  evidence  of  it),  that  a  formal  plar 
was  laid  for  changing  the  religion  and  subvertmg  the  constitution  of 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  307 

England,  and  that  the  king  and  the  ministry  [the  Cabal]  were  in  re* 
alitj  conspirators  against  the  people." 

But  after  his  sagacity  and  good  sense  had  dragged  him  into  this 
conclusion,  he  made  inquiries  in  France,  during  his  residence  there, 
and  saw  with  his  own  eyes  that  direct  evidence  which  he  had  not 
supposed  in  existence.  This  evidence  was  found  in  some  manuscript 
volumes  kept  in  the  Scotch  College  at  Paris,  and  which  Mr.  Hume 
was  permitted  to  peruse.  These  manuscript  volumes  were  neither 
more  nor  less  than  a  journal  written  by  James  the  Second  in  his 
own  hand,  of  his  own  hfe,  during  the  most  critical  period  of  our 
history. 

From  such  a  treasure  as  this,  it  is  a  matter  to  be  lamented,  and, 
indeed,  deserving  of  extreme  surprise,  that  such  an  historian  as 
Hume  did  no  more  than  produce  a  single  extract.  This  extract  was 
important,  but  it  might  surely  have  been  conceived  that  such  manu- 
scripts would  have  o^ned  a  boundless  field  of  observation  to  one 
who  was  so  capable  of  remarking  on  human  character  and  political 
events.  But  on  some  account  or  other,  not  explained  (and  which  I 
think  cannot  be  explained  favorably  to  Hume),  he  contented  himself 
with  adding  to  his  History  a  single  note,  and  nothing  more. 

There  is  yet  again  in  Mr.  Hume's  History  a  second  note  on  this 
reign  of  Charles  (page  206)  which  deserves  our  attention ;  this 
second  note  is  drawn  from  another  source,  —  not  from  the  papers  or 
Life  of  James  the  Second,  but  the  papers  of  Barillon,  who  was  the 
French  ambassador  at  the  time.  Charles,  towards  the  close  of  his 
reign,  dismissed  his  Parliament  (says  Mr.  Hume  in  his  text)  and  de- 
termined to  govern  by  prerogative  alone.  "  Whether  any  money," 
he  continues,  "  was  now  remitted  to  England,  we  do  not  certainly 
know,  but  we  may  fairly  presume  that  the  king's  necessities  were  in 
some  degree  relieved  by  France."  And  then  follows  a  note,  the 
note  I  now  allude  to,  in  which  he  gives  an  extract  from  one  of  the 
letters  of  Barillon,  containing  an  account  of  a  regular  agreement 
verbally  entered  into  between  Charles  and  Louis,  where  good  services 
are  promised  by  the  one  and  money  by  the  other,  for  the  purpose,  it 
is  said,  of  putting  his  Britannic  majesty  out  of  the  reach  of  all  con- 
straint from  his  Parliament,  which  could  interfere  with  his  new  en- 
gagements with  Louis. 

This  curious  treaty  was  communicated  to  Mr.  Hume  while  in 
France,  and  by  him  to  the  pubhc  ;  but  Mr.  Hume  gives  no  account 
of  any  further  attempt  to  become  acquainted  with  these  despatches 
of  the  French  ambassador,  which  it  was  evident,  however,  would  un- 
veil, wherever  they  could  be  inspected,  the  most  curious  scenes  of 
intrigue  and  corruption.  Hume  himself  thought  them  important,  as 
appears  by  one  of  his  letters  to  Robertson. 

After  the  perusal  of  Mr.  Hume,  we  may  turn  to  the  Life^  of 
Charles  the  Second  by  Harris.     The  notes  are  full  of  information^ 


308  LECTURE  XVIII.  . 

and  of  particulars  which  the  reader  may  not  have  an  opportunity  cf 
selecting  from  their  original  sources,  or,  indeed,  of  readily  finding 
in  any  other  manner. 

The  connection  of  Charles  with  France,  and  the  dishonorable  nar 
ture  of  it,  were  sufficiently  clear  to  this  diligent  investigator  from  the 
common  authorities ;  but  in  his  note  (page  228,  vol.  ii.)  he  extracts 
a  passage  from  a  letter  written  to  him  by  a  friend,  who  had  that 
laorning  heard  read  a  letter  from  a  gentleman  who,  while  in  France, 
Lad  been  permitted  to  see  the  memoirs  of  King  James  :  his  account 
is  the  same  as  Hume's.  And  now  it  is  observable  enough,  that  there 
is  a  passage  in  Voltaire's  History  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  which 
Harris  quotes,  and  which  tells  the  reader  in  a  few  simple  words  every 
thing  which  he  can  desire  to  know  on  this  subject,  and  the  sum  and 
substance  of  every  thing  that  there  is  to  be  known.  "  Louis,"  says 
Voltaire,  —  writing  this  long  before  the  publication  of  Dalrymple's 
History,  which  I  shall  hereafter  mention,  —  "  designed  the  conquest 
of  the  Low  Countries,  which  he  intended  to  commence  with  that  of 

Holland But  England  was  to  be  detached Louis  did 

not  find  it  difficult  to  engage  Charles  the  Second  in  his  designs 

His  passion  was  to  enjoy  his  pleasures Louis,  who  to  have 

money  then  needed  only  to  speak,  promised  a  great  sum  to  Charles, 
who  could  never  get  any  without  the  sense  of  his  Parliament.     The 

secret  treaty  concluded  between  the  two  kings   was,   &c 

Charles  signed  every  thing  Louis  desired,"  &c.,  &c. ;  and  then  the 
treaty  is  given,  with  the  addition  of  some  material  circumstances. 
Such  is  the  important  information,  given  by  Voltaire.  But  Voltaire 
is  a  writer  who,  on  account  of  his  universality,  his  liveliness,  and  his 
known  misrepresentations  on  sacred  subjects,  is  never  believed  on 
any  other,  further  than  he  is  seen  ;  or  rather,  as  he  never  intimates 
his  authorities,  which  he  ought  always  to  have  done,  every  one  be- 
lieves as  much  of  his  historical  accounts,  or  as  little,  as  he  thinks 
proper; 

The  corruption,  therefore,  of  Charles,  and  his  conspiracy  against 
his  people,  was  an  historical  fact  very  fairly  made  out,  when  Mr. 
Macpherson  repaired  to  Paris,  —  an  author  not  a  Httle  celebrated  in 
the  literary  world  (the  author  or  editor  of  Ossian),  one  who  could 
find  manuscripts  or  make  them,  produce  or  withhold  them,  and  in 
short,  as  it  was  understood,  proceed  with  equal  rapidity  and  success 
with  them  or  without  them.  Two  quarto  volumes  could  not  fail  to  be 
the  consequence  of  this  journey ;  the  memoirs  of  King  James  coi^ld 
not  possibly  escape  him ;  and  the  readers  of  history  were  at  last 
gratified  with  extracts  from  this  interesting  performance,  and  with  a 
regular  work,  entitled  "  Original  Papers,  containing  the  Secret  His- 
tory of  Great  Britain,"  &c.,  &c. 

But  when  we  come  to  open  the  volumes  of  Macpherson,  we  shall^ 
in  the  first  place,  be  somewhat  dissatisfied  with  the  introduction : 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  309 

Macpherson  tells  Ms  story,  but  not  with  simplicity ;  while  simplicity, 
detail,  minuteness,  are,  on  occasions  like  this,  not  only  the  best  test 
in  point  of  literary  composition,  but  indispensably  necessary  ;  for 
what  the  reader  ought  to  know,  and  all  that  he  desires  to  know,  is 
the  exact  authority  on  which  he  is  left  to  depend.  When,  in  the 
next  place,  the  Papers  themselves  are  consulted,  they  seem  not  a 
journal  written  by  the  king  himself  in  the  first  person,  but  a  narrar 
tive  where  he  appears  in  the  third ;  this,  however,  might  have  been 
the  king's  mode  of  writing,  and  is  not  decisive :  but  it  is  soon  ob- 
servable that  the  Duchess  of  Cleveland  is  mentioned  by  that  name, 
"when  the  period  of  which  the  writer  speaks  is  nine  years  and  a  half 
before  the  title  was  conferred  upon  her  ;  so  that  the  journal,  or  nar- 
rative, was  evidently  written,  not  while  the  events  it  alludes  to  were 
taking  place,  but  long  after ;  it  therefore  comes  not  warm  from  the 
heart,  has  nothing  in  it  of  that  unpremeditated  statement,  exhibits 
none  of  those  prompt  and  genuine  impressions  of  the  moment,  which 
are  the  great  delight  and  study  of  the  philosopher  and  historian, 
whenever  they  can  be  surveyed,  and  is  therefore,  at  all  events,  not 
as  valuable  as  might  have  been  expected.  In  the  extracts  furnished 
by  Mr.  Macpherson,  li?ttle  comment  can  be  found  on  what  are  known 
to  be  the  most  critical  points  of  the  history  of  the  times ;  and,  on 
the  whole,  as  far  as  the  reign  of  Charles  is  concerned,  the  reader  is 
extremely  disappointed  in  the  matter  and  in  the  manner,  in  the  au- 
thor and  in  the  editor,  of  this  journal  or  narrative,  as  exhibited  by 
Macpherson. 

But  these  memoirs  of  King  James  were  destined  to  meet  with  one 
inquirer  more.  The  late  Mr.  Fox,  having  formed  a  serious  design 
of  writing  a  more  faithful  account  than  he  conceived  had  as  yet  been 
given  of  the  great  era  in  our  history,  the  Revolution  in  1688,  re- 
paired, as  Mr.  Macpherson  had  done,  to  Paris  ;  and  the  journal  of 
King  James  was,  of  course,  one  of  the  objects  which  occupied  his 
attention.  The  history  of  his  researches  is  contained  in  Lord  Hol- 
land's preface  to  Mr.  Fox's  posthumous  work.  Fror]^  this  it  appears 
that  there  was  deposited  in  the  Scotch  College,  not  only  an  original 
journal  by  King  James,  but  a  narrative  compiled  from  it,  either  by 
the  younger  Dryden,  or  one  of  the  superiors  of  the  society ;  and  that 
it  is  the  narrative  from  which  extracts  have  been  taken  by  Macpher 
son,  not  the  journal.  Mr.  Fox  declared,  in  a  private  letter  to  Mr. 
Laing,  that  he  had  made  out  that  Macpherson  never  saw  the  journal. 
And,  on  turning  to  Macpherson's  introduction,  the  student  will  find, 
that,  though  this  skilful  artist  leads  his  reader  to  suppose  that  he 
saw  this  journal  and  copied  it,  still  that  he  nowhere  exactly  says  that 
he  ever  did  see  it ;  and  his  not  having  done  so,  and  his  mshing  to 
be  thought  to  have  done  so,  have  given  rise  to  that  want  of  simplic- 
ity in  his  statement  whicli  we  have  already  noticed,  and  of  which 
the  necessity  in  all  such  prefaces  is  thus  rendered  more  than  ever 
apparent. 


SIO  '  LECTURE  XVIII. 

The  fate  of  the  original  journal  is  curious  :  it  was  burnt  from  ter 
ror  under  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  when  any  thing  con- 
nected with  royalty,  it  was  supposed,  Avould  be  fatal  to  the  possessor. 
The  narrative  is  still  safe,  and  is  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Cameron, 
of  Edinburgh. 

Since  I  wrote  the  last  paragraph,  another  copy  of  the  narrative 
has  been  purchased  in  Italy.  It  was  published  by  the  direction  of 
the  present  king,  when  he  was  regent ;  and  his  merits  were  very 
great  in  first  procuring  these  papers,  and  in  suffering  them  after- 
wards to  be  exhibited  to  the  curiosity  of  the  public.  The  Life  of 
James  the  Second,  by  Dr.  James  Stanier  Clarke,  is  the  title  of  the 
book.  An  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  *  will  give  you  all  proper 
information. 

But  another  publication  remains  yet  to  be  mentioned,  which  de- 
servedly excited  the  attention  of  the  public  on  its  first  appearance, 
and  wliich  must  always  be  examined  with  great  care  by  every  in- 
quirer into  the  constitutional  history  of  England,  —  the  second  vol- 
ume of  the  Memoirs  of  Dalrymple.  You  may  remember  that  I  have 
already  mentioned  a  note  in  Mr.  Hume's  History,  founded  on  Baril- 
lon's  despatches.  This  note  showed  clearly  tie  importance  of  these 
despatches  of  the  French  ambassador.  Sir  John  Dalrymple  obtained 
permission  from  the  French  government  to  examine  these  despatches, 
and  the  second  volume  contains  the  result  of  his  researches. 

I  shall  endeavour  to  give  you  some  general  notion  of  the  nature 
of  these  original  materials,  furnished  by  Macpherson  in  the  first 
place,  by  these  Stuart  papers  in  the  second,  and  by  Sir  John  Dal- 
rymple in  the  third. 

I  have  already  mentioned  why  the  papers  of  Macpherson  neither 
are  nor  could  be  so  interesting  as  might  have  been  expected,  since  it 
is  not  the  king's  own  journal  that  the  extracts  are  drawn  from,  but 
the  narrative  which  was  itself  made  out  of  the  journal.  Yet  it  is 
impossible  that  some  curious  particulars  should  not  find  their  way 
even  into  a  docjument  like  this.  We  see,  for  instance.  Clarendon 
censured  by  James  for  not  having  made  the  crown  more  independent 
of  the  Commons  in  point  of  revenue,  for  not  repealing  the  destructive 
laws  of  the  Long  Parliament,  &c.,  &c. 

Opposition  to  the  court  is  always  considered  by  James,  then  Duke 
cf  York,  as,  of  course,  Taction  and  repubhcanism.  Yol.  i.  p.  50,  an 
account  of  the  celebrated  treaty  with  France,  mentioned  by  Hume, 
is  to  be  found ;  it  is  mentioned  more  than  once  with  some  important 
j)articulars.  (pp.  54,  80.)  The  ministers,  it  is  said,  contrived  a  mar- 
riage between  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  Princess  Mary,  to  pacify 
the  Parliament,  —  James  against  it.  And  on  the  most  important 
struggle  of  the  reign,  the  bill  of  exclusion,  there  are  these  words 

*  Edinburgh  Review  for  June,  1816.  — N. 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.       .  811 

(p.  Ill)  :  —  "  Algernon  Sidney,  and  the  ablest  of  tlie  republican 
party,  said,  that,  if  a  bill  of  limitation  was  once  got,  they  should 
from  that  moment  think  themselves  sure  of  a  republic  "  ;  and  these 
words  are  subjoined,  —  "  So  the  king  judged."  Now  the  answer 
which  the  king  always  made  to  the  popular  leaders,  when  they 
pressed  for  a  bill  to  exclude  the  Duke  of  York  from  the  throne,  was 
this,  —  that  he  would  not  exclude  him,  but  would  grant  any  hm- 
itations  that  could  be  thought  necessary.  It  is  clear,  therefore, 
from  this  extract,  that  the  king  was  not  sincere  when  he  offered  limi- 
tations ;  for  he  could  have  offered  nothing  sincerely  which  he  judged 
would  lead  to  a  republic. 

Page  117.  —  "  The  House  of  Commons,"  says  the  duke,  "re- 
solved, at  some  of  their  cabals,  to  begin  with  the  bill  of  exclusion. 
Either  that,  or  a  bill  of  limitations,  would  be  the  destruction  of  the 
monarchy.  It  would  serve  likewise  for  a  precedent  to  meddle  with 
the  succession  on  all  occasions,  and  make  monarchy  elective." 

In  page  124,  is  mentioned  the  curious  agreement  between  Louis 
and  Charles,  quoted  from  Barillon  by  Hume.  "  The  king's  necessi- 
ties," says  the  manuscript,  "  forced  him  to  a  private  treaty  with 
France.    Fifty  thousand  pounds  a  quarter  were  the  terms,"  &c.,  &c. 

There  is  a  curious  description  of  Shaftesbury,  and  of  the  king's 
death,  and  of  his  conformity  to  the  Roman  Catholic  religion :  and,  on 
the  whole,  the  duke  appears  as  bigoted  in  his  religion,  and  as  arbi- 
trary in  his  political  opinions,  as  might  have  been  expected. 

I  now  allude,  secondly,  to  the  Stuart  papers.  Macpherson's  work 
is  now  not  a  little  superseded  by  the  Stuart  papers  that  have  been 
published,  —  the  Life  of  James  the  Second  by  J.  S.  Clarke.  The 
same  conclusions,  however,  may  be  drawn  from  the  whole  and  from 
every  part  of  these  Stuart  papers.  Indeed,  this  is  the  most  impor- 
tant point  of  view  in  which  they  can  be  placed  ;  they  will  in  every 
other  respect  disappoint  you.  They  are  a  life  of  James,  and  yet 
there  is  little  or  nothing  said  of  the  Civil  War,  or  of  the  Restoration, 
or  of  any  other  particulars  to  which  your  curiosity  would  naturally 
be  directed.  Much  of  the  work  is  occupied  with  that  part  of  the 
duke's  life  that  was  passed  on  the  Continent.  But  these  papers  are 
still  perfectly  valuable,  because  they  everywhere  confirm  the  reason- 
ings and  justif}^  the  opinions  that  have  been  formed  by  historians  and 
statesmen  on  the  critical  topics  of  these  times,  the  corruption  of 
Charles,  the  bigoted  and  arbitrary  nature  of  James,  and  tlie  necessi- 
ty of  the  Revolution  of  1G88.  Wise  and  good  men  have  not  been 
at  all  deceived,  as  it  is  now  evident  from  these  papers.  They  vary, 
however,  much  in  their  importance  in  different  places ;  and  if  you  will 
only  look  well  at  the  margin,  and  consider  the  subject-matter  of  the 
page  before  you,  you  will  easily  separate  what  is  trifling  from  what  is 
instructive,  and  in  this  manner  find  it  an  easy  and  even  short  task  to 
read  these  two  quarto  volumes,  large  as  they  m&y  appear. 


812  LECTURE  XVIll. 

And  now  it  must  be  observed,  that  it  is  a  point  of  some  literary 
curiosity,  at  least,  to  determine  what  were  the  proceedings  of  Mac- 
pherson  when  he  went  to  the  Scotch  College.  In  the  work  he  has 
given  to  the  public,  whole  paragraphs  appear,  verbatim,  as  they  now 
appear  in  these  Stuart  papers.  In  general,  the  extracts  given  by 
Macpherson  are  abridged  from  the  Stuart  papers.  You  may  easily 
compare  the  corresponding  passages  in  the  two  works.  But  there 
are  passages  in  Macpherson  that  I  do  not  see  in  these  Stuart  papers ; 
they  are  taken  from  Carte  and  others.  Whence  they  were  originally 
derived  by  Carte  and  others  is  not  very  clear.  Carte  was  a  Jac- 
obite, left  his  papers  to  the  Bodleian  Library  at  Oxford,  and  Mac- 
pherson availed  himself  of  them.  These  matters,  are,  however,  of 
less  importance,  now  that  Ave  have  got  in  the  Stuart  papers  an  au- 
thentic document^  containing  always  the  sentiments  and  views  either 
of  James  himself,  or  of  those  who  were  in  his  court  and  in  his  con- 
fidence, and  who  had,  therefore,  the  same  opinions  with  himself.  But 
the  character  of  Macpherson  seems  at  an  end.  He  endeavoured  to 
deceive  the  public,  and  to  make  them  believe  that  the  extracts  he 
gave  w^ere  from  the  king's  oivn  journal ;  this  they  were  not.  He 
never  saw  the  journal,  as  I  have  before  mentioned.  He  made  ex- 
tracts from  the  Stuart  papers,  and  additions  from  those  of  Carte. 

I  will  now  give  you  some  general  specimen  of  the  information 
which  you  may  derive  from  the  work  of  Dalrymple.  I  will  endeav- 
our to  exhibit  to  you  their  references  to  a  few  of  the  more  striking 
particulars  of  the  reign.  It  appears  from  these  papers,  that  Charles 
made  a  treaty  with  the  French  king,  to  which  only  the  Roman  Catholic 
part  of  the  Cabal  were  privy,  —  Lord  Arlington  and  Lord  Clifford,  — 
not  Shaftesbury,  Buckingham,  and  Lauderdale.  Charles  was  to  get 
£200,000  for  declaring  himself  a  Roman  Catholic,  was  to  receive 
.£800,000  per  annum  during  the  Dutch  war,,  and  was  to  be  assisted 
with  troops,  if  his  subjects  rebelled,  which  was  called  being  "  engaged 
in  domestic  wars."  But  as  Louis  meant  only  to  seize  upon  the  Low 
Countries  and  destroy  Holland,  and  cared  not  for  Charles  or  his  con- 
cerns any  further  than  they  could  be  made  subservient  to  his  own,  it 
was  next  the  effort  of  the  French  ministry  to  persuade  Charles  to  be- 
gin with  a  war  in  Holland,  and  to  postpone  his  domestic  plans  till  the 
successful  termination  of  the  enterprise  on  the  Continent.  This  du- 
plicity the  Duke  of  York  saw  through,  and  remonstrated,  but  in  vain. 
The  Duchess  of  Orleans  was  sent  over  by  Louis  with  a  French  mis- 
tress, and  it  was  soon  agreed  by  Charles  that  the  treaty  should  be 
executed  in  the  order  that  the  French  monarch  wished,  —  that  is, 
that  Holland  should  be  destroyed  in  the  first  place. 

A  second  treaty  was  then  concluded,  to  which  the  Protestant  part 
of  the  Cabal  were  made  privy,  though  they  had  not  been  to  the  first 
treaty.  The  second  was  to  the  same  purport  as  the  first,  but  with 
one  important  omission,  —  the  king's  intentions  with  respect  to  the 


CHARLES  THE  SECOJND.  818 

Roman  Catholic  religion.  This  last  treaty,  whenever  alluded  to  bj 
the  king  and  the  duke  in  their  communications  with  each  other,  went 
under  the  name  of  the  Sham  Treaty  ;  and  Buckingham  and  ShatttJS- 
bury,  who  thought  themselves,'  no  doubt,  the  first  men  of  talents  at 
the  time,  were,  on  this  occasion,  as  they  knew  nothing  of  the  first 
treaty,  the  dupes  of  their  sovereign. 

The  reasonings  on  which  the  king  and  the  French  ambassador  pro- 
ceeded are  curious.  "  Tell  your  people,"  says  Barillon*  (p.  68), 
"  that  you  will  get  their  trade  from  the  Dutch,"  who  were  represent- 
ed as  insatiably  greedy  ;  "the  merchants  will  be  satisfied  with  this 
commercial  reason ;  your  brave  officers  and  soldiers  will  be  occupied 
in  the  war  with  Holland  ;  the  sectaries  will  be  in  good  humor  with 
you,  for  the  toleration  you  are  to  grant  them ;  your  Council  are  al- 
ready committed ;  they  will  do  their  duty  to  you ;  they  will  keep 
those  of  the  Parliament  to  it  with  whom  they  have  credit ;  you  may 
then,  in  the  midst  of  a  successful  war  with  Holland,  declare  yourself 
a  CathoHc,  there  will  be  no  grounds  to  fear,"  &c.,  &c. 

But,  in  the  midst  of  all  these  plots  and  projects,  the  Prince  of 
Orange  came  over  from  Holland,  probably  to  make  out  what  was  the 
meaning  of  the  late  visit  from  the  Duchess  of  Orleans,  the  journeys 
of  Buckingham  to  Paris,  &c.,  &c.  The  Prince  of  Orange,  after- 
wards William  the  Third,  was  therefore  now  to  be  practised  upon ; 
but  the  French  ambassador  writes  to  Louis,  that  Charles  ".  finds  him 
so  passionate  a  Dutchman  and  Protestant,"  that  nothing  could  be 
made  of  him. 

And  now  begins  a  pleasant  consultation,  whether  the  Parliament 
should  be  assembled.  "  No,"  says  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  ;  "  No," 
says  the  Duke  of  York  ;  "  do  not  call  them  till  we  are  successful  in 
Holland,  and  till  we  can  obtain  by  force  what  we  cannot  by  mild- 
ness." —  p.  80. 

We  have  next  notifications  from  the  French  ambassador  to  Louis 
of  the  manner  in  which  he  had  disposed  of  what  he  calls  "  the  marks 
of  the  king's  esteem  and  distinction,"  —  that  is,  the  French  bribes  to 
Charles's  ministers.  And  in  this  manner,  it  seems,  were  to  be  in- 
trigued away,  for  the  gratification  of  the  profligacy  of  one  monarch 
and  the  ambition  of  another,  the  liberties  of  England  and  the  ex- 
istence of  the  republic  of  Holland. 

You  will  now,  I  conceive,  be  fully  enabled  to  comprehend  the  gen- 
eral tenor  of  these  original  documents,  and  their  connections  with  the 
history  of  the  reign.  The  transactions  of  the  reign,  as  I  have  al- 
ready observed,  I  cannot  further  allude  to ;  and  such  extracts  as  I 

*  The  French  ambassador  at  this  period  was  Colbert,  and  the  reasoning  here 
adduced  is  quoted  (auite  loosely,  however)  from  his  "Relation  of  what  was  said  by 
him  to  the  King  or  England  in  the  Conference  of  the  28tli  Sept.,  1670."  Barillon 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  ambassador  till  seven  years  afterwards.  See  Dalryni' 
pie's  Memoirs  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  (New  Edition,  London,  1790),  Vol.  i.  pp 
107  -  112  5  also,  p.  152.  — N. 

40  AA 


814  LECTURE  xvin. 

have  given,  and  such  references  as  I  have  made  to  different  books 
and  papers,  must  be  considered  as  the  onlj  allusions  I  can  make  to 
the  particulars  of  the  reign  after  the  disgrace  of  Clarendon,  and  be- 
fore Lord  Shaftesbury  and  the  exclusionists  claim  our  attention.  But 
there  is  one  transaction  so  remarkable,  that  I  may  select  it  from  the 
rest,  and  allude  to  it  more  distinctly :  this  is  the  king's  Declaration 
on  Ecclesiastical  Affairs,  —  the  Declaration  that  brought  the  struggle 
between  Charles  the  Second  and  the  virtuous  part  of  the  Parhament 
and  nation  to  a  sort  of  crisis.  After  alluding  to  this  singular  affair, 
and  once  more  to  a  few  passages  in  Barillon's  despatches,  I  shall 
conclude. 

It  is  probable  that  Charles  cared  as  little  for  what  Louis  called  his 
glory  as  Louis  did  for  Charles's  authority  over  his  subjects.  But 
Charles  hated  the  Dutch,  and  he  hated  his  Parliaments,  as  he  did 
every  thing  that  was  an  impediment  to  his  own  vicious  indulgences ; 
so  he  was  sincerely  desirous  to  be  arbitrary,  that  he  might  have 
money  without  either  the  trouble  of  asking  for  it  or  the  inconvenience 
of  accounting  for  it.  Depending,  therefore,  on  the  assistance  of 
Louis  and  his  own  ministry,  he  hesitated  not  to  undertake  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  regular  system  of  arbitrary  power ;  and  he  began  by 
publishing  a  Declaration  of  Indulgence  to  Nonconformists.  It  is  now 
very  important  to  observe  the  conduct  of  the  House  of  Commons  on 
this  occasion.  We  cannot  but  be  taught  how  necessary  it  is  for  that 
House,  and  for  all  EngUshmen,  to  be  scrupulously  faithful  to  the 
great  principles  of  the  constitution,  whenever  they  appear  to  be  in 
the  least  disturbed. 

The  king's  Declaration  proposed  to  do  only  what  every  humane 
and  intelligent  man  would  wish  to  have  done,  —  to  extend  rehef  to 
Nonconformists,  to  dispense  occasionally  with  the  penal  statutes  that 
operated  so  severely  against  them.  The  king,  however,  made  use  of 
the  following  expressions  in  his  Declaration  of  Indulgence :  —  that 
he  had  a  "  supreme  power  in  ecclesiastical  matters,"  and  that  he 
"suspended  the  penal  laws,  in  matters  ecclesiastical,  against  what- 
ever sort  of  Nonconformists  "  ;  and  in  his  speech  to  the  Parliament, 
that  "  he  should  take  it  very  ill  to  receive  contradiction  in  what  he 
had  done,  and  that,  to  deal  plainly  with  them,  he  was  resolved  to 
stick  to  his  Declaration." 

Such  were  the  words  of  the  king.  But,  said  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  "  if  the  king  can  dispense  with  all  penal  laws, 
he  may  dispense  with  all  laws."  And  finally,  the  Parliament,  in  an 
address  to  the  king,  represented  to  his  Majesty,  in  short,  '"*  that  penal 
statutes,  in  matters  ecclesiastical,  could  not  be  suspended  but  by  act 
of  Parliament."  The  king  and  the  House  of  Commons  were  there- 
fore at  issue. 

The  king  in  his  answer  declared,  "  that  he  was  very  much  troubled 
to  find  his  power  was  questioned  ;  that  this  had  not  been  done  in  the 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  315 

reigns  of  any  of  his  ancestors ;  that  he  did  not  pretend  to  the 
right  of  suspending  any  laws,  wherein  the  properties,  rights,  or  liber- 
ties of  any  of  his  subjects  were  concerned,  but  to  take  off  the  penal- 
ties the  statutes  inflicted  upon  the  Dissenters ;  nor  did  he  preclude 
the  advice  of  his  Parliament." 

These  softening  expressions  were  sufficient  to  satisfy  many  of  the 
members  of  the  House,  but  the  major  and  sounder  part  were  not  so 
to  be  appeased,  and  the  House  returned  to  the  charge.  They  rep- 
resented to  his  Majesty,  "  that  his  answer  was  not  sufficient  to  clear 
their  apprehensions ;  that  his  Majesty  had  claimed  a  power  which,  if 
admitted,  would  alter  the  legislative  power,  which  had  always  been 
acknowledged  to  reside  in  his  Majesty  and  the  two  houses  of  Parlia- 
ment."    The  parties  were  therefore  still  at  issue. 

Besides  his  usual  guards,  the  king  had  an  army  encamped  at 
Blackheath,  under  the  command  of  Marshal  Schomberg ;  and  the 
French  king,  it  may  be  remembered,  had  stipulated  to  afford  assist- 
ance, if  force  became  requisite.  Here,  then,  was  a  crisis  truly  awful ; 
and  as  the  connection  between  the  French  court  and  Charles  could 
not  but  have  been  observed  (for  the  arms  of  England  were  visibly 
combined  in  the  most  unnatural  manner  with  those  of  France  against 
the  independence  of  Holland),  this  crisis  must  have  been  sufficiently 
understood  by  all  the  intelhgent  and  virtuous  part  of  the  community, 
—  that  is,  by  all  those  who  did  not  wilfully  suffer  themselves  to  be 
blinded  by  some  base  interest  of  their  own,  or  some  stupid  principle 
of  general  confidence. 

In  this  situation  the  king  applied  to  the  House  of  Lords,'  and  the 
Lords  did  not,  as  Hume  and  other  writers  represent,  take  the  part  of 
the  Commons  against  the  king,  for  they  received  his  Majesty's  com- 
munication very  favorably ;  and  the  king  replied  to  their  address  in 
the  following  manner :  —  "  My  Lords,  I  take  this  address  of  yours 
very  kindly,  and  will  always  be  affectionate  to  you ;  and  I  expect 
that  you  shall  stand  by  me,  as  I  will  always  by  you."  But  notwith- 
standing this  disgraceful  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  it  appears 
that  thirty  peers  (and  this  shows  the  importance  of  virtuous  minor- 
ities) had  protested  against  the  courtly  address  of  the  House  ;  and 
though  Lord  Clifford,  one  of  the  Cabal,  had  made  a  furious  speech 
against  the  Commons,  and  though  Lord  Shaftesbury  had  done  every 
thing  for  the  court  that  they  could  wish,  as  far  as  the  Dutch  war  was 
concerned,  (having  made  a  speech,  in  his  character  of  chancellor, 
with  which  he  was  reproached  to  his  last  hour,)  still,  when  the  whole 
cause  in  which  he  had  so  seriously  engaged  came  to  the  last  critical 
turn,  this  very  Shaftesbury,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  whole  House, 
and  of  the  Duke  of  York  and  the  king,  who  were  present,  rose  up 
in  his  place  and  declared,  "  that  he  differed  toto  coelo  from  his  col- 
league ;  that  he  submitted  his  reason  to  the  House  of  Commons,  so 
loyal  and  affectionate,"  &c.,  &c.     And  the  Lords,  on  their  meeting 


316  LECTURE  XVm. 

the  next  day,  and  not  before,  thought  proper  to  do  no  more  than 
thank  the  king  for  "  referring  the  points  now  controverted  to  a  Par- 
liamentary way  by  bill,  that  being  a  good  and  natural  course  for 
satisfaction  therein."  In  the  result,  the  king  very  wisely  broke  the 
seals  of  the  Declaration,  appeased  the  House  of  Commons,  and  gave 
way. 

It  is  a  curious  point  in  history  to  determine  what  could  induce 
Shaftesbury  to  make  this  most  fortunate,  but  most  unexpected  turn. 
Hume  does  not  appear  to  have  considered  the  conduct  of  this  power- 
ful man,  on  this  great  occasion,  with  sufficient  attention.  In  like 
manner,  it  is  not  readily  ascertained  why  Charles  did  not  persevere. 
It  may,  however,  be  made  out  from  Dalrymple,  and  other  sources, 
that  Arlington  betrayed  the  secret  of  the  first  treaty  to  Shaftesbury, 
and  that  Shaftesbury  must  thus  have  seen  that  he  had  been  deceived 
by  the  king.  It  appears,  too,  that  the  Commons  had  severely  ques- 
tioned (which,  again,  shows  the  importance  of  constitutional  jealousy) 
Shaftesbury's  illegal  proceedings,  as  chancellor,  with  respect  to  the 
writs  of  election,  and  that  this  had  alarmed  him.  Finally,  there  is 
exhibited  in  Dalrymple  proof  of  a  very  remarkable  interference  of 
France,  and  a  letter  from  the  ambassador  to  Louis,  to  inform  him 
that  he  had  prevailed  with  Charles  to  recall  bis  Declaration  of  In- 
dulgence. 

''  The  king's  speech,"  says  the  French  embassador's  letter  to  his 
court,  "  was  followed  with  cries  and  acclamations  of  joy  from  the 
whole  Parliament."  "  The  whole  people,"  he  continues,  "  who  were 
already  greatly  alarmed  with  the  apprehension  of  a  civil  war,  made 
bonfires  in  every  street,  upon  this  happy  reconciliation  of  the  king 
and  Parliament." 

But  it  was  not  by  such  honest  effusions,  such  affecting  indications 
of  the  wish  of  the  people,  if  possible,  to  be  on  terms  of  kindness  with 
their  sovereign,  that  the  conduct  of  this  detestable  monarch  was  to  be 
influenced ;  and  we  see  through  the  remainder  of  Dalrymple's  Me- 
moirs the  same  base  and  unprincipled  conspiracy  carried  on  against 
the  liberties  of  mankind,  and  the  same  senseless  disregard,  both  in 
Charles  and  the  renowned  Louis,  of  every  thing  that  could  form  the 
proper  glory  and  honor  of  their  reigns. 

It  is  not,  however,  without  the  most  heartfelt  triumph  that  we 
observe,  in  this  instance  at  least,  the  abominable  machinations  of  the 
king  and  his  ministers  and  the  French  court  dissipated  and  destroyed 
by  the  steady  integrity  and  constitutional  proceedings  of  an  English 
House  of  Commons ;  and  that  we  see,  also,  the  Dutch  republic, 
though  astonished,  borne  down,  and  evidently  now  at  the  last  gasp, 
rescued  at  length  from  slavery  and  annihilation  by  the  generous 
despair  of  its  citizens  and  the  heroic  patriotism  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange. 

This  most  slight  and  imperfect  sketch  of  a  particular,  though  most 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  •  317 

important,  transaction  may  serve  to  give  some  general  intimation  of 
what  may  be  expected  from  a  study  of  the  reign  of  Charles ;  and  it 
may  give  you  also  some  notion  of  the  assistance  that  may  be  derived 
from  these  papers.  But  if  any  thing  can  attach  us  more  to  the  con- 
stitution of  our  country,  and  explain  to  us  more  particularly  the 
value  of  the  rights  and  the  importance  of  the  duties  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  it  is  this  reign,  and  it  is  these  Memoirs  of  Dalrymple. 
The  king  was  ready,  if  necessary,  to  destroy  the  constitution  rather 
than  be  thwarted ;  the  presumptive  heir  of  the  crown  had  no  dearer 
wish ;  the  people  were  prepared  for  subjection  by  the  horrors  which 
they  had  lately  seen  result  from  resistance  to  the  crown ;  no  impedi- 
ment was  opposed  but  the  Parliament,  or  rather  the  House  of  Com- 
mons ;  the  Plouse  itself  was  suffered  to  continue  for  eighteen  years ; 
a  great  portion  of  its  members  were  practised  upon ;  a  large  number 
of  them  notoriously  bribed;  —  still  the  king  neither  did  nor  could  suc- 
ceed in  his  nefarious  enterprises  ;  and  the  patriotic  leaders  never  en- 
tirely lost  the  cause  of  the  constitution,  till,  on  the  dissolution  of  Par- 
liament and  on  their  being  left  without  the  means  of  constitutional  re- 
sistance, they  turned  their  thoughts  to  open  insurrection,  —  to  open 
insurrection,  though  the  people  had  taken  part  against  them,  and 
clearly  ranged  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  sovereign. 

I  shall  conclude  this  lecture  with  observing,  that,  through  the  whole 
of  these  Memoirs,  it  is  quite  gratifying  to  observe  the  manner  in  which 
the  French  ambassador  and  the  English  negotiators  speak  and  reason 
about  the  Parhament.  When  that  enemy  is  once  secured,  all  is  sup- 
posed to  be  safe.  In  addition  to  the  passages  already  mentioned,  ex- 
pressions of  this  kind  occur :  — 

Page  80.  —  "  I  found  the  Duke  of  York,"  says  BariUon,*  "  in  the 
same  sentiments  with  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  with  regard  to  the 

meeting  of  the  Parliament,  having  told  me  of  himself,* that, 

if  his  advice  was  followed,  they  would  be  very  cautious  of  assem- 
bling it." 

Page  99.  —  "  The  king  has  agreed  [Sept.  1674]  either  to  pro- 
rogue his  Parliament  till  April,  1675,  in  consideration  of  five  hundred 
thousand  crowns ;  or,  if  he  convenes  it  in  November,  to  dissolve  it, 
in  case  it  should  refuse  to  give  him  money,  in  consideration  of  which 
he  is  to  have  a  pension  of  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  from 
France."  All  this,  it  seems,  was  to  enable  France  to  carry  on  the 
war,  undisturbed  by  the  English  Parliament. 

Page  105.  —  "  The  king  of  England  having  convened  the  Duke 
of  York,  the  Duke  of  Lauderdale,  and  the  high  treasurer  [Danby], 
to  confer  with  them  upon  the  paper  which  your  Majesty  knows  of, 

*  Not  Barillon,  but  Colbert ;  "  Monsieur  Colbert  represents  the  Duke  of  York's  senti- 
ments in  the  following  words :  '  I  found,' "  &c.  Dalrymple  (new  ed.,  1790),  1. 122. — 
Of  the  extracts  which  follow,  only  the  last  two  are  from  Barillon ;  the  others  are  taken 
from  despatches  of  Rouvigny  and  Courtin.    Ibid.,  140,  143,  150,  316,  and  354.  —  N. 


818  LECTURE  XVIIL 

this  last  minister  asked  time  to  examine  it  before  he  gave  his  opinion 

upon  it In  fine,  the  treasurer  has  been  to  see  the  Duke  of 

Lauderdale,  to  whom  he  has  represented  the  risk  they  should  run  of 
losing  their  heads,  if  they  alone  were  to  dehberate  upon  the  treaty, 

and  to  sign  it Sire,  your  Majesty  may  well  see  by  all  that 

has  passed  in  this  affair,  that  the  king  of  England  is  in  a  manner 
abandoned  by  his  ministers,  even  the  most  confidential.  The  treas- 
urer fears  the  Parliament  much  more  than  his  master It  will 

be  difficult  to  conceive  that  a  king  should  be  so  abandoned  by  his 

subjects The  Parhaments  are  to  be  feared,  and  it  is  a  kind 

of  miracle  to  see  a  king,  without  arms  and  money,  resist  them  so 
long." 

Page  112.  —  "  The  English  king  insists  for  eight  hundred  thou- 
sand crowns,  in  consideration  of  which  he  offers  to  prorogue  the  Par- 
liament." 

Page  235.  —  "  The  king  of  England  tells  me  that  it  is  time  your 
Majesty  should  take  a  resolution,  and  determine  yourself  to  assist 
him  with  a  sum  of  money  which  might  put  him  in  a  condition  not  to 

receive  law  from  his  subjects I  took  this  occasion  to  beg  his 

Britannic  Majesty  to  explain  his  intentions  with  regard  to  the  sitting 
of  ParUament,"  &c.,  &c.  The  king,  it  seems,  answered,  that  he  had 
dissolved  the  last  Parliament,  and  could  put  off"  the  meeting  of  a  new 
one  till  he  could  judge  of  its  dispositions  to  him ;  but  that  he  could 
not  entirely  dispense  with  them,  because  he  could  not  hope  that  the 
French  king  would  furnish  all  the  sums  necessary  to  support  him  long 
without  their  assistance.  "  I  told  him,"  says  Barillon,  "  that  the 
meetings  of  Parliament  always  appeared  to  me  very  dangerous," 
&c.,  &c. 

In  another  place,  Barillon  observes,  — "  What  I  write  to  your 
Majesty  will  appear,  without  doubt,  very  extraordinary  ;  but  England 
has  no  resemblance  to  other  countries."  Happy  was  it  for  England 
that  this  was  the  case  ;  and  long  may  unprincipled  men  like  these  find 
every  thing  to  surprise  them  in  its  virtuous  pec  pie  and  in  its  free 
constitution ! 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  319 


LECTURE    XIX 


CHARLES  THE    SECOND. 

In  my  last  lecture,  after  calling  your  attention  to  the  earlier  part 
of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  while  the  measures  of  his  gov- 
ernment were  directed  by  Clarendon,  I  endeavoured  to  give  you 
some  general  notion  of  the  second  part  of  the  same  reign,  and  more 
particularly  of  the  information  that  might  be  collected  respecting  it 
from  different  publications,  and  above  all  from  the  papers  of  Dal- 
rymple. 

This  second  paft  of  his  reign  is  marked  by  the  constitutional 
struggle  between  Charles  and  the  patriotic  party,  and  may  itself  be 
divided  into  two  parts. 

During  this  first  part  of  the  struggle,  that  to  which  I  have  already 
referred,  not  only  were  the  liberties  of  this  country  in  a  state  of  the 
most  extreme  peril,  but,  in  consequence  of  the  ambition  of  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  and  his  connection  with  Charles,  the  hberties  of  Holland 
also,  and  the  interests  of  all  Europe. 

I  must  now  allude  to  what  I  consider  as  the  remaining  part  of  this 
contest  between  Charles  and  the  friends  of  civil  freedom,  when  the 
patriotic  leaders  had  to  contend,  not  only  with  the  king,  but  also  with 
the  Duke  of  York,  and  when,  on  account  of  the  arbitrary  nature  of 
the  religion  of  the  latter,  they  were  at  last  driven  to  the  resolution 
of  endeavouring  to  exclude  him  from  the  throne. 

During  the  first  period  of  their  contest  with  the  crown,  the  patri- 
otic leaders  must  be  considered  as  successful.  The  king,  we  may 
remember,  broke  the  seals  of  his  Declaration  and  gave  way.  But 
during  this  second  period,  the  event  was  otherwise ;  the  king  could 
neither  be  persuaded  nor  intimidated  into  any  compliance  with  the 
wishes  of  his  opponents ;  and  the  struggle  ended  at  length  in  the  ex- 
ecution of  some  of  their  leaders,  and  in  the  ruin  of  all. 

Whatever  difference  of  opinion  there  may  be  respecting  their  in- 
tentions and  conduct  during  this  latter  period  (during  their  struggle 
with  the  king  on  the  subject  of  the  exclusion  of  the  Duke  of  York 
from  the  throne),  there  can  be  none  respecting  the  merit  of  their  ex- 
ertions during  the  former  period.  Had  the  king  then  succeeded,  the 
liberties  of  England  might  have  perished. 

On  the  whole,  the  contest  by  which  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Sec- 
ond is  distinguished  can  be  considered  as  inferior  in  interest  and  im- 
portance only  to  that  which  immediately  preceded  it,  during  the  er? 
of  the  Great  Rebellion  ;  and  such  was  the  necessity  of  resistance  t 
the  son,  as  well  as  to  the  father,  that  the  same  Englishmen  who  ha\ 


820  LECTURE  XiX 

loved  and  revered  the  memory  of  Hampden  have  never  ceased  to 
venerate  the  virtue  and  respect  the  patriotism  of  Sidney  and  Lord 
Kussell. 

The  regular  historians  will  give  you  the  detail  of  the  transactions 
by  which  this  period  is  rendered  so  memorable.  But  you  must  by 
all  means  continue  your  study  of  the  Memoirs  of  Dalrymple,  which 
contain  very  curious  information,  and  will  give  you  very  important 
hints  respecting  the  characters  and  views  of  the  Duke  of  York,  the 
king,  and  the  popular  leaders.  I  had  originally  made  large  extracts 
to  exemplify  what  I  say,  but  I  omit  ♦them,  and  depend  on  your\  con- 
sulting such  original  documents  as  I  have  mentioned,  yourselves. 

As  far  as  principle  is  concerned,  it  is  the  duke,  not  Charles,  who 
appears  to  be  the  man  of  principle ;  it  is  he  who  is  a  bigot  to  his 
opinions,  religious  and  political,  —  to  Popery  and  arbitrary  power. 
These,  with  Charles,  were  rather  the  instruments  than  the  objects  of 
his  designs ;  but  the  duke  really  had  opinions  that  were  dear  to  him ; 
and  he  thoroughly  and  from  his  heart  did  detest  and  abjure  all  men, 
principles,  and  parties  that  presumed  to  interfere  with  the  powers 
,  that  be,  either  in  church  or  state. 

When  the  duke  speaks  of  the  proceedings  of  Parliament  (p.  1T4), 
his  expressions  are,  —  "  His  Majesty  was  forced  to  prorogue  them  ; 
and  now  they  are  to  meet  again  on  Thursday,  and  I  fear  they  will  be 

very  disorderly Should  we  have  been  engaged  in  a  war  now, 

they  would  have  so  imposed  upon  the  king  as  to  leave  him  nothing 
bui  the  empty  name  of  a  king,  and  no  more  power  than  a  duke  of 
Venice.'' 

He  and  the  king  had  now  to  meet  the  due  punishment  of  their 
conduct,  the  just  consequences  of  their  conspiracies  against  the  laws 
and  constitution  of  their  country  ;  and  their  perplexities  and  anx- 
ieties can  be  no  proper  subject  of  the  slightest  sympathy  or  compas- 
sion. 

But  questions  like  those  comprehended  in  the  Exclusion  Bill 
(whether  the  regular  and  presumptive  heir  shall  or  shall  not  ascend 
the  throne)  must  always  be  considered  as  the  greatest  calamities  that 
can  befall  a  nation ;  and  their  very  agitation  is  a  complete  proof  of 
criminality  having  existed  somewhere,  —  either  in  those  who  have 
administered  the  government,  or  in  those  who  are  opposed  to  them, 
and  generally  in  the  former. 

Nothing  can  be  more  easy,  and  nothing  can  be  more  true,  than  to 
say,  that,  all  government  being  intended  for  the  good  of  the  whole, 
the  community  have  a  right  to  deviate  from  the  line  of  succession 
when  the  presumptive  heir  is  a  just  subject  of  their  apprehension. 
But  what,  in  the  mean  time,  are  to  be  the  sentiments  of  the  existing 
government  and  of  that  presumptive  heir  ?  What  sort  of  acquies- 
cence or  degree  of  patriotism  is  to  be  expected  from  them  ?  It  is  in 
vain  to  suppose  that  questions  of  this  tremendous  nature  can  be  de- 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  321 

cided  by  the  mere  reasonableness  of  the  case,  or  either  settled  or  dis- 
cussed without  imminent  hazard  to  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the 
country. 

The  popular  leaders  contended  for  the  exercise  of  this  great  right 
of  society,  for  entire  exclusion ;  the  king  proposed  the  most  reasona- 
ble limitations  ;  the  question  was,  therefore,  rendered  as  fit  a  subject 
for  debate  as  it  could  possibly  become ;  and  as  there  were  men  of  the 
greatest  ability  in  the  Houses,  no  proceedings  in  Parliament  can  be 
more  interesting  than  these  must  always  be  to  every  Englishman  who 
has  reflected  upon  the  critical  nature  of  our  own  mixed  and  of  all 
mixed  governments. 

On  whatever  side  the  question  could  be  viewed,  the  difficulties 
were  very  great.  The  popular  part  of  the  constitution  was  almost  as 
much  asserted  by  the  limitations  as  by  the  exclusion,  since  the  right 
of  the  community  to  interfere  and  control  the  executive  power  was 
acknowledged  in  either  case.  In  argument,  however,  the  exclusion- 
ists  had  the  advantage  over  those  who  were  contented  with  limita- 
tions, because  their  measure  was  evidently  in  practice  the  only  com- 
plete remedy  for  the  evil  supposed,  and  the  only  remedy  which  could 
provide  at  the  same  time  (a  most  material  consideration)  for  the 
safety  of  those  who  were  to  administer  it.  Still,  it  was,  on  the  whole, 
impossible  that  the  exclusion  should  be  carried  while  the  king  proposed 
limitations. 

The  character  of  the  king  led  the  exclusionists  to  suppose,  that,  if 
they  remained  firm,  he  would  give  way.  This  was  their  great  politi- 
cal mistake.  For  once  in  his  life,  as  the  point  of  duty  was  at  least 
dubious,  he  was  steady  to  his  supposed  principle ;  he  kept  his  word. 
Had  the  exclusionists  turned  short,  and  accepted  his  limitations,  he 
had  been  indeed  embarrassed. 

It  is  now  clear,  from  Dalrymple  and  Macpherson,  that  not  only 
the  Duke  of  York  reprobated  the  scheme  of  limitations,  but  that  the 
king  himself  was  not  sincere  in  his  ofiers  ;  and  this  must,  indeed,  have 
been  suspected  by  the  popular  leaders.  But  the  truth  is,  that  their 
cause,  as  it  could  not  be  carried  without  the  full  cooperation  of  the 
public,  was  from  the  first  not  a  little  hopeless.  The  nation  had  but 
just  escaped  from  all  the  sufferings  of  civil  war,  —  from  anarchy, 
usurpation,  and  military  despotism ;  it  is  naturally,  from  the  general 
sobriety  of  its  habits  both  of  speculation  and  conduct,  dutiful  and 
loyal ;  is  always  very  properly  attached  to  the  hereditary  nature  of 
the  monarchy  ;  nor  is  it  ever  the  natural  turn  of  men,  more  especially 
of  bodies  of  men,  or  of  a  whole  nation,  to  provide  against  future 
evils  by  extraordinary  expedients,  in  themselves  a  sort  of  evil,  in 
themselves  exposed  to  objection,  and  in  every  respect  difficult  and 
disagreeable.  The  conduct,  therefore,  to  be  pursued  by  the  king 
was  plain,  and  the  result  much  what  might  have  been  expected.  He 
kept, at  issue  with  his  Parliaments,  making  to  them  reasonable,  though 
41 


822  LECTURE  XIX. 

not  sincere  offers,  and  addressing  them  with  temper  and  iignitj' ;  till 
at  last  the  public,  as  will  always  be  the  case  when  there  is  a  pioper 
exercise  of  skill  and  prudence  on  the  part  of  the  sovereign,  sided 
with  him,  and  left  the  constitution  (as  usual)  to  its  fate,  and  the  pa^ 
triots  to  their  fortunes. 

This  is  a  very  curious  part  of  our  history,  and  should  be  attentive- 
ly considered.  The  king,  having  dissolved  two  Parliaments  rapidly, 
issued  a  Declaration,  which  was  made  public  and  read  in  the  church- 
es. It  contained  the  defence  of  his  conduct,  and  his  appeal  to  the 
people.  It  is  given  only  in  substance  by  the  historians  ;  in  Kennet, 
however,  the  words  of  it  appear.  It  is  very  improperly  omitted  by 
Cobbett.  All  the  material  parts  are  given,  in  the  words  of  it,  by  the 
historian  Ralph. 

A  very  full  and  spirited  reply  was  drawn  up  by  the  leaders  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  chiefly  by  Sir  William  Jones,  under  whose  name 
it  was  published,  and  who  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  lawyers 
and  speakers  of  the  time.  The  substance  of  this  reply  is  in  Ralph  ; 
but  the  whole  of  it  is  in  the  appendix  of  Cobbett.  It  is  long,  and 
some  parts  of  it  may  be  read  more  slightly  than  others  ;  but  it  is  in 
general  highly  deserving  of  attention,  not  only  because  it  is  necessary 
to  the  explanation  of  the  great  constitutional  questions  then  before 
the  public,  but  because  it  shows  that  the  notions  of  intelligent  men 
with  regard  to  the  constitution  itself  were  very  fully  adjusted  be- 
fore the  Revolution  in  1688,  and  were,  at  that  great  epoch,  rather 
confirmed  than  altered  or  improved. 

But  the  reasonings  of  Sir  William  Jones  were  of  no  effect.  "  The 
king,"  says  the  historian  Ralph  (Vol.  i.  p.  589),  "  had  the  advan- 
tage of  the  dispute.  His  condescending  to  appeal  to  his  people  sof- 
tened their  hearts,  if  it  did  not  convince  their, understandings ;  he 
appeared  to  be  an  object  of  compassion ;  he  appeared  to  have  been 
all  this  while  on  the  defensive.  The  offers  he  had  made  were  thought 
more  weighty  than  his  adversaries'  objections.  In  short,  he  was  no 
sooner  pitied  than  he  was  beUeved  ;  and,  above  all,  the  artful  turn 
given  in  his  Declaration  to  the  Commons'  vote  in  favor  of  the  Non- 
conformists drew  in  all  the  clergy  and  their  followers  to  his  side  in  a 
body.  The  cry  of  '  Church  and  king'  was  again  renewed,  was 
echoed  from  one  end  of  the  kingdom  to  the  other ;  and,  as  if  it  was  a 
charm  to  debase  the  spirit  and  cloud  the  understanding,  produced," 
says  the  historian,  "  such  a  train  of  detestable  flatteries  to  the  throne, 
mingled  with  so  many  flagrant  proofs  of  a  sordid  disposition  to  enter 
into  a  voluntary  vassalage,  as  might  very  reasonably  make  an  Eng- 
lishman blush  for  his  country  while  he  read  them,  and  would  have 
made  a  Roman  or  a  Spartan  exclaim, '  The  gods  created  these  bar- 
barians to  be  slaves.'  " 

The  address  of  our  own  University  on  this  occasion  may  be  seen 
in  Ralph,  and  the  anathemas  of  the  sister  University  two  years  after- 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  328 

wards,  }xi  Rapin  or  Kennet.  At  Cambridge  they  were  tolerably 
satisfied,  when  they  had  laid  down,  with  due  earnestness,  first,  the 
merits  of  the  king  (that  is,  of  Charles  the  Second),  and  then  the 
doctrine  of  passive  obedience.  But  at  Oxford  the  tenets  of  loyalty 
were  announced  in  a  far  more  eifectual  manner;  adjudgment  and 
decree  passed  against  certain  pernicious  books  and  damnable  doc- 
trines, destructive  to  the  sacred  persons  of  princes,  their  state  and 
government,  and  of  all  human  society"  ;  certain  propositions  are  pro- 
duced, —  some  few  of  the  twenty-seven  that  are  brought  forward,  no 
doubt,  to  be  reprobated,  and  some  few  despised,  but  many  of  them 
the  common  political  maxims  of  the  Whigs ;  the  compact,  &c. ;  but 
all  and  every  one  of  them  were  now  pronounced  "to  be  false,  sedi- 
tious, and  impious,  and  most  of  them  to  be  also  heretical  and  blas- 
phemous," &c.,  &c.  The  members  of  the  University  are  to  be  inter- 
dicted from  reading  the  books  containing  them;  the  books  them- 
selves to  be  publicly  burnt,  &c.,  &c. 

"  And  now  the  flood-gates  of  loyalty  being  opened,"  says  Ralph 

(p.  592), "the  gazettes  from  the  middle  of  May  to  the 

January  following,"  that  is,  from  the  publication  of  the  Declaration, 
"  are  little  more  than  a  collection  of  testimonies  that  the  people  were 
weary  of  all  those  rights  and  privileges  that  make  subjection  safe  and 
honorable."  Quotations,  to  show  the  folly  of  some,  the  prostitution 
of  all,  would  be  endless ;  and  at  last  it  seems  even  Lord  Halifax,  the 
minister,  turned  squeamish,  and  grew  sick  of  them. 

Whatever  difficulty  may  belong  to  the  question  of  the  Exclusion 
Bill,  and  whether  it  might  or  might  not  have  been  necessary  at  the 
time,  still,  if  we  consider  what  had  long  been  the  known  characters 
of  Charles  and  James,  the  licentiousness  of  the  court,  its  connection 
with  France  (which  had  been  publicly  proved  in  the  course  of  Dan- 
by's  impeachment) ,  its  measures  through  the  whole  of  the  reign,  and 
the  idea  then  entertained  of  the  deadliness  of  the  sin  of  Poper^,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  the  manner  in  which  the  community  totally 
deserted  the  leaders  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  this  occasion  was 
not  very  creditable  to  the  national  character.  The  result  was  a  new 
temptation  to  the  political  virtues  of  the  king,  in  which,  as  usual,  he 
failed.  Instead  of  justifying  the  unbounded  and  headlong  attach- 
ment of  his  people,  by  showing  in  his  turn  a  due  care  and  veneration 
for  their  constitutional  rights,  a  dishonest  advantage  was  taken  of 
their  blind  partiality,  and  the  administration  of  the  government  be- 
came, in  every  point,  as  arbitrary  and  unprincipled  as  brutal  judges, 
dishonorable  magistrates,  and  wicked  ministers,  under  the  patronage 
and  protection  of  the  court,  could  possibly  render  it. 

And  then  commenced,  in  like  manner,  the  temptation  of  the  popu- 
lar leaders  ;  they  had  been  defeated,  —  what  were  they  to  do  ?  The 
measures  of  the  court  were  detestable  ;  this  must  be  allowed.  The 
constitution  of  England  seemed  to  be,  certainly  for  a  season,  perhaps 


324  '  LECTURE  XIX. 

for  ever,  at  an  end.  Charles  might  live  long,  or,  as  Japaes  the 
Second  was  to  succeed,  the  violations  of  the  law  might  bj  prescrip- 
tion become  the  law.  All  this  was  true,  and  might  very  naturally 
affect  the  popular  leaders  with  sentiments  of  the  deepest  mortification 
and  sorrow ;  more  especially  as  they  saw  that  the  public  had  aban- 
doned them,  and,  with  some  few  exceptions,  everywhere  continued  to 
abandon  them.  But  what,  then,  was  the  effect  produced  on  the 
minds  of  the  patriotic  leaders  ?  Instead  of  reflecting  how  capricious 
a  master  they  served,  when  the  public  was  that  master,  —  how  prone 
to  run  into  extremes,  how  easily  deceived,  how  little  either  able  or 
disposed  to  take  care  of  itself,  how  pardonable  in  its  follies  because 
always  honest  in  its  intentions,  —  instead  of  meditating  on  topics  so 
obvious  as  these,  most  of  the  popular  leaders,  particularly  Shaftesbury, 
seemed  to  have  lost  on  this  occasion  all  temper  and  prudence,  and  to 
have  thought  of  nothing  but  an  insurrection  and  force,  —  an  insur- 
rection which  was  called  for  only  by  the  rabble  in  London,  —  force, 
which  can  never  be  justified,  even  with  right,  but  under  the  strongest 
assurance  of  success. 

And  in  this  manner  are  we  conducted  to  the  last  important  trans- 
action of  the  reign,  known  under  the  general  name  of  the  Ryehouse 
Plot,  —  a  plot,  as  it  was  supposed,  of  the  patriotic  leaders  against 
the  king.  It  appears,  however,  to  have  been  rather  a  treasonable 
plot  and  insurrection  intended  by  the  lower  and  more  desperate 
members  of  the  party,  and  countenanced  by  Shaftesbury,  than  a 
regular  project  formed  by  the  whole  party,  the  more  respectable 
leaders  included. 

But  these  machinations,  however  various  their  description,  were 
fatal  to  many  who  were  connected  with  them  ;  —  they  were  fatal  to 
Algernon  Sidney  and  Lord  Russell.  These  distinguished  men  were 
triq^d  for^  treason,  and  found  guilty,  — with  what  propriety  I  cannot 
now  discuss.  Sidney  marched  to  the  scaffold  as  to  a  victory,  display- 
ing at  his  execution,  as  on  his  trial,  all  the  bold  and  sublime  traits  of 
the  republican  character :  the  steady  step,  the  serene  eye,  the  un- 
troubled pulse,  the  unabated  resolve,  "  the  unconquerable  mind,  and 
freedom's  holy  flame  "  ;  the  memory,  that  still  lingered  with  delight 
on  tlie  good  old  cause,  as  he  termed  it,  for  which  he  was  to  shed  his 
blood ;  the  imagination,  that,  even  in  the  moments  of  death,  disdain- 
ful alike  of  the  government,  its  judges,  its  indictments,  and  its  exe- 
cutioners, soared  away  to  some  loftier  code  of  justice  and  of  right,  and 
hung  enamoured  on  its  own  more  splendid  visions  of  equality  and 
freedom. 

The  spectators  presumed  not  to  shed  tears  in  the  presence  of  Sid- 
ney, but  their  tears  had  bedewed  the  scaffold  of  Lord  Russell ;  Lord 
Russell,  the  amiable  and  the  good ;  the  husband,  with  whom  the  bit- 
terness of  death  was  past  when  the  partner  of  his  bosom  had  looked 
her  last  farewell ;  the  friend,  whom  the  faithful  Cavendish  would  have 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  325 

died  to  save ;  the  lover  of  truth,  the  lover  of  England ;  the  patriot, 
who  had  labored  to  assert,  not  change,  her  constitution ;  filled  with 
no  images  of  liberty,  as  Sidney  had  been,  drawn  from  the  imperfect 
models  of  Greece  and  Rome,  but  intent  on  a  monarchy  restr^^ined  by 
popular  freedom,  and  on  popular  freedom  civilized  by  a  monarchy ; 
imprudent,  rather  than  criminal ;  a  memorable  instance  to  show  that 
they  who  would  serve  their  country  are  not  to  mix  their  own  good  in- 
tentions and  virtuous  characters  with  those  of  men  of  doubtful  princi- 
ples, irregular  and  violent  in  their  spirit,  —  men  whom  it  is  idle  for 
them  to  suppose  they  can  long  control,  and  whose  faults  they  may 
discern  clearly,  but  by  no  means  their  ultimate  designs. 

Such  was  the  termination  of  the  struggle  between  prerogative  and 
privilege,  which,  after  all  the  horrors  of  the  Civil  War,  it  is  most 
afflicting  and  mortifying  to  observe,  had,  in  the  first  place,  once  more 
to  be  renewed  during  the  reign  of  the  restored  monarch,  and,  in  the 
second,  to  terminate  entirely  against  the  patriotic  cause. 

I  now  consider  myself  as  having  arrived  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of 
Charles.  But  I  have  passed  by  many  transactions,  both  curious  and 
important,  not  only  because  they  were  too  numerous  to  mention,  but 
because  I  was  unwilling  to  have  your  attention  withdrawn  for  a  mo- 
ment from  the  great  subject  of  the  reign,  —  the  resistance  of  the 
popular  leaders  to  Charles,  and  more  especially  the  measure  of  the 
Exclusion  Bill.  Those  transactions  omitted  by  me  —  the  bribes  re- 
ceived, as  appears  from  Dalrymple,  by  the  popular  leaders,  the  Har 
beas  Corpus  Act,  the  Test  Act,  the  Popish  Plot  —  must  be  well  ob- 
served by  you.  I  will  say  a  word  on  the  last.  This  most  extraordi- 
nary affair  may  reasonably  excite  the  curiosity,  but  will  in  vain  exer- 
*cise  the  inquiries  of  the  most  laborious  student.  It  was  impossible  at 
the  time,  it  has  been  ever  since  impossible,  properly  to  understand  it, 
or  many  of  the  circumstances  which  so  contributed  to  its  success,  — 
for  instance.  Sir  Edmundbury  Godfrey's  murder. 

Instead  of  laboring  to  investigate  what  the  fury  of  those  times 
leaves  us  little  chance  of  understanding,  there  is  much  remains  which 
may  be  perfectly  understood,  and  to  which  it  may  be  far  more  im- 
portant for  you  to  direct  your  reflections :  I  mean  the  consequences 
of  the  plot,  the  consequences  of  the  alarm  excited  by  this  plot ;  the 
rage,  for  instance,  and  stupidity  of  which  a  community  are  capable 
when  their  religious  prejudices  are  worked  upon  ;  the  outrages  that 
may  be  committed  by  judges,  juries,  and  all  the  regular  authorities 
of  a  state,  the  moment  that  the  great  maxims  and  established  forms 
of  equity  and  Igtw  are  dispensed  with  ;  the  melancholy  excesses  of  in- 
justice, cruelty,  and  absurdity,  that  in  times  of  public  alarm  may 
disgrace  the  most  civilized  society. 

When  the  more  enlightened  part  of  a  nation  share,  for  a  time,  the 
same  violence  of  prejudice  or  terror  which  more  naturally  belongs  to 
the  bhnd  and  precipitate  passions  of  the  populace,  they  themselves 

BB 


326  LECTURE  XIX. 

become  populace,  —  like  the  very  mob,  senseless  and  ferocious, — 
and  are  actually  not  to  be  appeased  without  the  shedding  of  blood. 
Lord  Stafford  and  others,  supposed  conspirators  in  this  Popish  plot, 
were  therefore  formally  murdered.  The  king  durst  not  interpose, 
nor  was  he  of  a  temper  to  disturb  His  own  security  in  the  cause  of 
insulted  humanity.  It  is  here  that  is  to  be  found  the  unpardonable 
violence,  the  criminality,  of  the  popular  leaders.  The  penetrating 
Shaftesbury  becomes  either  an  atrocious  statesman,  or  a  blind  and 
vulgar  demagogue  ;  and  even  the  amiable  and  virtuous  Russell  is,  for 
a  season,  no  longer  to  be  loved. 

The  historian  Hume,  the  great  chastiser  of  religious  and  party 
animosity,  is  not  likely  to  desert  his  reader  on  an  occasion  like  this  ; 
and  it  only  remains  to  treasure  up  his  observations,  and  apply  them 
to  every  similar  instance  (and  instances  will  occur)  of  public  infatua- 
tion and  guilt. 

And  now,  before  I  turn  away  from  this  second  part  of  the  reign 
of  Charles,  and  these  private  memoirs  and  original  documents,  I 
must  remind  you  of  an  opinion  entertained  by  some,  to  which  I  al- 
luded in  my  opening  lecture,  that  history  neither  is  nor  can  be  truth, 
because  it  professes  to  give  an  account  of  transactions  which  can  be 
understood  only  by  the  actors  in  the  scene.  I  would  wish  you,  there- 
fore, to  consider  once  more  these  original  papers  of  Dalrymple.  Let 
them  be  compared  with  any  of  our  historians,  —  for  instance,  with 
the  judicious  History  of  Ralph.  Let  the  student,  after  he  has  by 
means  of  Dalrymple  put  himself  into  possession  of  the  state  secrets 
of  the  reign,  turn  to  that  History,  which  was  written  before  this  pub- 
lication, and  observe  what  the  historian  has  been  able  to  perform 
without  them.  He  will  then  find,  as  I  conceive,  that  known  facta 
and  visible  appearances  are  sufficient  to  enable  a  sensible  man,  with- 
out the  assistance  of  these  mysteries  of  office,  to  form  just  conclusions, 
and  exhibit  those  general  views  which  serve  all  the  great  and  most 
useful  purposes  of  history.  Let  him  turn,  in  like  manner,  to  Burnet. 
I  alluded  to  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  his  work  in  yesterday's 
lecture,  and  told  you  I  should  have  to  remind  you  of  them.  I  do  so 
now.  The  general  conclusions  which  Ralph  draws  and  which  Burnet 
draws,  and  other  historians  have  drawn,  are  the  very  conclusions 
yrhich  we  draw  ourselves,  when,  by  means  of  the  papers  of  Dalrym- 
ple and  the  private  memoirs,  we  have  become  acquainted  with  all  the 
wretched  detail  of  these  disgraceful  intrigues.  Instances  like  these 
(and  it  is  for  this  purpose  that  I  mention  them)  may  teach  us  to  de- 
pend upon  all  such  general  inferences  as  are  fairly  deduced  from  a 
sufficiently  comprehensive  exhibition  of  facts,  explained  and  illustrat- 
ed by  the  acknowledged  principles  of  human  nature  ;  that  is,  to  de- 
pend on  diligence,  candor,  and  sagacity,  when  exercised  on  the  con- 
sideration of  the  affairs  of  the  world ;  that  is,  in  other  words,  to 
depend  on  well  written  history. 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  327 

On  the  whole,  then,  to  recapitulate  what  I  have  hitherto  said,  the 
struggle  between  the  sovereign  and  the  patriotic  leaders  is  the  great 
subject  during  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  ;  the  designs  of  Charles 
against  the  constitution,  and  his  connections  with  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth, during  the  preceding  part  of  the  reign ;  the  settlement  of  the 
kingdom  in  church  and  state,  under  the  administration  of  Clarendon, 
during  the  first  part  of  the  reign. 

Having  now  alluded  to  these,  each  in  its  order,  I  must,  lastly,  in- 
troduce my  hearers  to  what  I  will  call,  for  the  sake  of  distinction,  the 
moral  part  of  the  history  of  this  period. 

All  wars  destroy  the  morals  of  mankind,  by  habituating  them  to 
refer  every  thing  to  force,  and  by  necessitating  them  so  often  to  dis- 
pense with  the  ordinary  suggestions  of  sympathy  and  justice.  But 
this  is  pecuharly  the  effect  of  civil  wars,  where  the  moral  obligations, 
before  the  contest,  have  been  more  completely  established,  and  are 
yet,  during  the  contest,  with  more  than  ordinary  violence,  torn  asun- 
der. That  regular  occupation  of  the  mind,  amid  the  common  pur- 
suits of  Hfe,  —  those  peaceful  habits  of  thought,  which  are  so  nutri- 
tive, so  necessary,  to  most  of  the  virtues  of  the  human  character, — 
all  these,  on  occasions  of  civil  war,  are  most  materially  disturbed,  and 
even  sometimes  destroyed  ;  and  the  military  virtues,  high  virtues  no 
doubt,  but  which  have  always  been  found  compatible  with  the  great- 
est licentiousness,  seem  alone  to  survive. 

It  is,  therefore,  probable  that  England,  on  the  Restoration,  would 
have  exhibited  these  unhappy  effects  of  the  past  disorders,  under 
whatever  circumstances  the  kingdom  might  have  been  placed.  But 
still  more  unfortunately,  to  complete  the  general  dissolution  of  man- 
ners after  this  event,  the  vanquished  party,  the  Puritans  and  Presby- 
terians, had  always  been  distinguished,  not  only,  many  of  them,  for 
the  real  exercise  of  the  severer  virtues,  but  most  of  them  for  a  ridic- 
ulous affectation  of  a  piety  and  perfection  more  than  human.  Men, 
always  in  extremes  upon  other  occasions,  were  equally  so  on  this ; 
and  because  the  Puritans  mistook  the  true  nature  of  virtue  and  re- 
'  ligion,  and  rushed  headlong  in  one  direction,  the  Cavaliers  could  do 
no  less  than  offend  every  reasonable  precept  of  both,  by  hurrying 
away  as  violently  in  the  other ;  because  the  most  sacred  and  awfid 
terms  which  our  religion  affords  were  used  by  the  one  party  on  the 
most  unworthy  occasions,  and  to  purposes  the  most  familiar,  their  op- 
ponents could  do  no  better,  it  seems,  than  become  scoffers  at  all  re- 
ligion, and  could  find  no  substitute  for  qant,  hypocrisy,  and  nonsense, 
but  profaneness  and  infidelity. 

These  great  features  of  the  times  have  not  escaped  the  notice  of 
our  historians  and  moral  writers.  On  this  subject,  I  must  refer  you 
to  their  observations.  I  may,  however,  remark,  that,  if  any  of  my 
hearers  should  become  very  conversant  in  the  history  and  in  the 
writings  of  this  singular  period,  he  will  soon,  as  I  conceive,  be  but 


328 

too  conscious  that  the  very  actors  m  the  scene  often  impart  to  it 
an  unworthy  charm,  from  the  livehness  of  their  hcentiousness,  from 
the  variety,  the  brilliancy,  the  strength  of  their  restless  and  striking 
characters.  It  is  one,  and  not  the  least,  of  the  many  trials  which 
virtue  has  to  encounter,  that  she  is  liable  to  be  seduced  from  her 
more  tranquil,  but  happier  path,  by  the  imposing  bustle,  the  enter- 
taining w^hims,  the  ever-changing,  careless,  animating  revelry,  which 
may  generally  be  found  in  the  haunts  of  her  most  fatal  enemies. 

Such  was  the  effect  of  the  fascinating  manners  and  specious  quali- 
ties of  Charles,  that  he  was  never  hated  or  despised  in  the  degree 
which  he  deserved.  Even  at  this  distance  of  time,  we  may  not 
readily  bring  ourselves  to  entertain  sentiments  sufficiently  severe 
against  the  king,  the  courtiers,  and  all  the  considerable  personages 
that  appeared  during  these  critical  times.  The  truth  is,  that  this 
period  was  marked  by  a  sort  of  conspiracy  against  all  sobriety  and 
order,  against  all  liberty  and  law,  against  all  dignity  and  happiness, 
public  and  private ;  and  we  must  not  suffer  our  taste  for  pleasantry, 
and  our  admiration  of  shining  talents,  to  betray  us  into  a  forgetfulness 
of  every  graver  virtue  which  can  seriously  occupy  our  reflection  or 
engage  our  respect. 

But  I  must  be  allowed  to  make  one  observation  more,  which  I 
shall  leave  to  your  own  examination.  The  writers  on  morals  have 
always  insisted,  that  vice  has  at  least  no  advantage  over  virtue,  but 
the  contrary,  even  in  this  life.  The  period  of  history  now  before  us 
is  enlivened  by  the  most  striking  and  the  most  profligate  characters, 
and  will,  as  I  conceive,  abundantly  illustrate  this  position,  —  a  posi- 
tion certainly  founded  in  nature  and  truth,  and  which  no  man  ever 
acted  upon  —  and  repented. 

The  Buckingham,  for  instance,  of  these  times,  the  author  of  The 
Rehearsal,  and  the  delight  of  the  court,  "  the  life  of  pleasure  and  the 
soul  of  whim,"  but  the  most  unprincipled  of  men,  was  the  Villiers  of 
Pope,  —  the  great  Villiers,  who,  though  he  died  not  "  in  the  worst 
inn's  worst  room,"  died  "  victor  of  his  health,  of  fortune,  friends,  and 
fame,"  and  well  fitted  "  to  point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale." 

Rochester,  at  the  early  age  of  three-and-thirty,  when  his  talents 
might  have  been  ripening  into  strength,  and  his  virtues  into  useful- 
ness, sunk  into  the  grave  amid  the  wild  waste  of  his  existence  and 
his  advantages,  and  discovered  how  mistaken  had  been  his  estimate 
of  happiness,  when  it  was  too  late. 

In  a  grander  style  of  misconduct  appears  the  celebrated  Shaftes- 
bury. Of  powers  as  universal  as  his  ambition  was  unbounded,  —  the 
idol  of  the  rabble  at  Wapping,  the  wit  and  man  of  fashion  among  the 
courtiers  at  Whitehall,  and  a  statesman  in  the  House  of  Lords,  whom 
the  king,  after  listening  to  him  in  a  debate,  pronounced  fit  to  teach 
his  bishops  divinity  and  his  judges  law,  —  a  minister,  a  patriot,  a 
chancellor,  and  a  demagogue,  —  in  whatever  direction  he  moved,  the 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  329 

man  on  whom  all  eyes  were  to  be  turned,  —  to  whom  nothing  was 
wanting  but  virtue,  —  Shaftesbury  died  at  last  an  exile  from  his 
country,  seeking  protection  from  that  very  republic  of  Holland  which 
in  the  hour  of  his  corruption  and  prosperity  he  had  denounced ; 
towering  with  all  the  consciousness  of  genius,  yet  humiliated  by  the 
triumphs  of  opponents  whom  he  must  have  despised  even  more  than 
he  hated,  and  no  longer  able  to  hope,  as  the  scene  for  ever  closed 
around  him,  either  for  the  gratification  of  success,  or  the  comforts 
(for  such,  to  his  unchastened  mind,  they  would  have  been  thought) 
cf  vengeance. 

Compare  with  the  lives  of  these  men  the  life  of  Sir  WilHam  Tem- 
ple, —  the  man  of  cultivated  mind,  —  the  man  of  sense  and  humani- 
ty, —  of  civilized  passions,  and  well-directed  aims,  —  the  philosopher 
and  the  statesman,  appearing  on  the  stage  of  public  affairs  only  to  be 
honored,  retiring  to  the  shade  only  to  be  more  loved  and  applaud- 
ed, —  the  minister  who  could  speak  the  language  of  patriotism  and 
truth  to  his  corrupted,  dissembling  sovereign,  nor  yet  suffer  himself, 
by  disappointment  at  this  sovereign's  subsequent  conduct,  to  be 
hurried  into  projects  of  dangerous  experiment  and  doubtful  ambition, 
—  and  who,  on  every  occasion,  converted  all  the  advantages,  which 
he  had  received  from  nature  and  from  fortune,  to  their  noblest  pur- 
poses, the  fair  fame  and  happiness  of  himself,  the  honor  of  his  coun- 
try, and  the  benefit  of  mankind. 

Take,  again,  an  instance  of  virtue  in  a  form  more  severe,  and  ap- 
parently less  fitted  for  happiness-,  —  the  patriot  Andrew  MarveU. 
Of  this  man  it  is  well  known,  that  the  treasurer  Danby  once  made 
his  way  to  his  garret,  and,  under  a  proper  disguise  of  courtly  phrar 
seology,  offered  him  a  bribe.  It  was  refused ;  and  this  virtuous  repre- 
sentative of  the  people,  when  he  had  turned  away  from  the  thousand 
pounds  of  the  minister,  was  obliged  to  dine  a  second  time  on  the  dish 
of  the  former  day,  and  borrow  a  guinea  from  his  bookseller.  But 
which  of  the  two  are  we  to  envy  ? 

"  Count  all  the  advantage  prosperous  vice  attains, 
'T  is  but  what  virtue  flies  from  and  disdains." 

Pursue  the  same  train  of  inquiry  into  the  recesses  of  the  cabinet. 
The  king  had  deceived  his  ministry,  the  Cabal ;  Arlington,  one  of 
them,  betrayed  the  king.  The  Duke  of  York  and  the  king  had  cajoled 
Shaftesbury  ;  and  Shaftesbury,  at  the  moment  he  was  most  wanted, 
turned  short  on  his  deceivers.  Danby  had  preferred  his  place  to  his 
honor,  and  had  committed  himself  to  Montague.  At  that  time  they 
were  friends  ;  soon  after,  enemies  ;  each  wished  the  ruin  of  the  other ; 
but  the  ambassador,  Montague,  was  more  adroit,  and  the  treasurer 
Danby  was  lodged  in  the  Tower.  What  friendship,  what  happiness, 
have  we  here  among  men  like  these  ? 

The  members  of  the  Cabal  gained  littl'e  by  their  baseness  but  dis- 
grace and  impeachments.  Charles  himself  was  occupied  all  his  life 
42  B  B  * 


830  LECTURE  XIX. 

in  extracting  money  from  Louis,  and  in  deceiving  him  for  that  pur- 
pose ;  but  Louis  was  equally  employed  in  deceiving  Charles,  and  in 
carrying  on  counter  intrigues  with  his  subjects.  Two  years  before 
his  death,  Charles  came  to  the  knowledge  of  alj  the  French  monarch's 
proceedings :  he  received,  says  Dalrymple,  a  yet  more  mortifying 
stroke ;  he  found  that  the  court  of  France  had  been  capable  of  in- 
tending (though  the  design  was  at  last  laid  aside)  to  make  public 
his  secret  negotiations  with  the  Duchess  of  Orleans.  What  was  the 
result  ?  Conscious  that  he  could  no  longer  be  either  respected  or 
loved  by  the  intelligent  part  of  his  subjects,  that  he  was  distrusted 
and  despised  by  every  court  in  Europe,  and  that  he  had  been  all 
his  life  betrayed  by  the  very  prince  to  whom  he  had  sold  the  im- 
mediate jewel  of  his  soul,  his  secret  chagrin  became  at  length  visible 
on  his  countenance,  and  for  two  years  before  his  death,  he  had  ceased 
to  be  the  merry  monarch  who  could  laugh  at  the  virtues  and  triumph 
in  the  vices  of  mankind. 

Charles,  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  reign,  had  seen  Clarendon  stand 
before  him  the  representative  of  Enghsh  good  sense  and  English  good 
feelings.  He  had  been  afterwards  exhorted  by  Temple  to  be  the  man 
of  his  people  ;  for  such  a  king,  the  patriot  minister  told  him,  (to  use 
his  own  words,)  "  might  in  England  be  any  thing,  and  otherwise 
nothing  "  ;  but,  from  the  first,  Charles  had  traced  out  another  path 
of  happiness  for  himself,  and  in  the  event,  as  we  may  collect  from 
the  historians,  he  found  he  had  judged  but  ill ;  he  is  even  understood 
to  have  formed  serious  resolutions  of  retracing,  if  possible,  his  steps, 
and  of  acting  up  to  the  model  which  had  vainly  been  presented  to  his 
view.  But  life  admits  not  of  this  neglect  of  opportunities :  he  was 
struck  by  the  hand  of  death  ;  and  what,  then,  is  his  history  ?  The 
history  of  a  man  of  pleasure  :  a  fine  understanding  converted  to  no 
useful  purpose,  and  at  last,  as  is  always  the  case,  not  convertible  to 
any ;  the  common  feelings  of  our  nature  corrupted  into  total  selfish- 
ness by  sensual  indulgence  ;  the  proper  relish  of  the  gratifications  of 
our  state  worn  down  by  abuse  into  a  morbid  indifference  for  every 
thing  ;  with  no  friendship  that  he  thought  sincere  ;  with  no  love  that 
he  did  not  hire  ;  without  the  genuine  enjoyment  of  one  social  aifec- 
tion,  or  of  one  intellectual  endowment  but  his  wit ;  floating  helplessly 
on  from  one  amusement  to  another ;  oppressed  with  the  burden  of 
time,  yet  ashamed  of  his  expedients  to  get  rid  of  it;  —  hving  and 
dying,  Charles  is  the  proper  object  of  our  indignation  or  contempt ; 
through  fife  a  conspirator  against  the  liberties  of  his  people,  or  a  mere 
saunterer  amid  his  courtiers  and  his  mistresses ;  and  on  his  death-bed 
delivering  himself  over  to  his  stupid  brother  and  a  Popish  priest. 
Such  is  the  history  of  Charles ;  but  what  is  there  here  which  the 
meanest  of  his  subjects  could  have  to  envy,  —  what  to  envy  in  the 
monarch,  however  he  may  be  himself,  in  his  humbler  station,  submit- 
ted to  the  tasks  of  daily  labor,  to  the  duties  of  self  denial,  or  the 
necessities  of  self  exertion  ? 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND.  .      331 

But  whatever  may  be  our  decision  with  respect  to  the  great  posi- 
tion of  the  morahsts,  —  that  vice  has  no  advantage  even  in  this 
world,  but  the  contrary,  —  it  must  at  least  be  admitted,  that  men 
like  these,  whether  or  not  they  procure  happiness  for  themselves,  un 
doubtedly  produce  misery  to  every  one  around  them ;  in  private  life 
they  injure,  distress,  or  corrupt  whatever  is  within  their  influence, 
and  in  public  they  are  yet  more  injurious  to  society,  by  disposing  of 
their  talents  and  integrity,  under  some  form  or  other,  to  the  best 
bidder. 

Some  idea  of  the  effect  which  such  men  produce  on  society  may  be 
derived  from  the  dramatic  representations  in  the  reign  of  Charles ; 
compositions  which,  therefore,  form  a  part  of  its  history. 

"  The  wits  of  Charles  found  easier  ways  to  fame, 
Nor  wished  for  Jonson's  art  or  Shakspeare's  flame : 
Themselves  they  studied ;  as  they  felt,  they  writ : 
Intrigue  was  plot,  obscenity  was  wit." 

If  such  were  the  dramas,  what  were  the  audience  ?  If  such  was  the 
picture  of  life,  as  it  was  then  understood,  what  was,  and  what  had 
been,  the  influence  of  the  higher  orders  ? 

In  an  age  of  such  depravity,  the  great  minister  Clarendon  was  not 
unconscious  of  what  was  due  to  his  sovereign,  to  his  country,  or  to 
his  own  character ;  and  he  resisted,  by  every  effort  in  his  power,  the 
im'moralities  of  his  master,  and  the  licentiousness  of  the  court.  His 
gravity,  as  it  was  called,  was  the  great  tobject  at  which  the  ridicule 
of  Buckingham  and  the  wits  was  eternally  levelled ;  but  the  chancel- 
lor was  of  a  temperament  too  dignified  to  be  faced  out  of  his  princi- 
ples either  by  the  frowns  of  the  king  or  the  grimaces  of  his  com- 
panions. He  would  never  suffer  his  wife  to  visit  the  Lady,  as  he  calls 
her,  that  is,  the  king's  mistress ;  and  he  continued,  as  he  began,  the 
champion  of  the  ordinary  duties  of  hfe. 

In  our  own  times,  the  great  upholder  of  the  domestic  virtues  has 
been,  not  any  particular  minister,  but  the  monarch  himself,  —  George 
the  Third.  To  whatever  variety  of  criticism  a  reign  like  his,  so  long 
and  so  eventful,  may  be  hereafter  exposed,  this  praise,  this  solid 
praise,  will  never  be  denied  him  ;  and  it  will  remain,  while  the  story 
of  England  remains,  an  honor  to  his  memory.  His  people,  in  the 
mean  time,  have  never  been  backward  in  acknowledging  their  obliga- 
tion. His  conduct  in  this  respect  has  always  beehthe  theme  of  their 
loud  and  just  panegyric  ;  and  they  have  never  ceased  to  look  up  to 
the  throne,  not  only  with  sentiments  of  loyalty  to  the  high  office,  but 
with  feelings  of  gratitude  and  respect  for  the  person  of  their  sov- 
ereign. 

Among  many  other  amusing,  rather  than  improving,  works  con- 
nected with  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  must  be  particularized 
the  Memoirs  of  the  Comte  de  Grammont,  written  by  one  of  the 
Hamiltons.     The  narrative  and  the  pleasantry  are  airy  and  elegant, 


332  LECTURE  XIX. 

often  reminding  us  of  the  manner  of  Voltaire  ;  and  the  work  maj  be 
read,  as  giving  a  picture  of  the  court  and  courtiers  of  Charles,  drawn 
from  the  life,  telling  their  own  story  in  their  own  way,  and  therefore 
containing  not  only  a  delineation  of  their  intrigues,  occupations,  and 
pleasures,  but  of  their  modes  of  reasoning  and  thinking,  and  the 
sympathies  and  principles,  such  as  they  were,  upon  which  this  licen- 
tious and  but  too  entertaining  part  of  society  at  that  time  proceeded. 
Courage  seems  to  have  been  their  only  virtue,  liveliness  their  only 
merit,  —  the  manners  of  Chesterfield,  and  the  morals  of  Rochefou- 
cauld. 

An  exhibition  of  the  feelings  and  reasonings  of  the  king  and  his 
courtiers  on  the  graver  subjects  of  national  policy  may  be  found  in 
the  poems  of  Dryden ;  the  powerful  advocate  of  any  and  of  every 
cause,  whose  afiluent  mind  and  pregnant  fancy  were  never  without 
an  argument  and  an  image,  whatever  might  be  the  topic  either  of  his 
poetry  or  his  prose  ;  worthy  to  be  the  assertor  of  the  best  interests 
of  mankind,  and  sometimes  enforcing  them  with  the  most  enviable 
spirit  and  success ;  the  master  of  a  lyre,  no  doubt,  whose  song  can 
aever  die, — whose  numbers  are  always  easy,  airy,  and  melodious, — 
>ften  breaking  away  into  passages  of  the  most  striking  vigor,  and 
jiometimes  kindling  into  flashes  of  the  most  genuine  sublimity  ;  yet  a 
poet,  it  must  at  the  same  time  be  confessed,  whose  compositions  are 
often  debased  by  coarseness  and  disfigured  by  extravagance,  and  who 
was  ready,  when  occasion  Aquired,  to  give  plausibility  and  force  to 
the  most  wretched  commonplaces  of  servility  or  licentiousness,  of  big- 
otry or  superstition.  He  who  reads  his  great  poetical  pamphlet,  the 
Absalom  and  Achitophel,  after  having  previously  acquainted  himself 
with  the  history  and  characters  of  the  time,  will  perceive,  that,  how- 
evel-  he  may  have  admired  it  before,  he  may  still  be  said  never  be- 
fore to  have  read  it ;  and  he  will  neither  wonder  at  the  great  name 
which  the  poet  has  transmitted  to  posterity,  nor  deny  him  the  highest 
prerogative  of  genius,  —  the  power  of  stamping  on  his  works  the  im- 
pression of  immortality,  and  of  giving  a  value  that  shall  never  cease 
to  productions  which  originally  served  the  fleeting  purposes  of  the 
day. 

To  find  contrasts  for  the  Memoirs  of  Grammont,  the  compositions 
of  the  drama,  and  the  writings  of  Dryden  and  the  wits,  —  to  see  the 
extremes  of  which  human  nature  is  capable,  —  we  may  turn  from 
these  productions,  and  consult  Grey's  notes  to  Hudibras,  and  Iludi- 
bras  itself,  with  such  sermons  of  the  Presbyterian  divines,  and  such 
public  papers  of  Presbyterian  statesmen,  as  have  reached  us. 

As  a  close  to  the  whole  of  our  inquiries,  we  may  direct  our  atten- 
tion to  the  History  of  Scotland  by  Laing,  a  work  which  will  be  found 
oftekn  contributing  to  explain  and  illustrate  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
First,  but  absolutely  necessary  in  considering  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Second. 


JAMES  THE  SECOND.  333 

Laing  is  a  writer  wlio  throws  out  his  opinions  so  freely  and  so 
strongly,  on  subjects  so  various  and  so  important,  that,  from  the  im- 
possibility of  all  comment,  they  must  be  left  by  me  entirely  unnoticed. 
But  it  is  necessary  to  observe,  that  the  style,  which  is  at  first  some- 
what repulsive,  will  be  found  materially  to  improve,  as  the  work  pro- 
ceeds, and  at  length  cease  to  remind  us  of  the  disagreeable,  abstract 
manner,  and  of  many  of  the  faults  of  Gibbon.  The  narrative  is 
necessarily  encumbered  not  a  little  with  Church  history  ;  and,  as  it 
places  human  nature  in  no  new  light  on  these  occasions,  may  in  these 
places  be  slightly  perused. 

Laing  is  not  considered  as  a  writer  favorable  to  the  Stuarts ;  but 
how  could  he,  if  fit  to  write  at  all,  be  favorable  ?  It  is  in  the  history 
which  he  details  that  the  faults  of  these  princes  are  most  unequivo- 
cally displayed.  Whatever  be  the  excuses  for  their  conduct,  which 
may  or  may  not  be  found  while  we  read  the  history  of  England,  they 
totally  disappear  when  we  turn  to  the  annals  of  Scotland ;  and  from 
that  moment  their  defence  is  hopeless. 


LECTURE    XX. 


JAMES  THE   SECOND.  — THE    REVOLUTION. 

On  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  Duke  of  York  took  as 
peaceable  possession  of  the  throne  as  if  no  effort  had  ever  been  made 
to  debar  him  from  the  succession.  If  the  exclusionists  had  carried 
their  measure,  James  would  always  have  been  represented,  by  a  very 
large  and  respectable  description  of  writers,  as,  on  the  whole,  a  vic- 
tim to  party  rage.  Without,  perhaps,  denying  exactly  the  right  of  a 
•community  to  provide  for  its  own  happiness,  they  would  have  con- 
tented themselves  with  observing,  that  religious  opinions  were  in 
themselves  no  just  disqualification ;  that  it  by  no  means  followed,  that 
James,  though  a  Papist  himself,  would  have  violated  the  constitution 
of  his  country,  rather  than  not  make  his  subjects  the  same  ;  that  the 
conduct  of  men  altered  with  their  situation  ;  and  that,  at  all  events, 
the  patriotism  and  good  sense  of  James  were  not  fairly  tried. 

But,  happily  for  one  of  the  most  important  of  all  causes,  the  cause 
of  civil  liberty,  the  experiment  was  really  made  ;  and  all  that  the 
extjlusionists  had  foreseen,  all  that  with  very  manly  wisdom  they  had 
endeavoured  to  prevent,  actually  took  place.  When,  however,  the 
expectations  of  the  exclusionists  were  verified,  and  the  arbitrary  and 


334  LECTURE  XX. 

bigoted  nature  of  James  was  inflamed,  rather  than  pacified,  by  the 
possession  of  power,  it  by  no  means  followed  that  the  community 
would  then  be  able  to  relieve  itself  from  the  calamity  which  it  had 
incurred.  It  is  very  easy  for  a  theorist  to  say,  that  a  nation  has  only 
to  will  to  be  free,  and  to  be  so.  The  affairs  of  mankind  proceed  in 
no  such  manner. 

On  such  a  subject  as  the  Revolution  in  1688  the  student  will  sure- 
ly think  that  no  pains  he  can  bestow  are  too  great.  But  he  will  rise 
from  the  whole  with  very  different  impressions  from  what  I  have 
done,  if  he  does  not  entitle  this  Revolution  not  only  the  glorious^  but, 
in  the  first  place,  the  fortunate^  Revolution  of  1688.  If  he  can  but 
place  himself  in  the  midst  of  these  occurrences,  and  suppose  himself 
ignorant  of  what  is  to  happen,  it  is  with  a  sort  of  actual  fear  and 
trembling  that  he  will  read  the  history  of  these  times ;  let  him  con- 
sider what  his  country  has  become  by  the  successful  termination  of 
these  transactions,  and  what  it  might  have  been  rendered  by  a  con- 
trary issue  ;  how  much  the  interests  of  Europe  were  at  this  juncture 
identified  with  those  of  England ;  and  what  a  variety  of  events,  the 
most  slight  and  the  most  natural,  might  have  thrown  the  whole  into 
a  state  of  confusion  and  defeat. 

The  first  question  to  be  examined  is  the  conduct  of  James,  —  his 
unconstitutional  measures,  his  arbitrary  designs. 

After  the  student  has  perused  the  history  in  Hume  and  Rapm, 
and  compared  it  with  the  Parliamentary  History  of  Cobbett,  he  will 
see  that  the  indictment  that  was  afterwards  preferred  against  James 
by  the  two  houses  of  legislature  was  strictly  founded  in  fact,  point  by 
point.  As  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  detail  the  history,  not  an  inci- 
dent of  which  is  without  its  importance,  I  will  just  state  what  that 
indictment  was.  When  the  crown  was  afterwards  offered  to  William 
and  INIary,  both  houses  prefaced  their  offer  by  declaring  the  reasons 
that  compelled  them  to  adopt  a  measure  so  extraordinary.  They 
were  these  ;  and  they  form  a  sort  of  summary  of  the  reign  of  James 
the  Second,  and  therefore  I  shall  read  them  to  you ;  in  every  word 
they  deserve  attention ;  they  are  the  case  of  the  people  of  England 
on  this  great  occasion :  — 

"  Whereas  the  late  king,  James  the  Second,  by  the  assistance  of 
divers  evil  counsellors,  judges,  and  ministers,  employed  by  him,  did 
endeavour  to  subvert  and  extirpate  the  Protestant  religion,  and  the 
laws  and  liberties  of  this  kingdom ;  —  by  assuming  and  exercising  a 
power  of  dispensing  with  and  suspending  of  laws,  and  the  execution 
of  laws,  without  consent  of  Parliament ;  —  by  committing  and  prose- 
cuting divers  worthy  prelates,  for  humbly  petitioning  to  be  excused 
from  concurring  to  the  said  assumed  power  ;  —  by  issuing,  and  caus- 
ing to  be  executed,  a  commission,  under  the  great  seal,  for  erecting 
a  court  called  '  The  Court  of  Commissioners  for  Ecclesiastical  Caus- 
es' ;  —  by  levying  money  for  and  to  the  use  of  the  crown,  by  pre* 


JAMES  THE  SECOND.  335 

tence  of  prerogative,  for  other  time  and  in  other  manner  than  the 
same  was  granted  by  Parliament ;  —  by  raising  and  keeping  a  stand 
ing  army  within  this  kingdom,  in  time  of  peace,  without  consent  of 
Parhament,  and  quartering  soldiers  contrary  to  law  ;  —  by  causing 
several  good  subjects,  being  Protestants,  to  be  disarmed,  at  the  same 
time  when  Papists  were  both  armed  and  employed  contrary  to  law ; 

—  by  violating  the  freedom  of  election  of  members  to  serve  in  Par- 
liament ;  —  by  prosecutions  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  for  mat- 
ters and  causes  cognizable  only  in  Parliament ;  —  and  by  divers  other 
arbitrary  and  illegal  courses  :  And  whereas,  of  late  years,  partial,  cor- 
rupt, and  unqualified  persons  have  been  returned,  and  served  on  ju- 
ries in  trials,  and  particularly  divers  jurors  in  trials  for  high  treason, 
which  were  not  freeholders ;  and  excessive  bail  hath  been  required 
of  persons  committed  in  criminal  cases,  to  elude  the  benefit  of  the 
laws  made  for  the  liberty  of  the  subjects ;  and  excessive  fines  have 
been  imposed  ;  and  illegal  and  cruel  punishments  inflicted ;  and  sev- 
eral grants  and  promises  made  of  fines  and  forfeitures,  before  any 
conviction  or  judgment  against  the  persons  upon  whom  the  same 
were  to  be  levied :  all  which  are  utterly  and  directly  contrary  to  the 
known  laws,  and  statutes,  and  freedom  of  this  realm." 

Such  were  the  articles  of  accusation  preferred,  and  it  will  be  found 
justly  preferred,  against  James.  And  thus  much  for  the  external 
facts  of  his  administration.  From  these  the  conclusion  to  the  inter- 
nal principles  of  his  conduct  is  sufficiently  clear ;  and  the  very  par- 
ticulars of  these  proceedings,  such  as  they  have  been  collected  by 
historians,  are  all  teeming  with  evidence  of  a  bigotry  and  a  rage  for 
arbitrary  power  that  advanced  to  a  state  of  perfect  infatuation. 

With  respect  to  such  facts  and  intrigues  as  were  concealed  from 
the  pubUc,  sufficient  evidence  may  be  seen  in  Dalrymple  of  the  base- 
ness of  their  nature,  and  of  their  entire  hostility  to  the  liberties,  civil 
and  religious,  of  the  English  nation.  This  evidence  has  been  made 
still  more  abundant  by  the  late  pubUcation  of  Mr.  Fox,  which  contains 
a  new  supply  of  authentic  documents  from  France,  and  the  most  in- 
teresting letters  between  the  French  king  and  his  ambassador,  Baril- 
lon.  The  instruction  to  be  derived  from  these  original  letters  is  the 
same  which  we  have  already  announced,  when  we  considered  the 
communications  that  passed  between  the  French  court  and  Charles  the 
Second.  We  are  here,  for  instance,  taught  the  importance  of  the 
two  houses  of  Parliament,  particularly  the  Commons,  —  the  arts  by 
which  they  were  to  be  managed,  the  pretences  by  which  they  were 
to  be  deceived,  the  topics  by  which  they  were  to  be  soothed,  the  prin- 
ciples by  which  they  were  to  be  betrayed,  the  expedients  by  which 
they  were  to  be  corrupted,  the  obstacle  that  their  meetings  and  de- 
bates always  opposed  to  the  designs  of  the  French  and  Engfish  courts, 

—  and,  on  the  whole,  the  impossibility  that  schemes  of  arbitrary 
power  should  succeed,  while  the  Parliaments  retained  the  control  of 
the  purse,  and  still  preserved  their  integrity. 


836  LECTURE  XX. 

Having  now,  in  a  general  manner,  considered  the  nature  of  the 
attack  that  was  made  by  James  on  the  constitution  of  the  country, 
which  is  the  first  part  of  the  subject,  we  may  next  turn  to  examine 
the  nature  of  the  resistance  that  was  opposed  to  him,  which  is  the 
second  part.  And  when  this  part  is  considered,  the  conclusion  seems 
to  be,  and  it  is  a  melancholy  conclusion,  that,  if  James  had  not  vio- 
lated the  rehgious  persuasions  of  his  subjects,  he  would  have  met  with 
no  proper  resistance  whatever,  and  that  the  English  nation,  after  all 
the  sufferings  and  exertions  of  their  ancestors,  would  at  this  period 
have  submitted  to  such  violations  of  their  civil  liberties,  and  would 
have  allowed  such  precedents  to  be  established,  that  in  the  event 
these  liberties  might  very  probably  have  been  lost,  like  those  of  the 
other  European  monarchies. 

The  natural  guardian  of  the  community  was,  in  the  first  place,  the 
Parliament.  But  so  successful  had  been  the  practices  of  the  king, 
and  of  his  predecessor,  Charles,  that,  when  he  looked  over  the  list 
of  the  returns,  he  declared  "  that  there  were  not  more  than  forty 
names  which  he  could  have  wished  not  there.''  The  Parliament  was 
suffered  to  sit  only  a  year.  Some  proper  feeling  was,  indeed,  shown, 
when  the  king  intimated  to  them  (clearly  enough)  that  he  meant  to 
maintain  a  standing  army.  But  their  expostulations  with  the  crown 
in  this  last  address  were  directed  merely  against  his  suspensions  and 
violations  of  the  law  in  favor  of  the  Papists,  —  expostulations  of  the 
most  dutiful  kind ;  to  which  his  Majesty  replied  by  saying  he  "  did 
not  expect  such  an  address  "  ;  and  when  Coke,  of  Derby,  animated 
for  the  moment  with  the  remembrance  of  the  better  days  of  the  con- 
stitution, stood  up  and  said,  "  he  hoped  they  were  all  Englishmen,  and 
were  not  to  be  frighted  out  of  their  duty  by  a  few  high  words,"  he 
was  immediately  sent  to  the  Tower  "  for  his  indecent  and  undutiful 
reflecting  on  the  king  and  this  House."  The  king  immediately  pro- 
rogued the  Parliament,  and  never  suffered  it  again  to  assemble  ;  and 
here,  for  any  thing  that  can  be  discovered  to  the  contrary,  in  the 
honest,  unpremeditated  effusion  of  a  single  representative  of  the  peo- 
ple, might  have  ended  all  the  efforts  that  could  be  made  in  the  cause 
of  the  civil  liberties  of  the  country. 

For  from  what  quarter  comes  the  next  resistance  to  the  illegal  pro- 
ceedings of  the  crown  ?  From  the  ecclesiastical  bodies,  —  the  Char- 
ter House,  the  University  of  Cambridge,  the  colleges  of  Oxford,  and 
the  seven  bishops,  the  representatives  of  the  English  clergy  ;  that  is, 
from  men  who  had  been  so  lately,  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second,  the  addressers  of  the  crown  in  the  language  of  servility, 
and  the  preachers  and  the  propagators  of  the  doctrine  of  passive 
obedience.  Happily  for  the  nation,  the  clergy  at  this  period,  vener- 
able in  their  characters  and  situation,  however  mistaken  in  tJieir  po- 
litical theories,  however  the  teachers  of  passive  obedience,  could, 
after  all,  resist,  when  their  own  acknowledged  rights,  when  their  own 


JAMES  THE  SECOND.  337 

establislied  opinions  in  religion,  were  endangered ;  and  the  communi- 
tj,  on  their  part,  could  be  roused  into  some  sense  of  their  danger, 
when  they  saw  the  most  dignified  ministers  of  their  religion,  even  the 
prelates  of  the  land,  hurried  away  by  officers  of  justice  and  consigned 
to  imprisonment  in  the  Tower.  The  king's  own  standing  army,  and 
the  very  sentinels  who  had  to  guard  these  peaceful  sufferers,  partici- 
pated with  the  multitude  in  their  sense  of  religious  horror  at  the 
king's  intolerable  violation  of  all  law,  privilege,  and  security,  —  of 
every  thing  that  was  dear  and  respectable  in  the  eyes  of  his  subjects. 

The  fact  was,  that  the  age  still  continued  to  be  an  age  of  rehgioua 
dispute.  In  the  former  part  of  the  century,  we  saw  the  sectaries, 
animated  by  the  religious  principle,  enter  into  a  contest  with  the 
Church  of  England  and  the  crown ;  we  now  see,  by  the  unexpected 
direction  of  the  same  religious  principle,  the  Church  of  England  itself 
slowly  and  heavily  moved  onward  into  an  opposition  to  the  monarch. 
Not  that  the  Church  had  begun  to  entertain  more  enlightened  no- 
tions on  the  subject  of  civil  obedience,  but  that  the  crown  had,  most 
fortunately,  allied  itself  to  Popery ;  and  the  Church,  though  it  abjur- 
ed the  doctrines  of  resistance,  however  modified,  abominated  with 
still  greater  earnestness  the  tenets  and  superstitions  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  communion.  It  is  not  too  much  to  assert,  that  the  resist- 
ance of  the  people  of  England  to  James  was  universally  of  a  religious 
nature  ;  of  a  very  large  portion  of  the  country,  the  high  Tory  and  ec- 
clesiastical part,  exclusively  so. 

But,  besides  these,  there  was  another  great  division  of  the  nation, 
of  which  the  resistance  was  not  exclusively  of  a  religious  nature. 
The  resistance  here  was  compounded ;  it  was  not  only  of  a  religious, 
but  also,  and  very  properly,  of  a  civil  nature.  This  party  was  the 
Whig  party,  the  exclusionists,  who,  like  Coke  of  Derby,  were  not  to 
be  put  down  by  high  words.  These,  however  fallen  and  trampled 
upon  since  the  victory  of  Charles  the  Second  and  the  accession  of 
James,  still  existed,  though  discountenanced  and  in  silence  ;  and  they 
must,  no  doubt,  have  observed  with  pleasure  their  cause  strengthen- 
ing as  the  king  proceeded,  and  new  prospects  arising  of  civil  happi- 
ness to  their  country  from  the  religious  fury  of  their  arbitrary  mon- 
arch, the  very  prince  whom  they  had  endeavoured,  from  an  anticipa^ 
tion  of  his  character  and  designs,  to  exclude  from  the  throne. 

So  much  for  the  resistance  which  the  king  experienced  at  home. 
The  next  great  division  of  the  subject  is  the  resistance  which  James 
experienced  from  abroad. 

Charles  the  Second,  in  a  most  fortunate  moment  of  improvidence, 
had  suffered  his  minister  Danby  to  connect  the  Prince  of  Orange 
with  the  royal  family  of  England.  If  James  had  no  male  children, 
the  wife  of  William  thus  became  first  in  succession.  Even  if  he  had, 
she  remained  so,  in  case  the  direct  male  line  was  to  be  departed 
irom. 

43  CO 


338  LECTURE  XX. 

The  great  enemy  of  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  Europe  was, 
at  that  time,  Louis  the  Fourteenth ;  their  great  hero,  William. 
William  had  seen  his  own  country  nearly  destroyed,  when  he  had  to 
defend  it  or  perish  in  the  last  dike.  The  gre?ct  assistants  of  Louis 
had  been  Charles  and  James.  Between  William  and  Louis  there 
could  be  no  peace,  and  only  the  appearance  of  amity  between  Wil- 
liam and  his  father-in-law,  James. 

Li  the  situation  of  England,  all  eyes  were  naturally  turned  upon 
this  great  and  hitherto  successful  assertor  of  the  rights  of  mankind. 
William,  on  hia  part,  could  not  but  be  perfectly  alive  to  any  repre- 
sentations that  reached  him  from  a  country  like  England. 

The  communications  that  passed  cannot  now  be  thoroughly  known. 
This  was  to  be  expected.  But  some  idea  of  them  may  be  formed 
from  the  publication  of  Dalrymple.  Much  of  the  intercourse  between 
William  and  the  patriots  must  have  been  of  a  verbal  nature,  carried 
on  by  his  two  agents,  Dyckvelt  and  Zuylistein,  men  of  address  and 
ability,  whom,  under  different  pretences,  he  sent  over  into  England. 

The  letters  in  Dalrymple  must,  of  course,  be  examined.  Dalrym- 
ple speaks  of  them  as  showing  that  "  there  are  few  great  families  in 
this  country,  who  will  not  find  that  their  ancestors,  of  whatever  party 
they  were,  had  a  hand  in  the  Revolution,  in  one  way  or  other."*  To 
me  they  appear  to  show  nothing  of  the  sort ;  making  every  allowance 
for  the  necessity  of  concealment  and  caution,  they  are  neither  so 
many  nor  so  strong  as  might  have  been  expected ;  and  it  is  not  a 
little  remarkable  that  the  great  families  of  this  country  have  never 
produced  any  letters  or  memoirs  to  illustrate  the  more  secret  history 
of  these  extraordinary  times.  I  am  not  aware  of  any  means  that  we 
have  to  gratify  the  curiosity  with  which  we  so  naturally  turn  to  in- 
quire after  the  more  secret  intrigues  that  concurred  in  producing  this 
memorable  event  of  the  Revolution. 

Among  the  letters  produced  by  Dalrymple,  there  are  more  from 
the  Tory  lords  than  could  have  been  looked  for ;  but  the  association 
for  joining  William,  if  he  came  over,  was,  after  all,  not  sent  till  the 
end  of  June,  1688;  —  he  landed  in  November;  —  and  was  at  last 
only  signed  in  cipher  by  four  lords,  Devonshire,  Danby,  Shrews- 
bury, and  Lumley;  two  commoners,  Mr.  Sidney  and  Admiral  Rus- 
sell ;  and  one  bishop,  the  Abdiel  of  the  Bench,  Compton,  then  Bishop 
of  London. 

The  seven  patriots  just  mentioned  (there  were  no  more),  to  whom 
we  are  so  deeply  indebted,  assure  William  in  their  letter,  that  "  there 
are  nineteen  parts  of  twenty  of  the  people  throughout  the  kingdom 

who  are  desirous  of  a  change ; that  much  the  greatest  part 

of  the  nobility  and  gentry  are  as  much  dissatisfied ; and  very 

many  of  the  common  soldiers  do  daily  show  such  an  aversion  to  the 
Popish  rehgion,  that  there  is  the  greatest  probability  imaginable  of 
great  numbers  of  deserters  which  would  come  from  them  [the  gov- 


JAMES   THE  SECOND.  339 

ernment] ,  should  there  be  such  an  occasion ;  and  amongst  the  sea- 
men, it  is  almost  certain,  there  is  not  one  in  ten  who  would  do  them 
any  service  in  such  a  war." 

But  here  we  ought  certainly  to  ask,  How,  after  all,  was  the  Prince 
of  Orange  to  attempt  any  regular  enterprise  against  the  crown  of 
England  ?  Observe  his  difficulties,  and  you  will  then  understand  his 
merit.  He  was  at  the  head  of  only  a  small  repubUc  ;  that  republic 
had  been  reduced,  but  a  few  years  before,  to  the  very  last  extremi- 
ties by  the  arms  of  Louis.  How  was  William  to  prepare  an  expedi- 
tion, and  not  be  observed  by  the  French  and  EngUsh  monarchs  ?  how 
to  prosecute  it,  and  not  be  destroyed  by  their  power  ?  If  he  attacked 
England  with  a  small  force,  how  was  he  to  resist  James  ?  if  with  a 
large  one,  how  was  Holland,  in  his  absence,  to  resist  Louis  ?  In 
either  case,  how  was  he  to  extricate  himself  from  the  English  and 
French  fleets,  which  might  prevent  his  landing  in  the  first  place,  or 
at  least  render  his  return  impossible  in  the  second  ?  How  could  he 
expect  that  the  English,  who  had  so  long  contended  for  the  empire 
of  the  seas  with  their  great  rivals,  the  Dutch,  would  forego  the  tri- 
umph of  a  naval  victory,  if  it  was  once  put  within  their  reach  ?  How 
was  William  to  trust  to  the  representations  of  the  English  patriots, 
who  might  be  suspected  of  judging  of  their  countrymen  through  the 
medium  of  their  own  wishes  and  resentments  ?  How  was  he  to  ex- 
pect, even  if  he  landed,  that  the  gentry  and  nobility  would  hazard 
their  lives  and  fortunes  by  appearing  in  arms,  when  only  seven  of 
them  had  as  yet  ventured,  by  any  distinct  act,  to  incur  the  guilt  of 
treason  ?  What  spirit  of  freedom,  much  more  of  resistance,  had 
the  nation  shown,  now  for  seven  years,  since  the  political  victory  of 
Charles  the  Second  over  the  exclusionists  ?  Monmouth,  the  idol  of 
the  English  populace,  had  just  been  destroyed  by  James  without  dif- 
ficulty ;  so  had  Argyle.  What  was  to  be  expected  from  a  country 
that  was  loud,  indeed,  in  their  abuse  of  Popery,  but  whose  pulpits, 
and  public  meetings,  and  courts  of  justice,  resounded  with  the  doc- 
trines of  passive  obedience,  and  whose  very  Parliaments  seemed  to 
admit  the  same  fatal  principles  ? 

Put  the  case,  that  William  should  even  succeed  so  far  as  to  oblige 
James  to  call  a  Parliament,  give  up  his  illegal  pretensions,  and  prom- 
ise conformity  to  the  laws  in  future.  To  what  end  or  purpose,  as  far 
as  William  himself  was  concerned  ?  what  benefit  was  to  accrue  to 
him^  but  the  mere  liberty  of  returning  ?  while  James  was  to  be  left, 
in  silence  and  at  his  leisure,  to  wait  for  more  favorable  times,  watch 
his  opportunities,  recover  his  authority,  and  persecute  and  destroy, 
one  by  one,  all  who  had  contributed  to  resist  or  modify  his  preroga- 
tive. 

It  is  by  reflections  of  this  kind  alone,  I  must  repeat,  that  we  can 
be  taught  duly  to  estimate  the  merits  of  William.  The  difficulties  of 
the  enterprise  show  the  greatness  of  his  genius,  and  the  extent  of  our 


340  LECTURE  XX. 

obligation.  As  far  as  the  Continent  was  concerned,  some  idea  may 
be  formed  of  the  merits  of  William  from  a  chapter  in  Somerville 
(the  eighth),  and  they  may  be  still  further  investigated  in  Tindal. 
It  is  true,  that  many  favorable  circumstances  concurred  to  enable 
"William  to  combine  the  discordant  materials  around  him  to  his  pur- 
pose ;  but  the  sagacity,  activity,  and  steadiness,  with  which  he  avail- 
ed himself  of  every  advantage  which  fortune  offered  him,  were  above 
all  praise. 

So  much  fop  the  resistance  to  James  from  abroad,  preparatory  to 
the  enterprise  of  "William. 

Some  assistance  may  be  derived  from  Burnet,  particularly  in  the 
next  stage  of  our  inquiry,  the  enterprise  itself.  Burnet  had  all  the 
merits,  and  all  the  faults,  of  an  ardent,  impetuous,  headstrong  man, 
whose  mind  was  honest,  and  whose  objects  were  noble.  Whatever 
he  reports  himself  to  have  heard  or  seen,  the  reader  may  be  assured 
he  really  did  hear  or  see.  But  we  must  receive  his  representations 
and  conclusions  with  that  caution  which  must  ever  be  observed  when 
we  listen  to  the  relation  of  a  warm  and  busy  partisan,  whatever  be 
his  natural  integrity  and  good  sense.  He  is  often  censured  and 
sometimes  corrected  ;  but  the  fact  seems  to  be,  that,  without  his 
original,  and  certainly  honest  account,  we  should  know  little  about 
the  events  and  affairs  he  professes  to  explain.  Many  of  the  writers 
who  are  not  very  willing  to  receive  his  assistance  would  be  totally  at 
a  loss  without  it. 

One  of  the  first  remarks  to  be  made  on  this  enterprise  is,  that, 
with  an  armament  that  stretched  out  to  the  distance  of  twenty  miles, 
William  was  not  prevented  by  the  English  fleet  from  landing  at  Tor- 
bay. 

But  the  second  remark  is  most  highly  discreditable  to  the  EngHsh 
nation.  WiUiam  landed,  and  was  not  joined ;  and  seems  to  have  re- 
mained a  whole  week  at  and  about  Exeter,  without  any  material  as- 
sistance or  countenance  either  from  the  clergy  or  gentry,  nobility  or 
people.  It  is  well  that  he  did  not  retire,  as  he  once  thought  to  have 
done,  while  to  retire  was  in  his  power.  But  perhaps  it  struck  him 
(very  properly),  that,  though  nothing  was  done  for  him,  nothing  was 
done  against  him ;  that  the  king,  with  his  thirty  thousand  men,  did 
not,  after  all.  appear  and  drive  him  and  his  fourteen  thousand  for- 
eigners into  the  sea. 

We  know  something,  but  not  much,  of  the  secret  history  of  the 
court  during  this  critical  period. 

There  is  a  Diary  by  the  second  Earl  of  Clarendon,  published  with 
his  letters.  Clarendon  was  connected  with  the  royal  family,  and 
seems  to  have  put  down,  from  time  to  time,  some  of  the  facts  that 
passed  before  him,  and  some  of  the  thoughts  that  occurred  to  him. 
Any  genuine  living  account  of  this  sort,  however  scanty,  or  by  what- 
ever person  made,  cannot  be  otherwise  than  interesting.    It  is  mixed 


JAMES  THE  SECOND.  341 

up,  too,  with  all  the  particulars  of  his  own  concerns  and  petty  en- 
gagements ;  and  what  little,  therefore,  is  said  must  be  considered  as 
said  without  art  or  affectation,  and  therefore  the  proper  subject  ^f 
observation. 

The  Diary  begins  to  contain  passages  of  interest  at  the  forty-first 
page,  in  May,  1688.  What  appears  confirms  the  general  accounts 
given  by  the  historians. 

The  great  question  is,  why  the  king  did  not  take  ,more  vigorous 
measures  to  prepare  for  the  approach  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  ;  or 
afterwards,  when  the  Prince  really  had  landed,  to  drive  him  out  of 
the  country. 

"  September  24,  Monday,"  says  Lord  Clarendon,  "  I  went  to  the 
king's  levee He  told  me  the  Dutch  were  now  coming  to  in- 
vade England  in  good  earnest.  I  presumed  to  ask  if  he  really  be- 
lieved it ;  to  which  the  king  replied  with  warmth,  '  Do  I  see  you,  my 

lord  ? ' '  And  now,  my  lord,'  said  he,  '  I  shall  see  what  the 

Church  of  England  men. will  do.'  "    Again  :  "  October  16,*  Tuesday, 

I  was  at  the  king's  levee His  Majesty  told  me  he  had  letters 

yesterday  from  Holland,  that  the  Dutch  troops  were  all  embarked," 
&c.,  &c.  "  '  You  will  all  find,'  "  added  the  king,  "  '  the  Prince  of 
Orange  a  worse  man  than  Cromwell.'  "  So  that  the  king  seems  to 
have  been  fully  aware,  though  late,  of  his  danger. 

At  last  appeared  the  Declaration  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and 
then  the  king  perceived  that  the  ground  was  hollow  under  him. 
"  November  2,  Friday.  The  Archbishop,"  says  the  Diary,  "  and 
Bishop  of  London  were  with  the  king,  having  been  sent  for  ;  there 
were  likewise  present  the  Bishops  of  Durham,  Chester,  and  St.  Da- 
vid's. The  king  showed  them  the  Prince  of  Orange's  Declaration, 
and  bade  Lord  Preston  read  that  clause  which  says,  that  he  was  in- 
vited over  by  several  of  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal.  They  all, 
as  I  have  been  told,  assured  the  king  the  contrary.  The  king  said 
he  believed  them,  and  was  very  well  satisfied.  He  told  them  he 
thought  it  necessary  they  should  make  some  declaration,  expressing 
their  dislike  of  the  Prince's  coming'  in  this  manner,  and  that  they 
should  bring  it  to  him  as  soon  as  was  possible."  But  the  bishops, 
after  all,  never  did  nor  would  express  any  such  dislike. 

At  the  end  of  this  volume,  in  the  appendix,  there  are  some  very 
curious  particulars  of  what  passed  between  the  king  and  the  bishops 
on  the  subject  of  distributing  and  reading  his  Majesty's  Declaration 
of  Indulgence ;  and  again,  on  the  subject  last  mentioned,  when  the 
king  required  from  them  an  abhorrence  of  the  designs  of  the  Prince 
of  Orange,  the  particulars  are  remarkable.  He  seems  to  have  begun 
with  Compton,  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  to  have  closeted  him  first. 
This  bishop  had,  in  fact,  signed  the  invitation  to  the  Prince  of  Or- 
ange, it  may  be  remembered  ;  he  was  one  of  the  seven.  ^  The  king 
read  to  him  the  short  paragraph  in  the  Prince's  Declaration,  where 

cc* 


842  LECTURE  XX. 

fehe  lords  spiritual,  as  well  as  temporal,  are  mentioned,  as  having  in- 
vited him  over.  The  moment  must  have  been  trying ;  but  the  prel- 
ate had  been  a  soldier  in  his  youth,  and  seems  to  have  faced  the  en- 
emy with  steadiness  in  the  first  place,  and  then  to  have  drawn  off  his 
forces  with  all  due  expedition  and  decorum.  "  I  am  confident,"  he 
replied  to  the  king,  "that  the  rest  of  the  bishops  would  as  readily 
answer  in  the  negative  as  myself."  His  Majesty  then  said  he  be- 
lieved them  all  innocent,  but  he  expected  a  declaration  of  that  inno- 
cence, and  an  abhorrence.  "  That  is  a  matter  to  be  considered," 
said  the  prelate.  It  was  considered;  conferences  were  held.  A  very 
singular  dialogue  followed  between  his  Majesty  and  his  prelates,  and 
it  might  soon  have  been  very  clear  to  the  monarch,  that  the  trial  of 
seven  of  them  in  Westminster  Hall,  and  the  imprisonment  in  the 
Tower,  whatever  might  be  the  passive  nature  of  their  obedience, 
neither  could  nor  would  be  forgotten,  when  active  exertions  were  re- 
quired from  them. 

James,'  too,  must  have  perceived,  or  thought  that  he  perceived, 
that  his  army  could  not  be  trusted ;  and  that,  however  he  might  de- 
spise their  theological  learning,  they  would  probably  think  it  a  point 
of  honor  not  to  fight  against  what  they  considered  as  their  rehgion. 

On  the  whole,  it  appears  from  the  Diary,  that  the  king  had  re- 
ceived the  account  of  the  Prince's  landing  the  day  after  he  had 
effected  it,  —  that  is,  on  the  6th  of  November,  —  and  that  it  was  not 
till  the  evening  of  the  17th  that  he  set  off  to  join  his  army  at  Sarum. 

There  is  a  book  sometimes  quoted  by  historians,  —  the  Memoirs 
of  Sir  John  Reresby  ;  it  is  worth  reading.  Sir  John  was  attached 
to  the  royal  family,  and  had  always  Hved  about  the  court.  He  says 
what  he  has  to  say  with  ease  and  without  affectation,  never  enters 
into  any  profound  or  long  discussions,  but  gives  an  account  of  his 
life  and  proceedings  in  Parliament  in  much  the  same  agreeable,  sen 
sible  manner  that  a  man  of  this  character  would  tell  his  story  in  con- 
versation, to  any  of  his  friends  to  whom  he  chose  to  be  communica- 
tive, if  not  entirely  confidential.     Sir  John's  words  are  these :  — 

''  The  king, not  knowing  whom  to  trust,  returned  to  Andover 

on  the  24th  [of  November],  where  he  sat  at  supper  with  Prince 
George  of  Denmark,  his  son-in-law,  and  the  Duke  of  Ormond  ;  but,  to 
the  surprise  of  all  men,  they  both  deserted  him" that  very  night  and 
withdrew  to  the  Prince,  together  with  others  of  good  note  and  ac- 
count  Now  the  numbel"  of  all  that  thus  forsook  the  king  did 

not  as  yet  amount  to  one  thousand ;  but  such  a  mutual  jealousy  now 
took  birth,  that  there  was  no  relying  on  any  one,  no  knowing  who 
would  be  true  and  honest  to  the  cause ;  wherefore  the  army  and  ar- 
tillery were  ordered  to  retire  back  towards  London,  where  his  Majes- 
ty arrived  on  the  26th."     Such  is  the  account  of  Sir  John. 

But  for  the  king  to  fall  back  on  London,  without  opposing  the 
progress  of  those  whom  he  had  considered  in  his  proclamation  as 


JAMES  THE  SECOND.  343 

rebels  and  invaders,  was  to  leave  his  partisans  no  hope,  and  his  ene- 
mies no  fear. 

The  Prince  had  landed  on  t!ie  5th,  but  it  was  not  till  the  15th  that 
the  gentlemen  of  Somersetshire  and  Dorsetshire  had  joined  him  in 
sufficient  numbers  to  be  collected  together  in  a  body,  and  to  be  pub- 
licly addressed.  It  was  not  till  the  16th  that  Lord  Delamere  ap- 
peared in  favor  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  Cheshire ;  only  at  the 
same  instant  that  the  Earl  of  Devonshire  declared  for  him  at  Derby. 
It  was  not  till  the  22d  that  York  was  surprised  by  Lord  Danby,  and 
about  the  same  time  that  a  great  number  of  the  nobility  and  gentry 
at  Nottingham  published  the  resolution  to  join  the  Prince  of  Orange, 
"  for  the  recovery,"  as  they  said,  "  of  their  almost  ruined  laws,  liber- 
ties, and  religion." 

Not  only  were  the  people  of  England  thus  tardy  (so  tardy,  that, 
in  any  ordinary  case  of  tyranny  in  the  monarch,  the  fate  of  the  con- 
test would  in  the  mean  time  have  been  decided),  but  it  is  observable, 
that  it  is  only  in  this  last  public  paper  from  Nottingham  that  the 
feelings  of  men  who  thought  they  had  been  insulted  as  well  as  injured 
really  appear.  In  this  Nottingham  manifesto  some  flashings  of  the 
spirit  of  Colonel  Hutchinson  are  still  visible.  "  We  own  it  rebellion," 
they  say,  "  to  resist  a  king  that  governs  by  law,  but  he  has  been  al- 
ways accounted  a  tyrant  that  has  made  his  will  his  law.  — They  hoped 
all  good  Protestant  subjects  would,  with  their  lives  and  fortunes,  be 
assistant  to  them,  and  not  be  bugbeared  with  the  opprobrious  terms 
of  rebels,  by  which  the  court  would  fright  them  to  become  perfect 
slaves  to  their  tyrannical  insolences  and  usurpations." 

Had  the  general  strain  of  the  papers  that  were  published  at  this 
time  been  of  this  kind,  been  as  worthy  of  Englishmen  as  was  this,  the 
Prince  of  Orange  could  have  found  no  material  difficulty,  whatever 
had  been  the  measures  which  James  pursued.  But  the  general  ex- 
pression of  the  public  sentiment  was  of  the  most  distant  and  temper- 
ate kind :  what  was  called  for  was  the  Protestant  religion,  and  the 
laws  and  liberties  of  the  country ;  but  above  all,  the  summoning  of  a 
free  Parliament,  to  which  the  settlement  of  every  difficulty  and  griev- 
ance was  to  be  entirely  intrusted.  If  we  consider  the  offensive  out- 
rages of  James,  we  must  allow  that  the  effect  of  the  Civil  Wars  was 
now  discernible  in  the  temperament  of  the  nation ;  and  they  who  in- 
sist, that,  after  a  convulsion,  the  restoration  of  the  old  dynasty  is 
the  worst  calamity  that  can  happen  to  the  liberties  of  a  country,  may 
here  find  no  inconsiderable  illustration  of  the  general  propriety  of 
this  opinion. 

Had  James  stood  firm  and  called  a  Pariiament,  and  abode  by  the 
event,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  material  advantage  could  have  ulti- 
mately resulted  to  the  constitution  of  the  country;  but,  most  happily, 
the  same  civil  wars  that  so  impressed  upon  the  people  of  England  the 
teirors  of  anarchy  and  mihtary  usurpation  contributed  no  less  forcibly 


844  LECTURE  XX. 

to  impress  on  the  mind  of  James  the  images  of  the  trial  and  execu^ 
tion  of  the  monarch.  Bj  a  most  fortunate  want  of  political  sagacity, 
he  thought  it  his  best  policy  to  fly  from  the  country,  and  leave  it  in 
confusion,  —  the  more  complete,  he  thought,  the  better.  The  result, 
he  supposed,  would  be,  that  he  should  be  recalled  to  settle  it,  or  that, 
at  all  events,  he  might  thus  preserve  himseff  and  the  royal  family, 
and,  by  the  assistance  of  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  Louis,  be  hereafter 
in  a  condition  to  return  to  it. 

Lord  Clarendon  was  attached  to  James,  Burnet  to  William.  From 
a  comparison  of  the  accounts  of  both  a  very  sufficient  idea  may  be 
formed  of  the  very  singular  situation  of  every  thing,  just  before  and 
during  the  Interregnum. 

Lord  Clarendon  and  others  were  aware  of  the  mistake  which  James 
was  committing,  and  they  labored  to  prevent  it.  By  an  extraordi- 
nary indulgence  of  fortune,  James  had  to  commit  his  mistake  not 
only  once,  but  even  a  second  time ;  he  fled,  and  was  stopped  at  Fe- 
versham ;  he  returned  to  London,  and  retired  once  more.  After  fly- 
ing the  first  time,  he  was  alarmed  into  a  flight  the  second ;  and  it  is 
evident,  that,  if  he  had  on  the  last  occasion  resisted,  he  could  not 
have  been  compelled  to  fly,  and  that  the  Prince  and  the  cause  of  the 
Revolution  might  soon  have  been  in  a  state  of  the  most  irretrievable 
embarrassment  and  ruin. 

The  prudence  and  skill  of  William  continued  as  perfect  as  they 
were  in  James  defective.  A  House  of  Commons  was  peaceably 
formed,  and  the  convention  of  the  two  estates  assembled. 

And  now  begins  the  last  and  not  the  least  curious  scene  of  all,  — 
in  some  respects  the  most  so ;  for  what  was  now  the  result  ?  The 
Church  party  and  the  Tory  party,  when  James  was  gone  and  the 
danger  removed,  renewed  their  doctrines  of  passive  obedience  and 
the  indefeasible  tenure  of  the  crown.  Scripture,  law,  custom,  seemed 
equally  to  confirm  their  tenets.  "  Be  subject  to  the  higher  powers"  ; 
"  The  king  can  do  no  wrong  "  ;  "  The  crown  of  England  never  was 
nor  ever  can  be  considered  as  elective";  —  these  were  their  posi- 
tions, and  these  the  Whig  party  and  the  friends  of  the  Prince  knew 
not  well  how  to  deny ;  but  they  could  see  plainly  that  all  was  lost,  if 
they  were  acted  upon.  From  the  first,  therefore,  they  had  seized 
upon  the  mistake  of  the  king,  his  departure  from  the  country,  and 
they  converted  it  into  an  argument  which,  upon  every  hypothesis, 
they  might,  as  they  conceived,  fairly  urge.  They  insisted  that  it  was 
an  abdication  of  the  crown,  and  that  no  expedient  remained  but  to 
fill  up  the  throne,  which  had  thus  become  vacant. 

Most  fortunately,  it  happened  that  the  gentry  of  England  had 
their  understandings  less  bewildered  by  the  abstractions  of  divinity 
and  law  than  the  nobility  and  bishops.  In  the  Commons,  the  Whig 
party  were  nearly  two  to  one  ;  however,  after  a  very  curious  debate, 
they  thought  proper  to  produce  only  the  following  heterogeneous  and 


THE  REVOLUTION.  345 

inconsistent  vote  :  — "  That  King  James  the  Second,  having  endeav- 
oured to  subvert  the  constitution  of  the  kingdom  by  breaking  the 
original  contract  between  king  and  people,  and  by  the  advice  of  Jes- 
uits and  other  wicked  persons  having  violated  the  fundamental  laws, 
and  having  withdrawn  himself  out  of  this  kingdom,  has  abdicated  the 
government,  and  that  the  throne  is  thereby  vacant." 

We  will  observe  for  a  moment  the  words  here  used :  "  That  King 
James  the  Second,  having  endeavoured  to  subvert  the  constitution  of 
the  kingdom  by  breaking  the  original  contract  between  king  and  peo- 
ple," (so  far  we  have  the  great  interests  of  civil  Hberty  and  the  Whig 
principles  making  their  appearance,)  "  and  by  the  advice  of  Jesuits 
and  other  wicked  persons  having  violated  the  fundamental  laws," 
(here  we  have  the  religious  part  of  the  contest,)  — but  in  consequence 
of  all  this,  —  what  ?  that  his  Majesty  had  forfeited  his  right  to  the 
crown  ?  that  the  next  in  the  Protestant  succession  should  be  called 
to  the  throne  ?  are  these  the  words  that  follow,  —  as  apparently  they 
ought  ?  No  ;  the  words  that  follow  are  these  :  "  and  having  with- 
drawn himself  out  of  this  kingdom,"  (not  voluntarily,  as  every  one 
knew,)  "  has  abdicated  the  government,"  (meaning,  by  the  word  "  ab- 
dicated," to  imply  that  he  had  done  a  legal  act,  that  he  had  formally 
divested  himself  of  the  crown)  ;  and  then,  at  last,  came  the  necessa- 
ry conclusion  of  the  whole,  "  and  that  the  throne  is  thereby  vacant." 

As  the  Whigs  were,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  stronger  par- 
ty, and,  after  asserting  their  principle  of  the  original  contract,  had 
chosen  not  to  push  it  to  its  logical  conclusions,  which  would  have 
been  so.  offensive  to  the  Tories,  but  to  rest  the  vacancy  of  the  throne 
on  the  departure  of  the  king,  the  Tories  of  the  lower  house  probably 
thought  that  no  better  terms  were  to  be  had ;  and  after  a  debate  of 
four  hours,  the  motion  which  the  Tories  made  was  only  for  an  ad- 
journment, and  this  was  with  some  hurry  and  noise  overruled,  and 
the  original  vote,  without  a  division,  was  carried,  and  sent  up  to  the 
Lords. 

Not  only  Burnet  should  now  be  consulted,  but  by  all  means  the 
Journals  of  the  Lords,  or  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History,  and  Clar- 
endon's Diary. 

The  vote  no  sooner  reached  the  upper  house  than  it  was  imme- 
diately separated  into  its  component  parts,  and  debated  clause  by 
clause. 

From  the  Journals  it  appears  that  the  House  had  alrtady  taken 
due  pains  to  collect  all  their  members ;  some  were  sick,  some  out  of 
the  kingdom,  some  absent,  probably  by  design. 

But  before  the  vote  of  the  Commons  was  debated  paragraph  by 
paragraph,  the  first  effort  of  the  Tories  was  to  slip  aside,  if  possible, 
from  these  disagreeable  positions  of  the  originrJ  contract  and  viola- 
tion of  fundamental  laws,  and,  without  expressly  saying  whether  the 
throne  was  or  was  not  vacant,  to  obtain  a  vote  for.  a  regency.  On 
44 


346  LECTURE  XX. 

this  occasion  the  Whigs  overpowered  their  opponents,  and  maintained 
the  fortunes  of  the  Revolution,  only  by  a  majority  of  two  voices, — 
fifty-one  to  forty-nine.  The  names  of  the  members  present  are  in  the 
Journals ;  the  whole  number  in  a  former  page ;  the  names  of  the 
minority  are  in  Clarendon's  Diary :  so  that  every  thing  respecting 
these  important  votes,  how  each  peer  voted  or  conducted  himself, 
may  be  ascertained.  Lord  Churchill,  afterwards  the  great  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  and  a  few  others,  chose  to  be  indisposed ;  Bancroft,  the 
archbishop,  in  like  manner,  to  be  absent.  Of  the  fourteen  bishops 
that  attended,  two  only,  Bristol  and  London,  voted  with  the  Whigs. 

On  the  next  sitting,  the  Lords  debated,  in  the  first  place,  the 
great  Whig  doctrine  of  the  original  contract  between  the  king  and 
people,  and  the  afiirmative  (that  there  was  such  an  original  contract) 
was  carried  by  a  majority  of  seven,  —  fifty-three  to  forty-six.  The 
Whigs,  therefore,  were  gaining  ground. 

But  here  their  triumphs  ended :  they  could  not  get  the  word  "  ab- 
dicated "  carried ;  nor,  the  next  day,  that  the  Prince  and  Princess 
of  Orange  should  be  declared  king  and  queen,  which  was  lost  by  five, 
forty-seven  to  fifty-two;  nor,  "that  the  throne  was  vacant," — lost 
by  eleven  (forty-four  to  fifty-five,  —  not  forty-one  to  fifty-five,  as  it  is 
in  Lord  Clarendon,  probably  by  a  mistake  of  the  figure).  The  word 
"  deserted  "  was  substituted  for  the  word  "  abdicated  "  ;  the  clause 
about  the  vacancy  of  the  throne  omitted ;  and  in  this  state  the  vote 
returned  to  the  Commons. 

But  the  Commons  could  not  see  the  propriety  of  these  alterations ; 
a  conference,  therefore,  took  place. 

The  discussion  which  took  place  on  this  remarkable  occasion  is  rep- 
resented by  some  writers,  and  even  by  Hume,  as  turning  (to  use  his 
own  words)  upon  "  frivolous  topics,"  and  as  "  more  resembling  the 
verbal  disputes  of  the  schools  than  the  solid  reasonings  of  statesmen 
and  legislators."  They  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  veryjuet- 
aphysical  nature  of  Mr.  Hume's  most  favorite  compositions  will  be 
somewhat  surprised  at  this  sudden  impatience  and  dislike  of  those 
verbal  disputes,  as  he  terms  them,  or  rather,  as  he  ought  to  think 
them,  of  those  explanations  and  distinctions  of  words  and  phrases, 
without  which  no  subject  of  importance  ever  was  or  can  be  thorough- 
ly examined. 

This  conference  between  the  Lords  and  Commons,  far  from  being 
cast  asid(%as  the  mere  idle  discussion  of  unmeaning  subtil  ties,  should, 
I  conceive,  be  considered  with  the  utmost  attention.  It  is  given  by 
Cobbett.  Some  of  the  first  men  the  country  has  produced  were  en- 
gaged in  it ;  the  occasion  was  the  most  important  that  has  ever  oc- 
curred ;  and  the  debate  itself  will  be  found  in  no  respect  unworthy 
of  the  character  and  abilities  of  the  speakers. 

The  value  of  this  conference  appears  to  consist  in  this :  that  it  is  a 
development  of  those  principles  which  must  always,  more  or  less, 


THE  REVOLUTION.  Ml 

exist  in  a  mixed  monarchical  government,  —  of  the  principles,  and 
of  their  consequences  when  applied  to  practice.  And  such  a  devel- 
opment is  and  must  ever  be  of  importance,  not  only  to  ourselves, 
but  to  all  who  are  ever  to  live  under  any  reasonably  mixed  form  of 
government ;  because  the  laws  and  ordinances  of  any  such  form  of 
government  can  never  speak,  any  more  than  our  own  do,  of  resist- 
ance to  authority,  of  dethroning  kings,  of  trying,  of  punishing  them, 
of  the  paramount  authority  of  the  public,  and  other  political  positions 
and  maxims  of  the  same  kind.  Such  can  never  be  the  language  of 
the  constitution  of  a  country :  but  if  it  be  thence  inferred,  that  no 
language  but  the  ordinary  language  of  the  constitution  is  ever  to  be 
used,  that  no  maxims  but  the  ordinary  maxims  of  the  laws  are  ever 
to  be  proceeded  upon,  then  these  memorable  debates,  and  above  all, 
this  memorable  conference,  will  be  of  value,  to  show  in  what  inextri- 
cable, what  fatal,  perplexity  a  nation  and  its  statesmen  must  be  left, 
if,  when  its  liberties  are  invaded,  they  will  not  submit  to  acknowledge, 
that,  however  sacred  the  general  rules  of  hereditary  monarchy  or 
civil  obedience  may  be,  exceptions  must  be  sometimes  admitted,  and, 
whether  admitted  or  not  in  theory,  must  at  all  events  be  sometimes 
proceeded  upon  in  practice. 

On  the  whole,  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  Whig  leaders  con- 
ducted themselves  through  all  these  transactions  with  a  temper  which 
no  political  party  ever  before  showed ;  they  considered  their  oppo- 
nents neither  as  necessarily  knaves  nor  certainly  fools,  neither  as 
combined  to  destroy  their  country  nor  as  holding  principles  inconsis- 
tent with  society,  —  compliments  that  were,  no  doubt,  paid  them  out 
of  doors  very  liberally ;  but  no  impatient  expressions  or  accusations 
of  the  kind  seem  to  have  escaped  them  :  while,  on  the  contrary,  the 
Tory  lords  were  insulted  repeatedly  in  their  passage  to  the  house ; 
the  public  in  London  (for  the  Tories  were  probably  predominant  in 
the  country)  intimated  to  them  very  plainly,  that  they  considered 
themselves  as  somewhat  forgotten  in  their  debates.  The  Whig  leadr 
ers,  however,  contrived,  by  every  possible  forbearance  and  palliation, 
to  render  the  acquiescence  of  the  Tories  in  the  new  settlement  of  the 
government  as  little  offensive  to  their  particular  principles,  and  there- 
fore to  their  feelings  of  honor,  as  possible  ;  a  wisdom,  this,  very  rare, 
and  at  all  times  very  desirable. 

Great  bodies  of  men  seldom  understand  very  thoroughly  those 
principles  of  religion  and  politics  which  they  profess,  or  rather  never 
understand  the  real  value  of  the  difference  that  exists  between  them 
and  their  opponents  on  these  subjects ;  but  they  can  always  compre- 
hend fully  that  it  is  dishonorable  for  them  to  desert,  in  time  of  trial, 
what  they  have  been  accustomed  to  profess,  and  therefore,  right  or 
wrong,  this  they  will  not  do.  Here  lay  the  great  merit  of  the  Whigs, 
—  their  temper,  their  spirit  of  conciliation,  their  practical  philosophy, 
their  genuine  wisdom,  so  different  from  the  wisdom  of  those  who,  on 


848  LECTURE  XX. 

occasions  of  political  or  other  weighty  discussion,  ignorant  of  the 
business  of  the  world,  and  unfitted  for  it,  bustle  about  with  impor- 
tance, displaying  all  the  triumphs  of  their  logic,  and  hurrying  their 
opponents  and  themselves  into  difficulties  and  disgrace,  from  the  very 
offensiveness  of  their  manner,  and  from  their  vain  and  puerile  confi- 
dence in  what  they  think  the  cogency  of  reason  and  the  evidence  of 
truth. 

And  now  comes  forward  the  great  merit  of  WiUiam  himself.  AVil- 
liam  had  done  every  thing,  from  the  first,  which  he  understood  to  be 
consistent  with  the  liberties  and  laws  of  the  country ;  he  then,  waited 
the  event.  But  he  perceived  that  the  parties  were  far  more  nearly 
balanced  than  he  had  probably  at  first  supposed ;  that,  if  either  of 
these  parties  insisted  on  their  own  opinion,  in  defiance  of  the  other,  a 
civil  war  might  ensue  ;  that  the  Tories  were,  in  practice  at  least,  in- 
difierent  to  the  service  he  had  rendered  them,  now  that  they  were 
safe  from  Popery ;  that  the  Whigs  themselves  seemed  to  be  thinking 
more  anxiously  of  the  maxims  of  the  constitution  of  England  than  of 
what  was  due  to  the  great  cause  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  not 
only  in  England,  but  in  Europe ;  and  that  no  one  could  be  found 
who  appeared  sufficiently  impressed  with  what  was  owing  both  to  the 
States  of  Holland  and  to  himself,  for  embarking  in  an  enterprise 
originally  so  unpromising,  always  so  perilous,  and  hitherto  so  success- 
fully conducted. 

That  William  had  a  perfect  right  to  be  considerably  out  of  humor 
cannot  be  doubted ;  and  if  he  had  not  expressed  his  own  sentiments 
at  a  proper  juncture,  and  given  the  weight  of  his  decision  to  the  ar- 
guments and  expostulations  of  the  Whigs,  it  is  impossible  to  say  how 
long  and  how  preposterously  the  Tories  might  have  persevered  in 
their  most  impracticable  opinions,  and  again,  how  long  the  moderation 
and  caution  of  the  Whigs  might  have  been  able  to  sustain  itself,  and 
might  have  continued  to  maintain  the  peace  of  the  community,  —  in 
)ther  words,  whether  a  civil  war  might  not  have  been  the  result,  or 
at  least  the  return  of  James.  What  passed  on  this  occasion  between 
William  and  the  Whig  leaders  is  well  known.  "  They  might  have  a 
regent,"  he  told  them,  "  no  doubt,  if  they  thought  proper,  but  he 
would  not  be  that  regent ;  they  might  wish  him,  perhaps,  to  reign  in 
right,  and  during  the  lifetime,  of  his  wife,  but  he  would  submit  to 
nothing  of  the  sort ;  and  he  should  certainly,  in  either  case,  return 
to  Holland,  and  leave  them  to  settle  their  government  in  any  manner 
they  thought  best."  The  conclusion  from  all  this  was  plain  :  that  he 
and  the  Princess  were  to  be  raised  to  the  throne  ;  and  that  he  chose, 
himself,  to  possess  the  crown,  as  if  it  had  regularly  descended  to  him, 
or  not  at  all. 

This  conduct  in  William  was  at  the  time  and  has  often  since  been 
branded  by  many  reasoners  and  writers  as  not  a  little  base  and  crim- 
inal :  criminal,  from  the  violation  of  duty  to  James,  his  father-in-laW; 


THE  REVOLUTION.  349 

jf 

wliom  he  was  accused  of  having  thus  dethroned ;  base,  from  the  proof 
thus  exhibited,  that  from  the  first  he  had  been  actuatqd  merely  by 
selfish  ambition,  —  that,  from  the  first,  he  had  but  dissembled  his  real 
designs  on  the  crown,  —  that,  from  the  first,  every  thing  he  had  been 
doing  was  in  direct  contradiction  to  all  he  had  professed  and  avowed 
in  his  own  Declaration. 

To  consider  this  subject  for  a  moment.  —  In  his  First  Declaration 
he  had  said  that  his  expedition  was  intended  for  no  other  design  but 
to  have  a  free  and  lawful  Parliament  assembled  as  soon  as  possible  ; 
that  "  he  had  nothing  before  his  eyes  in  this  undertaking  but  the 
preservation  of  the  Protestant  religion,  the  covering  of  all  men  from 
persecution  for  their  consciences,  and  the  securing  to  the  whole  na- 
tion the  free  enjoyment  of  their  laws,  rights,  and  liberties  under  a 
just  and  legal  government "  ;  and  again,  in  lais  Additional  Declara- 
tion, "that  no  person  could  have  such  hard  thoughts  of  him  as  to 
imagine  that  he  had  any  other  design  in  this  undertaking  than  to 
procure  a  settlement  of  the  religion  and  of  the  liberties  and  properties 
of  the  subjects  upon  so  sure  a  foundation,  that  there  might  be  no 
danger  of  the  nation's  relapsing  into  the  like  miseries  at  any  time 
hereafter";  that  "  the  forces  he  had  brought  along  with  him  were 
utterly  digproportioned  to  that  wicked  design  of  conquering  the  na- 
tion, if  he  were  capable  of  intending  it "  ;  and  that  of  those  who 
countenanced  the  expedition,  "  many  were  distinguished  by  their 
constant  fidelity  to  the  crown."  This  last  is  the  strongest  expres- 
sion to  be  found,  —  the  only  one  where  the  crown  is  exactly  men* 
tioned. 

To  representations  of  this  nature  it  may  be  briefly  answered,  that 
it  is  mere  mockery  to  speak  of  William's  duty,  as  a  son,  to  one  who 
never  was  or  wished  to  be  his  father-in-law  in  any  sense  of  the  word ; 
and  that,  whatever  construction  might  be  given,  by  the  Tories  or  by 
the  Whigs,  to  the  terms  of  the  Prince's  Declaration,  it  was  quite  idle 
to  suppose  that  he  and  the  States  of  Holland  would  embark  in  an 
enterprise  like  this,  and  put  every  interest  that  was  dear  to  them  into 
a  situation  of  the  most  imminent  danger,  for  the  sake  of  the  good 
people  of  England  alone.  What  was  England  to  either  of  them,  but 
as  a  member  of  the  great  community  of  Europe,  —  as  a  country  that 
might  be  Protestant  or  Popish,  that  might  concur  to  protect  or  de- 
stroy thc-m,  merely  as  James  did  or  did  not  succeed  in  his  designs 
upon  its  liberties  and  constitution  ?  Their  civil  and  rehgious  interests 
and  those  of  England  thoroughly  coincided,  and  the  whole  cause  was 
the  most  generous  and  noble  that  could  well  be  proposed  to  the  hu- 
man imagination ;  but  when  it  had  succeeded,  and  succeeded  so  com- 
pletely, —  when,  without  disturbance  or  bloodshed,  the  whole  force 
and  energies  of  such  a  country  as  England  were  within  the  reach  of 
WilHam,  to  be  turned  to  the  defence  of  every  interest  of  his  own 
country,  of  Europe,  and  of  England  itself,  —  when  this  could  be 

D  D 


850  LECTURE  XX. 

done  only  by  his  requiring  for  himself  the  executive  administration 
of  the  government,  —  when  every  other  expedient  could  only  have 
served  to  renew  the  designs  and  power  of  James  and  Louis,  and  must 
have  ultimately  ended  in  the  ruin  of  the  civil  and  religious  liberties 
of  mankind ;  in  this  situation  of  things,  was  it  for  William  to  disap- 
point the  reasonable  expectations  of  his  own  country,  and  of  every 
intelligent  man  in  Europe,  —  to  be  wanting  to  his  own  glory,  and  to 
show  himself  incapable  of  discharging  the  high  office  of  humanity,  to 
which,  in  the  mysterious  dispensation  of  events,  he  had  been  called  ? 
Was  it  for  WilHam  to  abandon  all  the  great  pretensions  and  honors 
of  his  life,  embarked,  as  he  had  been  from  the  first,  in  opposition  to 
Louis,  and  placed  on  the  theatre  of  Europe  in  a  situation  of  all  the 
most  elevated,  —  that  of  the  champion,  and  hitherto  the  successful 
champion,  of  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  mankind  ? 

The  fact  is,  that  what  was  required  or  expected  from  William  by 
the  moralists  and  statesmen  who  criminated  or  even  censured  his  con- 
duct, then  or  afterwards,  was  in  itself  inconsistent  and  impossible. 
No  man  with  the  views  or  feelings  of  such  moralists  or  statesmen 
would  have  ever  engaged  in  such  an  enterprise  at  all,  much  less 
have  conducted  it  with  success.  Enterprises  like  these,  that  produce 
an  epoch  in  the  annals  of  the  world,  and  give  a  new  career  of  ad- 
vancement to  society,  are  neither  approached  nor  comprehended  at 
the  time,  but  by  men  of  a  more  exalted  order,  like  William.  Even  to 
such  men,  the  latent  possibilities  of  such  enterprises,  from  the  uncer- 
t^m  nature  of  every  thing  human,  can  be  apprehended  only  dimly 
and  at  a  distance,  and  suspected  rather  than  seen;  the  prospect 
clears  or  darkens  as  they  proceed ;  it  opens  at  last,  or  shuts  for  ever ; 
but  if  the  moment  of  visible  glory  once  presents  itself,  it  is  then  that 
these  heroes  of  the  world  march  on  as  did  WilUam,  and  decide  for 
themselves  and  for  posterity  the  happiness  of  kingdoms  and  of  ages. 

In  conse^quence  of  William's  decided  and  critical  interference,  the 
Lords  at  last  agreed  to  withdraw  their  amendments,  to  consent  to  the 
word  "  abdicated,"  and  to  admit  the  vacancy  of  the  crown.  Burnet 
seems  to  say  that  these  important  points  were  carried  at  last  by  a 
majority  of  only  two  or  three  voices. 

When  it  was  at  last  resolved  to  crown  the  Prince  and  Princess  of 
Orange,  a  new  oath  of  allegiance  was  to  be  constructed.  This  was 
done  Avith  very  commendable  attention  to  the  Tories,  that,  while  they 
concurred  with  the  new  settlement,  their  principles  might  be  as  little 
interfered  with  as  possible. 

And  now  began  the  benefits  of  this  successful  enterprise.  First, 
the  fine  of  succession  was  departed  from,  and  it  was  declared  that  no 
Papist  should  reign  ;  Popery  was  therefore  escaped.  Secondly,  Wil- 
liam was  made  king,  though  it  was  his  wife,  not  himself,  who  was 
next  in  succession ,  William,  therefore,  was  considered  as  elected. 
The  right,  therefore,  of  the  community,  in  particular  cases,  to  inter- 


THE  REVOLUTION.  851 

fere  with  the  disposal  of  the  executive  power,  and  even  of  the  crown 
itself,  was  exercised  and  admitted.  Thirdly,  before  the  crown  wa3 
conferred,  as  a  preliminary  part  of  the  ceremony,  the  opportunity 
was  taken,  which  had  not  been  taken  at  the  Restoration,  of  making 
some  provision  for  the  future  security  of  the  constitution,  and  certain 
rights  and  liberties  were  claimed,  demanded,  and  insisted  upon,  as 
the  undoubted  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people  of  England.  The 
constitution  was,  therefore,  renewed  and  confirmed.  The  Prince  and 
Princess,  when  they  received  the  crown,  which  was  after  this  Decla- 
ration tendered  to  them,  in  their  turn  declared,  that  "  they  thank 
fully  accepted  what  was  offered  them."  * 

These  remarkable  transactions  have  been  a  fruitful  source  of  politi 
cal  discussion ;  and  as  it  is  difficult,  indeed  impossible,  to  refer  to  the 
various  inferences  that  have  been  drawn  from  them  with  respect  to 
the  constitution  of  England,  I  shall  select,  as  prominent  specimens, 
and  of  an  opposite  nature,  the  Discourse  of  Dr.  Price  on  the  Love 
of  our  Country,  and  the  Reflections  of  Mr.  Burke  on  the  French 
Revolution ;  and  it  is  to  them  chiefly  that  I  shall  allude,  in  the  ob- 
servations which  I  shall  now  offer. 

From  the  general  turn  and  result  of  these  memorable  proceedings, 
it  appears  to  Dr.  Price  that  the  people  of  England  have  acquired  a 
right  (to  use  his  own  words)  "  to  choose  their  own  governors,  to  cashier 
them  for  misconduct,  and  to  frame  a  government  for  themselves." 
All  this  is  resisted  by  Mr.  Burke  ;  and,  stated  in  the  unqualified  man- 
ner of  Dr.  Price,  it  cannot  well  be  admitted. 

Yet  something  more  must  be  admitted  than  Mr.  Burke  seems 
willing  to  allow.  As  far  as  precedent  can  establish  a  right,  it  must 
be  conceded,  both  from  all  the  language  of  the  parties  at  the  time, 
and  from  the  result  of  these  transactions,  that  the  right  is  established 
in  the  people  of  England,  on  very  grave  and  urgent  occasions,  of  de- 
parting from  the  hereditary  succession,  and  therefore,  as  Dr.  Price 
would  have  it,  in  such  cases,  of  choosing  a  governor  for  themselves, 
for  it  was  in  this  manner  that  King  William  was  chosen. 

But  the  same  reasonings,  and  every  other  fact,  conspire  to  show 
that  this  is  a  right,  as  Mr.  Burke  contended,  to  be  exercised  rather 
as  of  necessity  than  of  choice  ;  to  be  admitted  as  a  mere  exception  to 
the  general  rule  of  hereditary  succession,  and  as  in  no  respect  to  be 
considered  as  the  rule  itself;  a  right  to  be  exercised  with  the  same 
unvrillingness  and  doubt  with  which  any  great  rule  in  morality  would 
be  broken,  —  broken  from  the  mere  necessity  of  the  case. 

In  reasoning  of  this  tenor  and  spirit,  Mr.  Burke  seems  perfectly 
supported  by  the  whole  of  the  expressions  that  appear  on  the  face  of 
these  proceedings,  and  the  facts  that  took  place.  Reference  may 
even  be  had  to  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  whole,  and  it  may  be 
asked.  What  were  the  alterations  which  the  patriots  in  1688  really 
did  make  in  the  constitution  ?     These  will  be  found  very  much  to 


852  LECTURE  XX. 

disappoint  the  expectations  of  all  such  reasoners  as  suppose  that  con- 
stitutions of  government  are  in  the  first  place  to  be  planned  out  ac- 
cording to  the  suggestions  of  deliberative  wisdom,  and,  when  reduced 
to  shape  and  order  and  perfection,  then  to  be  proposed  and  accepted 
bj  a  people,  and  the  people  thus  made  to  grow  up  and  fashion  them- 
selves to  their  prescribed  model. 

There  is  certainly  little  in  these  transactions  to  countenance  any 
experiments  or  reasonings  of  this  nature.  The  same  rights  and 
liberties  which  had  been  claimed,  demanded,  and  insisted  upon, 
when  the  crown  was  tendered,  were  afterwards  converted  into  the 
materials  of  an  act,  which  was  presented  to  the  king  and  received 
the  royal  assent,  and  the  whole  was  then  "  declared,  enacted,  and 
established  by  authority  of  this  present  Parliament,  to  stand,  remain, 
and  be  the  law  of  this  realm  for  ever."  This  was  done,  and  no 
more ;  this  was  all  that,  apparently  at  least,  was  attem^pted.  No 
pretences  were  made  to  any  merit  of  salutary  alteration  or  legislative 
reform.  The  original  Declaration,  the  subsequent  Bill  of  Rights, 
were  each  of  them  expressly  stated  to  be  only  a  declaration  of  the 
old  constitution  ;  they  were  each  an  exhibition  of  the  rights  and  liber- 
ties of  the  people  of  England,  already  undoubted  and  their  own ;  ex- 
periment, innovation,  every  thing  of  this  kind,  is  virtually  disclaimed, 
for  nothing  of  the  kind  is  visible  in  the  style  or  language  of  these 
singular  records. 

It  must,  however,  on  the  other  hand,  be  carefully  noticed,  that, 
though  the  Bill  of  Rights  might  not  propose  itself  as  any  alteration, 
it  was  certainly  a  complete  renovation,  of  the  free  constitution  of 
England.  The  abject  state  to  which  the  laws,  the  constitution,  and 
the  people  themselves  had  fallen  must  never  be  forgotten ;  and  it 
then  can  surely  not  be  denied  that  this  pubhc  assertion,  on  a  sudden, 
this  establishment  and  enactment,  of  all  the  great  leading  principles 
of  a  free  government  fairly  deserves  the  appellation  which  it  has  al- 
ways received,  of  the  Revolution  of  1688. 

It  is  very  material  to  observe,  that  the  Declaration  and  enactment 
were  totally  on  the  popular  side,  were  declaratory  entirely  and  ex- 
clusively of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people,  in  no  respect  of  the 
prerogatives  of  the  crown.  The  Bill  of  Rights  was,  in  fact,  a  new 
Magna  Charta,  —  a  new  Petition  of  Right,  —  a  new  enrolment  of  the 
prerogatives,  if  I  may  so  speak,  of  the  democratic  part  of  the  con- 
stitution, —  which,  though  consented  to  by  William,  an  elected  prince, 
and  perhaps  even  thought  necessary  to  his  own  justification  and  secu- 
rity, could  only  have  been  extorted  by  force  from  any  reigning 
hereditary  monarch,  and,  in  point  of  fact,  was  certainly  not  procured 
by  the  English  nation,  on  this  occasion,  till  the  regular  possessor  of 
the  crown  had  ceased  to  wear  it,  and  till  the  country  had  appeared 
in  a  state  of  positive  and  successful  resistance  to  his  authority.  ' 

It  must  always  be  remembered,  that,  through  the  whole  of  these 


THE  REVOLUTION.  353 

proceedings,  there  was  an  acknowledgment  and  a  practical  exhibition 
of  the  great  popular  doctrine,  that  all  government,  and  all  the  forms 
and  provisions  which  are  necessary  to  its  administration,  must  ulti- 
mately be  referred  to  the  happiness  of  the  people.  This  is  supposed 
at  every  moment,  from  the  first  resistance  of  the  measures  of  James, 
to  the  last  act  of  the  ceremony  of  crowning  the  Prince  of  Orange  ; 
and  it  is  this  acknowledgment,  and  this  practical  exhibition  of  a  great 
theoretical  truth,  which  constitute  the  eternal  value  and  importance 
of  these  most  remarkable  transactions.  The  caution,  the  moderation,, 
the  forbearance,  the  modest  wisdom  with  which  the  leading  actors  in 
the  scene  conducted  themselves  are  the  proper  subjects  of  our  pane- 
gyric, but  must  never  be  so  dwelt  upon,  that  we  are  to  forget  the 
real  meaning  of  these  proceedings,  their  positive  example,  their  per- 
manent instruction,  transmitted  practically  and  visibly,  not  only  to 
the  sovereign,  but  to  the  people. 

Hitherto  we  have  considered  the  Revolution  chiefly  with  respect  to 
the  civil  constitution  of  the  kingdom  ;  but  another  subject,  to  which, 
before  I  conclude  this  lecture,  I  must  briefly  advert,  still  remains. 
The  student  must  never  forget  that  he  is  at  all  times  to  keep  his  at- 
tention fixed  on  the  state  and  progress,  not  only  of  the  civile  but  of 
the  religious^  liberties  of  mankind.  As  the  connection  between  them 
is  so  natural,  it  might  fairly  be  supposed  that  the  same  advancement 
which  the  former  seemed  at  this  epoch  to  have  received  would  have 
been  received  in  like  manner  by  the  latter ;  but  there  is  more  diffi- 
culty in  this  latter  case  than  there  is  even  in  the  former,  and  the 
same  sort  of  efforts  for  religious  hberty  that  failed  at  the  Restoration 
failed  likewise  at  the  Revolution. 

But  with  respect  to  these  efforts,  the  merit  seems  to  have  belonged 
almost  exclusively  to  William.  The  great  defender  of  the  religious 
as  well  as  civil  liberties  of  his  own  country  and  of  Europe,  the  great 
assertor  of  the  Protestant  cause  in  England  and  on  the  Continent, 
was  not  inconsistent  with  himself ;  there  were  no  exertions  which  he 
did  not  make  to  introduce  into  the  houses  of  legislature,  and  among 
the  people  of  this  country,  those  generous  and  reasonable  notions 
which  he  did  not  find,  and  with  which  his  own  elevated  nature,  even 
in  a  religious  age,  was  so  honorably  animated  and  impressed. 

His  first  attempt  appears  to  have  been  to  emancipate  the  Dissent- 
ers from  the  Test  Act.  This  was  an  act  passed  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  and  originally  levelled  against  the  Papists,  or 
rather  against  the  Duke  of  York,  —  not  against  the  Presbyterians. 
They  had,  indeed,  been  persuaded  to  concur  in  it,  lest,  at  that  very 
critical  period,  the  bill  should,  by  any  hesitation  of  theirs,  or  even 
modification  in  their  favor,  be  lost ;  and  it  was  understood  that  they 
were  subsequently  to  be  released  from  its  provisions.  This,  however, 
they  never  were,  nor  are  they,  even  at  this  day  ;  so  easy  in  politics 
is  it  to  be  wrong,  so  difficult  afterwards  to  become  right.  King  Wit 
45  DD* 


354  LECTURE  XX. 

liam,  for  instance,  found  all  his  efforts  entirely  fruitless :  the  business 
was,  indeed,  agitated  in  the  Lords,  in  the  Commons,  in  the  nation,  — 
the  protests  in  the  Journals  of  the  Lords  are  remarkable,  as  are  all 
the  proceedings  related  by  Burnet,  —  but  the  bishop  closes  his  ac- 
count by  saying,  "  It  was  soon  very  visible  that  we  were  not  in  a 
temper  cool  or  calm  enough  to  encourage  the  further  prosecuting 
such  a  design." 

You  will  see  in  the  Note-book  on  the  table  a  few  more  observations 
on  this  subject  of  the  Test  Act,  to  explain  its  history.  It  has  always 
been  represented  as  the  palladium  of  our  constitution  in  church  and 
state  ;  this,  I  think,  is  the  expression  made  use  of  in  sermons,  and 
addresses,  and  episcopal  charges.  I  must  take  the  liberty  of  consid- 
ering it  as  a  monument  of  national  impolicy,  and  even  national  want 
of  good  faith  and  honor. 

We  now,  therefore,  turn  to  consider  what  this  intelligent  states- 
man, really  and  in  point  of  fact,  was  able  at  last  to  accomplish  for 
the  cause  of  religious  liberty  in  England,  at  that  time  the  most  en- 
lightened country  in  Europe  in  all  the  principles  of  civil  liberty.  He 
obtained,  then,  the  Toleration  Act. 

"  Forasmuch,"  says  the  preamble  to  the  act,  "  as  some  ease  to 
scrupulous  consciences  in  the  exercise  of  religion  may  be  an  effectual 
means  to  unite  their  Majesties'  Protestant  subjects  in  interest  and 
affection,"  &c.,  &c.  On  this  account  the  existing  penalties  were 
taken  off  from  the  body  of  Dissenters  with  respect  to  the  exercise  and 
profession  of  their  faith,  on  condition  of  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance, 
an  oath  to  which  they  had  no  objection.  This  act,  therefore,  with 
respect  to  the  great  body  of  the  Dissenters,  was  really  an  Act  of 
Toleration. 

But  you  will  observe,  that,  besides  the  body  of  the  Dissenters, 
there  are  the  teachers  of  the  Dissenters  to  be  considered.  With  re- 
spect to  the  teachers  of  the  Dissenters,  the  Nonconforming  ministers, 
the  existing  penalties  of  Lord  Clarendon's  act  were  strong,  —  that 
they  were  not  to  come  within  five  miles  of  corporate  towns,  &c.,  &;c. 
These  were  by  the  Toleration  Act  taken  off,  but  on  a  certain  condi- 
tion, —  that  these  teachers  signed  those  articles  of  the  Church  of 
England  which  related  to  faith.  The  toleration,  therefore,  and  in- 
dulgence granted  to  the  Dissenting  teachers  was  this,  —  that  they 
were  excused  from  signing  those  articles  which  related  to  discipline. 
This  act,  therefore,  as  far  as  mere  reasoning  was  concerned  (but 
this,  in  the  affairs  of  mankind,  is  only  one  point  among  many),  — 
this  act,  I  say,  as  far  as  mere  reasoning  and  logic  were  concerned, 
bore  upon  the  face  of  it  its  own  condemnation  ;  for,  if  the  Dissenting 
ministers  differed  from  the  Church  in  articles  of  faith,  they  could  not 
yet  sign,  and  the  act  extended  to  them  no  toleration  ;  and  if  they 
differed  from  the  Church  only  in  points  of  discipline,  tlien  those  points 
of  discipline  and  church  government  should  not  have  been  insisted 


THE  REVOLUTION.  355 

upon  bj  the  Church,  and  they  should  have  been  brought  within  her 
pale.  But  allowance  must  be  made  for  mankind  on  subjects  like 
these. 

On  the  whole,  the  Toleration  Act  was  an  act  of  rehef  and  indul- 
gence ;  as  such  it  has  always  been  considered ;  it  has  been  adminis- 
tered and  interpreted  very  favorably  to  the  Nonconformists,  and  very 
inconsistently  with  the  mere  letter  of  it,  —  that  is,  very  creditably  to 
the  government,  —  from  the  increasing  humanity  and  more  consistent 
Christianity  of  the  times. 

The  Toleration  Act  was  an  act  with  which,  defective  as  it  might 
really  be,  and  must  necessarily  have  appeared  to  William,  still  it  was 
perfectly  incumbent  on  him  to  rest  contented,  as  society  was  at  the 
time  not  in  a  temper  to  grant  more.  Probably  the  king  thought  so  ; 
for,  hating  made  these  wise  and  virtuous  efforts  soon  after  his  acces- 
sion, and  established  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  agreeably,  as  he  conceiv- 
ed, to  the  wishes  of  the  nation,  he  seems  to  have  turned  immediately, 
and  without  further  expostulation,  from  this  not  altogether  ineffectual 
campaign  in  the  cause  of  religious  liberty,  to  face  his  enemies  in  the 
field  in  defence  of  the  more  intelligible  rights  of  civil  liberty.  These 
enemies  he  found  in  Ireland  and  in  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  he 
was  happy  enough  to  overpower  the  one,  and  at  least  to  check  and 
resist  the  other. 

Since  I  drew  up  these  lectures,  the  Stuart  papers  have  been  pub- 
lished, and  the  historical  student  will  naturally  refer  to  them,  —  the 
Life  of  James  the  Second,  edited  by  Mr.  Clarke.  I  have  not  found 
it  necessary  to  make  any  alterations  either  in  my  first  or  in  this  sec- 
ond course  of  lectures,  in  consequence  of  the  perusal  of  them.  All 
the  regular  conclusions  of  historians  and  intelligent  writers  seem  to 
me  only  confirmed,  and  rendered  more  than  ever  capable  of  illustra- 
tion, by  the  new  materials  of  observation  that  are  now  exhibited  to 
our  view. 

The  same  might  be  said,  I  have  no  doubt,  if  the  very  journal  of 
the  king  (James  the  Second)  had  been  placed  before  us.  This  has 
unfortunately  perished.  We  have  in  the  Stuart  papers  only  the  rep- 
resentation of  it,  given  by  some  friend  or  confidential  agent  of  the 
family ;  but  between  this  representation  and  the  real  and  original 
composition  of  the  king  himself  the  great  difference  would  be,  that 
the  king's  own  journal  would  have  shown,  in  a  manner  more  natural 
and  striking,  all  the  faults  of  his  mind  and  disposition.  Of  these 
there  can  surely  be  no  further  evidence  necessary ;  certainly  not  to 
those  who  understand  and  love  liberty ;  but,  after  all,  these  are  not 
the  majority :  and  the  loss  of  the  journal,  independent  of  the  curios- 
ity belonging  to  the  other  characters  of  these  times,  must  be  consid- 
ered as  a  great  loss,  because,  though  no  new  light  would  have  been 
thrown  on  these  subjects,  there  would  have  been  more  ;  and  there 
cannot  be  too  much  light  thrown.     They  who  run  should  read. 


856  LECTURE  XXI 


LECTURE    XXI. 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES. 

"We  must  now  consider  ourselves  as  having  made  a  sort  of  progresa 
through  the  more  important  parts  of  the  history  of  modern  Europe. 
We  have  alluded  to  the  conquests  and  final  settlements  of  the  barbar- 
ous nations,  the  Dark  Ages,  the  progress  of  society,  the  ages  of  in- 
ventions and  discoveries,  the  revival  of  learning,  the  Reformation,  the 
civil  and  religious  wars,  the  fortunes  of  the  French  constitution  and 
government ;  the  fortunes,  in  like  manner,  of  our  own  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberties,  till  they  were  at  length  successfully  asserted,  con- 
firmed, and  established,  at  the  Revolution  of  1688.  We  have  made 
our  comments  on  that  most  fortunate  event. 

We  might  now,  therefore,  proceed  to  the  character  and  reign  of 
William,  and  to  the  history  of  more  modern  times ;  but  I  must  first 
attend  to  a  part  of  the  modem  history  of  Europe  of  which  I  have 
hitherto  taken  no  notice  ;  and  I  must  go  back  for  nearly  two  centuries, 
while  I  advert  to  a  series  of  events  which  distinguished  the  ages  of 
inventions  and  discoveries,  and  which  are  on  every  account  deserving 
of  our  curiosity :  I  allude  to  the  discovery  of  the  New  World,  and 
the  conquests  and  settlements  of  the  different  European  nations  in 
the  East  and  West  Indies. 

This  omission  of  mine  you  have,  no  doubt,  remarked ;  but  to  these 
topics  I  have  as  yet  forborne  to  make  any  reference,  because,  among 
other  reasons,  I  wished  not  to  interrupt  the  train  of  your  reflections 
and  inquiries,  while  directed  to  the  subject  of  the  progress  of  Europe, 
more  particularly  in  its  great  interests  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,' — 
a  subject  which,  if  surveyed  apart,  has  a  sort  of  unity  in  it,  which  I 
have  in  this  manner  endeavoured  to  preserve.  I  must  not,  however, 
be  supposed  insensible  to  the  curiosity  and  interest  which  belong  to 
such  events  as  distinguish  the  lives  of  the  discoverers  and  conquerors 
of  a  new  hemisphere,  the  great  navigators  and  military  captains  of 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  I  have  wished  only  to  adjourn 
.for  a  season,  by  no  means  to  disregard,  such  memorable  transactions. 

While  we  read  the  civil  and  rehgious  history  of  Europe  in  the 
manner  I  have  supposed,  the  general  facts  respecting  Amenca  and 
the  Indies  will  present  themselves,  and  may  be  received  without  any 
immediate  examination ;  nor  is  this  of  any  material  consequence  ;  we 
may  still  hasten  on.  We  can  easily  conceive,  what  in  fact  took 
place,  that  these  vast  and  unknown  regions,  when  once  discovered, 
would  be  converted  into  the  great  theatres  where  enterprise  and 
courage  were  to  be  exhibited.     We  can  find  no  difficulty  in  suppos* 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES.        '  857 

ing,  that  the  woods  and  morasses  of  America,  however  gloomy  and 
inhospitable,  would  still  seem  a  retreat  and  a  refuge  to  those  who 
were  exasperated  by  persecution  or  inflamed  by  religious  enthusiasm. 
We  may  easily  take  into  our  account  the  effect  which  would  be  pro- 
duced on  the  minds  of  men  by  the  novelty  of  their  prospects  and 
situation,  on  the  discovery  of  a  new  portion  of  the  globe.  All  this 
we  may  conceive,  and  in  a  general  manner  take  for  granted,  while 
we  read  the  history  of  Europe ;  and  we  may  afterwards  turn  back 
and  examine  the  more  particular  history  of  these  expeditions,  and 
give  them  such  attention  as,  on  the  whole,  and  in  comparison  with 
other  objects  of  reflection,  they  may  appear  to  deserve. 

But  here  again,  as  on  all  former  occasions,  we  should  transport 
ourselves  in  imagination  back  to  this  distant  period,  and  assume,  for 
a  time,  the  opinions  and  sympathies  of  those  who  went  before  us,  the 
better  to  understand  their  merits  and  to  be  instructed  by  their  faults, 
the  better  to  be  animated  by  their  history,  and  improved  in  our  own 
minds  and  dispositions  by  the  spectacle  before  us,  —  by  the  images 
of  our  common  nature  placed  in  scenes  so  fitted  to  display  all  the 
possible  varieties  of  the  human  character.  Science  has  now  been 
advanced,  navigation  brought  to  comparative  perfection ;  the  winds 
and  currents  of  other  climates  and  seas,  the  shores  and  rocks,  the 
rivers  and  the  harbours,  of  an  unknown  hemisphere,  have  now  been 
ascertained ;  and  we  travel  over  the  ocean  as  we  journey  over  the 
land,' expecting  at  a  given  time  to  reach  a  given  place,  and  with  little 
more  fear  of  miscarriage  and  disappointment  in  the  one  case  than  in 
the  other.  But  the  situation  of  mankind  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century  in  none  of  these  respects  resembled  ours ;  the  diflerence  is 
one  of  the  greatest  testimonies  that  can  be  produced  to  the  progres- 
sive nature  of  human  improvement ;  and  before  we  open  the  history 
of  America,  we  must  endeavour  to  forget,  for  a  season,  our  present 
situation  and  our  comparative  advantages.  After  all  our  efforts,  it 
will  scarcely  be  possible  for  us  properly  to  comprehend  and  sympa- 
thize with  the  various  strong  and  contradictory  emotions  to  which 
these  enterprises  gave  occasion,  in  the  course  of  their  origin,  prog- 
ress, and  success. 

The  work  of  Dr.  Robertson  is  well  known.  The  whole  subject,  as 
far  as  we  need  at  present  consider  it,  is  there  fully  discussed.  To 
•his  History  of  America  I  must  refer  you.  In  his  work  we  are  made 
acquainted,  first,  with  the  progress  of  navigation  anterior  to  the  time 
of  the  great  Columbus,  the  discoverer  of  America ;  the  nature  and 
the  fortunes  of  his  enterprise  ;  the  fortunes  of  Columbus  himself:  the 
conquest  of  Mexico,  by  Cortes ;  of  Peru,  by  Pizarro :  and  we  have 
also  a  very  full  discussion  of  a  subject  so  extraordinary  as  the  situa- 
tion and  nature  of  whole  races  of  men  that  before  had  never  been 
supposed  to  exist. 

Themes  so  striking  and  so  interesting  have  not  in  vain,  been  pre- 


858  LECTURE  XXI. 

sented  to  this  accomplislied  historian.  He  has  formed  a  narrative 
and  composed  a  work,  of  all  others  the  most  attractive  that  the  range 
of  history  affords ;  and  along  with  the  other  merits  which  his  writings 
so  generally  exhibit,  this  production  has  another,  not  so  obvious,  and 
surely  of  very  difficult  attainment :  he  is  never  betrayed  into  incon- 
siderate enthusiasm  by  the  splendid  nature  of  his  subject ;  his  imagi- 
nation does  not  improperly  take  fire,  amid  events  and  characters  of  a 
cast  so  dazzling  and  so  romantic  ;  he  is  still  an  historian,  —  he  is  still 
calm,  deliberative,  and  precise.  While  dehvering  a  story  which  an 
epic  poet  might  have  been  proud  to  have  invented,  he  never  loses  for 
a  moment  the  confidence  of  his  readers  by  any  appearence  of  ex- 
aggeration, or  any  passion  for  dramatic  representation.  Content  with 
the  real  interest  of  his  theme,  he  proceeds  with  his  usual  dignified 
composure,  and  delivers  to  posterity  those  inestimable  pages  which 
may  be  at  once  an  amusement  for  the  most  young  and  uninformed 
and  a  study  for  the  most  grave  and  enlightened. 

Such,  I  confess,  is  the  general  impression  which  has  been  made 
on  my  own  mind  by  the  perusal  of  the  work  of  Dr.  Robertson,  and  I 
think  it  quite  sufficient  to  refer  my  readers,  for  an  account  of  Ameri- 
ca, to  his  History  of  America.  This  History  is,  unfortunately  for  the 
author,  like  his  other  compositions,  put  into  our  hands  very  early  in 
the  course  of  our  education,  and  too  soon,  before  its  merits  can  be 
properly  understood ;  and  it  is  in  general  not  read  again  at  a  maturer 
period,  because  it  is  supposed,  very  unreasonably,  that  it  has  been 
already  read.  This  mistake  I  must  entreat  my  hearers  not  to  com- 
mit with  any  of  his  writings,  or,  indeed,  any  of  the  great  classical 
works  of  our  literature.  The  pages  of  Dr.  Robertson  have  not  the 
unwearied  splendor  of  Gibbon,  or  the  sudden  flashes  of  sagacity 
which  so  charm  us  in  the  historical  writings  of  Hume  ;  but  Robertson 
is  alwa^^s  an  historian,  with  all  the  important  merits  which  belong  to 
the  character. 

Mr.  Southey,  indeed,  accuses  him  of  leaning  to  a  system,  and  of 
unwarrantably  depreciating  the  character  and  civilization  of  the  two 
great  nations  of  America,  —  the  Mexicans  and  Peruvians.  I  see  not 
what  temptation  he  could  have  for  doing  so  ;  and  if  the  student  should 
turn  to  Clavigero,  and  Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  to  whose  accounts  Mr. 
Southey  refers,  —  to  Clavigero's  strictures,  and  Dr.  Robertson's  re- 
plies to  him,  —  I  do  not  conceive  that  your  confidence  in  our  own 
historian  will  be  at  all  disturbed. 

Once  more,  therefore,  referring  to  his  History,  as  perfectly  ade- 
quate to  all  the  purposes  of  your  entertainment  and  instruction,  I  am 
yet  desirous  that  you  should,  at  the  same  time,  undertake  the  perusal 
of  some  of  the  original  authorities.  I  will  mention  such  as  I  think 
you  may  read. 

The  subject  teems  with  striking  events  and  characters,  of  which 
too  much  caimot  well  be  known.     Columbus,  for  instance,  seems  to 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES.  359 

have  been  a  man  whose  merit  -was  above  all  praise  ;  whose  character, 
if  we  consider  the  very  extraordinary  energy  which  it  both  possessed 
and  exhibited,  was  yet  so  tempered  and  chastised  as  to  be  rendered 
faultless,  to  a  degree  of  which  there  is  in  history  no  parallel :  of  such 
a  man  every  original  notice  is  invaluable.  There  is  a  Life  of  him  by 
his  son ;  it  is  not  long,  is  easily  found,  is  continually  referred  to  by 
Robertson ;  and  on  these  accounts  I  recommend  it  to  your  perusal. 
A  translation  of  it  is  given  in  the  second  volume  of  Churchill's 
Voyages.  A  son  of  Columbus  might,  perhaps,  have  been  expected 
to  say  more  of  su(?h  a  father ;  but  there  is  a  simplicity  in  what  is 
said,  and  an  attention  to  the  paramount  importance  of  precision  and 
truth,  that  render  every  word  of  consequence.  When  men  who 
have  communications  of  real  interest  to  deliver  to  the  world  are  not 
regular  writers,  their  narratives  only  gain  a  new  interest  from  the 
very  manner,  imperfect  and  unadorned,  in  which  they  are  conveyed. 
On  these  occasions  we  want  only  facts  and  observations,  ■ —  the  facts 
that  occurred,  and  the  observations  to  which  they  gave  rise  at  the 
moment.  In  original  works,  the  finer  the  manufacture,  the  more 
suspicious  is  the  article. 

In  the  five  chapters  between  the  fourth  and  the  tenth,  of  the  Life 
of  Columbus,  may  be  traced  the  manner  in  which  this  extraordinary 
man  at  last  persuaded  himself  that  the  East  Indies  might  be  found 
by  sailing  westward. 

It  is  surely  curious  to  observe  the  waverin"^  and  unexpected 
streams  of  light  that  penetrated  through  the  great  mass  of  darkness 
that  lay  before  the  contemplation  of  Columbus,  —  the  strange  mixture 
of  ancient  authority  and  of  modern  report,  of  fable  and  fact,  of  truth 
and  falsehood,  out  of  which  this  enthusiastic,  yet  reasonable,  projector 
was  to  create,  as  well  as  he  could,  conclusions  convincing  to  himself, 
and,  if  possible,  satisfactory  to  others.  But  it  is  not  only  curious, 
but  useful ;  that  we  may  learn  to  understand  the  workings  of  the  hu- 
man mind  in  extraordinary  situations,  surrounded  by  conjectures  and 
possibilities,  fair  deductions  and  mistaken  inferences,  and  wandering, 
as  it  were,  alone  and  unprotected,  over  the  doubtful  confines  of  the 
reason  and  the  imagination.  In  this  manner  we  may  be  taught  the 
respect  that  is  always  due  to  the  suggestions  and  plans,  however  wild 
and  imperfect  they  may  at  first  appear,  of  schemers  and  projectors 
of  every  description,  —  men  often  of  original  and  powerful  minds, 
who  must  be  listened  to  with  patience,  and  soothed  and  assisted  by 
our  calmer  reflections,  not  ridiculed  or  repelled  by  indiiference  and 
scorn.  Every  encouragement  ought  always  to  be  afforded  to  creative 
genius ;  and  amid  a  world  where  every  thing  may  be  obtained  by 
enterprise,  and  nothing  without  it,  no  chance  should  be  lost  for  the 
accommodation  of  our  nature  and  the  progress  of  human  prosperity. 

Reflections  like  these  are  but  confirmed  by  the  chapters  which  suc- 
ceed in  the  work  now  alluded  to.    The  king  of  Portugal  "  gave  ear," 


360  LECTURE  XXL 

says  the  biograplier,  "  to  the  admiral's  proposals  "  ;  but  at  last  "  re- 
solved to  send  a  caravel  privately  to  attempt  that  which  the  admiral 
had  proposed  to  him  "  ;  and  the  navigators  employed,  says  the  reci- 
tal, "  after  wandering  many  days  upon  the  sea,  turned  back  to  the 
islands  of  Cabo  Verde,  laughing  at  the  undertaking,  and  saying  it 
was  impossible  there  should  be  any  land  in  those  seas." 

In  this  manner  were  to  be  treated  the  elevated  views  and  generous 
nature  of  Columbus.  When  no  further  hope,  therefore,  remained  for 
him  in  Portugal,  and  when  his  plans  were,  in  consequence,  submitted 
to  the  Spanish  court,  the  observations  of  those  judges  who  were  ap- 
pointed to  decide  upon  a  man  Hke  this,  a  man  whom  they  were  total- 
ly unworthy  to  estimate,  appear  to  have  been  these  ;  I  will  give  them 
to  you,  because  they  are  specimens  of  human  reasoning  on  all  such 
new  occasions,  and  therefore  instructive:  — "  That  since,  in  so  many 
thousand  years  as  had  passed  since  the  creation,  so  many  skilful 
sailors  had  got  no  knowledge  of  such  countries,  it  was  not  likely  that 
the  admiral  should  know  more  than  all  that  were  then,  or  had  been 
before."  Others  said,  "  The  world  was  so  prodigious  great,  that  it 
was  incredible  three  years'  sail  would  bring  him  to  the  end  of  the 
east"  ;  and  Seneca,  it  seems,  was  quoted  against  him.  Others  ar- 
gued, "  That,  if  any  man  should  sail  straight  away  westward,  as  the 
admiral  proposed,  he  would  not  be  able  to  return  into  Spain,  because 
of  the  roundness  of  the  globe."  The  argument  that  follows,  and 
which  I  will  mention,  may  appear  at  first  ludicrous,  but  it  should 
rather  serve  to  show  you,  as  may  the  others,  the  manner  in  which  a 
cause  is  prejudged  by  ignorance  and  indolence.  "  They  looked  upon 
it,"  they  said,  "  as  most  certain,  that  whosoever  should  go  out  of  the 
hemisphere  known  to  Ptolemy  would  go  down,  and  then  it  would  be 
impossible  to  return  ;  affirming  it  would  be  like  chmbing  a  hill,  which 
ships  could  not  do  with  the  stiifest  gale." 

"  The  admiral,"  as  we  are  told  by  his  biographer,  "  sufficiently 
solved  all  these  objections"  ;  but  it  was  in  vain  that  he  solved  them, 
—  it  was  in  vain  that  this  Hercules,  in  the  infancy  of  his  fame,  stran- 
gled the  serpents  that  hissed  around  his  cradle.  He  retired,  —  he 
was  obliged  to  retire.  Five  years  were  to  be  wasted  in  these  fruit- 
less endeavours  to  satisfy  and  inform  these  arbiters  of  his  fate  ;  and 
he  was  then  to  be  dismissed  with  a  civil  rejection  of  his  proposals. 

Yet  some  there  were,  as  it  appears,  who  were  not  insensible  to  the 
merit  of  this  great  man ;  and  he  himself  remained  collected  and  un- 
moved, confident  of  success,  and  not  to  be  beaten  down  by  ignorance 
or  insult.  The  assistance  of  Queen  Isabella  was  procured  for  him, 
however  slowly,  by  his  protectors ;  and  he  became,  at  length,  the 
great  Columbus  of  history,  who  unveiled  to  us  the  surface  of  our 
planet,  and  showed  a  new  world  to  the  civilized  portion  of  man- 
kind. There  is  here,  surely,  much  of  encouragement  to  be  found 
for  the  patrons  of  genius ;  much  of  animating  instruction  for  genius 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES.  361 

itself;  mucli  of  admonition  to  the  presumptuous  stupidity  of  inferior 
minds. 

The  same  interest,  and  the  same  moral,  belong  to  the  succeeding 
chapters.  These  describe  the  voyage  of  this  fearless  navigator  over 
an  ocean  pathless  and  unknown,  where  every  new  occurrence  was 
to  his  sailors  an  object  of  terror,  and  a  reason  for  an  instant  aban- 
donment of  the  enterprise.  If  the  weeds  appeared,  it  was  that 
rocks  were  concealed ;  if  they  thickened,  that  their  progress  must 
soon  become  impossible ;  if  the  winds  were  steady  and  favorable,  it 
was  to  preclude  them  from  all  hopes  of  return ;  if  the  magnetic 
needle  varied,  it  was  that  nature  was  no  longer  nature  ;  and  to  please 
whom,  his  companions  asked  themselves,  and  for  what  purpose,  were 
these  intolerable  terrors  to  be  endured  ?  It  is  clear  from  the  narra- 
tive, that  nothing  but  the  extraordinary  merit  of  Columbus  saved  him 
from  destruction ;  and  that  no  human  powers  of  sagacity,  fortitude, 
and  skill  could  have  longer  preserved  him  from  the  very  natural  de- 
spair of  his  sailors,  when  land  at  last  appeared. 

Great  military  captains  and  conquerors  have  often  been  able  to 
govern  the  minds  of  those  around  them,  in  situations  of  the  most 
trying  difficulty  and  danger.  But  they  are  themselves  animated  by 
fierce  and  impetuous  passions  ;  so  are  their  followers.  Both  leaders 
and  followers,  on  these  occasions,  have  at  least  land  on  which  they 
can  tread,  and  they  have  their  swords  in  their  hands.  It  may,  at 
least,  be  known  where  and  how  they  are  to  perish ;  and  they  are  in 
perils  and  alarms  which  others  have  experienced  before  them. 

But  Columbus  was  a  man  of  benevolent  temper  and  peaceful  mind ; 
with  no  resentments  to  exasperate  tis  feelings,  no  lust  of  empire  to 
inflame  his  reason  ;  animated  only  with  the  pure  and  innocent  enthu- 
siasm of  a  projector,  with  the  commendable  love  of  true  glory,  and 
with  sentiments  of  piety  to  his  Creator.  His  associates  were  to  be 
controlled  in  the  midst  of  an  ocean  which  no  beings  but  themselves 
had  ever  presumed  to  enter.  There  was  nothing  near  them  but  the 
sea  and  the  clouds ;  nothing  above,  below,  or  around  them,  but  un- 
certainty, danger,  or  death.  They  were  exiled  from  all  existence : 
enterprise  seemed  no  longer  to  have  any  meaning,  courage  any  ob- 
ject. There  was  nothing  on  which  they  could  fix  their  eyes,  and 
no  enemy  whom  they  could  attempt  to  subdue,  but,  standing  before 
them,  Columbus  himself,  single  and  unprotected ;  a  man  of  like  na- 
ture with  themselves,  and  the  cause  of  all  their  suiferings. 

The  merit  of  Columbus  does  not  yet  cease.  The  land  had  been 
discovered,  his  projects  successful ;  and  he  was  then,  on  his  return, 
to  be  overtaken  by  a  tempest  which  threatened  every  moment  to  bury 
at  once  and  for  ever  himself,  his  companions,  and  his  fame.  In  this 
last  and  most  overpowering  calamity  of  all,  he  writes,  and  commits 
to  the  chance  of  the  waves,  the  letter  addressed  to  his  sovereigns, — 
the  letter  so  justly  celebrated, — the  monument  of  that  presence  of 
46  EE     , 


362  '  LECTURE  XXI. 

mind,  that  piety,  and  that  fortitude,  which  the  visible  approach  of 
death,  not  only  to  himself,  but  his  fame,  could  not  disturb,  and  no 
situation  of  disappointment  or  affliction  could  apparently  destroy. 

Pursuing  his  history,  it  is  evident  that  an  ordinary  man  would 
have  been  soon  overpowered  by  the  rebellions  and  mutinies  which  he 
had  to  encounter ;  and  even  the  mind  of  Columbus  himself  must  be 
considered  as  fortunate  in  the  use  he  made  of  the  natural  phenome- 
non of  an  eclipse  to  extricate  himself  from  his  dangers  in  the  island 
of  Jamaica. 

And  as  if  nothing  were  to  be  wanting  to  recommend  this  extraor- 
dinary man  to  the  regard  of  posterity,  to  the  tenderness  as  well  as 
admiration  of  future  ages,  he  was  destined  to  lead  a  life  continually 
checkered  with  difficulties  and  defeats,  disappointments  and  injuries, 
—  marked  with  the  most  brilliant  success,  but  marked  also  by  mis- 
fortunes of  the  most  overpowering  nature,  and  outrages  not  to  be 
endured ;  to  have  inscribed,  indeed,  upon  his  tomb,  by  the  command 
of  his  sovereign,  that  he  had  given  Spain  a  new  world,  —  but  to  have 
buried  with  him,  in  the  same  tomb,  the  fetters  in  which  he  had  been 
sent  home  as  a  public  offender  and  a  convicted  criminal. 

What  I  have  now  said  will  give  you  a  glimpse  (a  most  imperfect 
one)  of  the  first  memorable  enterprise,  the  subsequent  fortunes,  and 
the  extraordinary  merits  of  Columbus.  It  was  written  many  years 
ago,  and  I  have  now,  in  1828,  had  my  attention  called  to  the  Life  of 
Columbus  by  Mr.  Washington  Irving.  By  the  accession  of  his 
volumes,  we  have  now  the  biography  of  Columbus  ;  as  by  Robertson's 
work  we  before  had,  and  still  have,  the  history.  Mr.  Irving's  has 
been  to  me  a  very  interesting 'production,  sometimes  marked  with 
passages  of  great  force  and  beauty  ;  and  it  contains  every  thing  re- 
specting Columbus  that  can  be  wanted.  He  has  had  valuable  sources 
of  information,  which  he  describes,  and  which  were  not  within  the 
reach  of  Robertson.  Still,  his  volumes  only  show,  as  usual,  the  merits 
of  Robertson.  Upon  looking  over  the  historian's  account  once  more, 
I  see  no  mistakes,  and  no  material  omissions ;  in  a  concise  and  calm 
manner  every  particular  of  importance  is  intimated  to  the  reader ; 
and  Mr.  Irving  has  only  told  in  the  detail  (but  in  a  very  interesting 
and  agreeable  manner,  and  I  recommend  his  volumes  to  you)  what 
our  excellent  historian  had  told  before. 

Having  thus  alluded  to  the  first  and  great  hero  of  the  general  sub- 
ject, I  must  proceed  to  other  parts  of  it.  I  come  next  to  the  con- 
quest of  Mexico. 

We  have  here,  also,  original  authorities,  which  may  be  procured 
and  read. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  observed,  that  the  great  repository  of 
all  original  documents  respecting  the  New  World  is  the  Italian  collec- 
tion of  Ramusio,  the  work  quoted  by  Robertson.  Here  will  be  found 
translated  the  Letters  of  Cort(^s  to  his  sovereign ;  memorials  that  so 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES.  363 

particularly  deserve  our  consideration.  The  First  Letter  seems  lost, 
but  it  is  sufficiently  clear  that  it  was  not  of  any  great  consequence. 
The  Second  is  of  the  greatest  importance.  There  was  a  Latin 
translation  made  of  two  of  these  Letters  (the  Second  and  Third ; 
there  are  in  all  four)  so  early  as  in  1524,  in  the  time  of  Cortds,  but 
the  book  is  now  very  rare.  It  has  lately  been  bought  for  our  public 
library. 

Another  original  authority  we  have  in  the  work  of  Bemal  Diaz  del 
Castillo,  a  faithful  follower  and  fellow-soldier  of  Cortes  ;  a  translation 
of  which  has  been  made  by  Mr.  Keatinge,  and  was  published  in 
London  in  1800. 

And  lastly,  as  a  comment  upon  the  whole,  we  have  the  work  of 
Ciavigero,  which  has  been  translated. 

The  History  of  Herrera,  to  which  Robertson  so  constantly  pefers, 
is  to  be  found,  in  the  original  Spanish,  in  some  of  our  libraries ;  and 
some  of  the  decades,  particularly  those  which  relate  to  Mexico,  have 
been  translated  into  French.  There  is  an  English  translation  of  the 
work  of  Herrera  by  Stevens,  in  six  volumes,  octavo,  published  in 
1725. 

I  would  recommend  the  Second  Letter,  at  least,  of  Cortes  to  be 
perused.  It  is,  unfortunately,  too  much  after  the  manner  of  a  state 
paper,  and  transactions  are  related  in  that  general,  official  style  which 
precludes  those  details,  that  enumeration  of  minute  circumstances, 
those  passing  discoveries  of  personal  feelings,  which,  when  a  distin- 
guished man  is  giving  his  own  history  to  his  friend  or  even  to  the 
worM,  often  render  his  account  a  study  for  all  subsequent  ages. 
Still,  the  Letters  of  Cortes  are  an  authentic,  though  summary,  relar 
tion  of  his  proceedings  from  the  planting  of  the  colony  at  Vera  Cruz 
to  the  conquest  of  the  Mexican  empire  and  the  discovery  of  the  South 
Sea.  And  when  we  know  the  facts  from  him  and  from  other  sources, 
it  must  always  be  a  subject  of  some  entertainment  and  curiosity  to 
observe  how  such  a  man  could  represent  such  facts  to  his  court. 

In  reading  the  achievements  of  Cortes,  as  in  reading  the  life  of 
Columbus,  it  is  to  be  wished  that  the  mind  should  forget,  if  possible, 
its  knowledge  of  the  events ;  for  by  this  temporary  oblivion  alone 
can  we  feel  all  the  interest  of  the  story,  and  perceive  the  full  merit 
of  these  Spanish  conquerors.  This  merit  is  not  merely  that  of  other 
conquerors,  —  the  courage  and  skill  which  can  attack  and  overpower 
the  enemies  that  appear  before  them ;  in  addition  to  this  merit,  they 
have  one  (unless,  perhaps,  the  enterprise  of  Alexander  against  India 
be  thought  of  the  same  nature)  exclusively  their  own,  —  that  of 
marching  forward  into  an  immense  country,  totally  ignorant  of  what 
they  were  to  expect,  by  what  enemies  they  were  to  be  attacked,  by 
what  dangers  assailed.  They  were  landed  on  the  edge  of  a  conti 
nent,  and  then  to  proceed  among  nations  of  whom  they  knew  nothing, 
over  a  tract  of  country  which  they  had  to  discover,  uncertain  of  their 


864  LECTURE  XXI. 

prtvisions,  or  of  any  proper  sources  of  intelligence.  Tt  is  quite 
an  event,  for  instance,  in  this  history,  that  by  a  fortunate  accident 
they  acquired  the  means  of  understanding  the  Mexican  languago. 
If  they  were  worsted,  how  were  they  to  retreat  ?  But  even  if  they 
conquered,  what  were  they  afterwards  to  do  ?  Were  they  to  remain 
in  the  capital  of  an  unknown  empire,  —  supposing  they  could  get 
possession  of  it,  —  five  hundred  men,  in  that  insulated  situation,  to 
keep  millions  of  men  in  subjection  ? 

This  appears  to  me  the  more  appropriate  merit  of  Cort<^s  and  his 
followers,  and  the  extraordinary  interest  of  this  history.  At  every 
moment,  the  reader  may  stop  and  ask  himself.  What  must  be  the 
next  result  ?  What  measure  is  Cortes  next  to  adopt  ?  What  will 
the  Indians  now  attempt  ?  This  sort  of  sensation  of  uncertaintj^  of 
indistinct  and  strange  expectation,  which  so  belongs  to  this  history, 
is  not  conveyed  to  a  reader  by  the  formal  narrative  of  Cortes  himself, 
but  it  is  to  a  certain  degree  by  Bernal  Diaz ;  and  it  would  be  entirely 
so,  if  he  had  not  mixed  and  confused  the  parts  of  his  story.  The 
consequence  of  this  want  of  proper  distinctness  and  arrangement  is, 
that  the  reader  is  not  properly  conducted  from  step  to  step,  gradually 
and  slowly,  seeing  nothing  before  him,  nothing  but  the  ground  on 
which  he  stands,  and  therefore  as  uncertain  as  the  Spaniards  must 
themselves  have  been  of  what  was  next  to  follow.  This  want  of  ar- 
rangement in  Bernal  Diaz  is  unfortunate.  The  defect,  however,  is 
properly  supplied  by  Robertson,  whose  relation,  as  it  ought  to  do, 
gradually  awakens,  and  then  duly  gratifies,  expectation  and  anxiety. 

But  to  return  to  the  Letters  of  Cortes,  and  to  give  a  specimen  or 
two  of  their  contents. 

And,  first,  it  may  be  curious  to  observe  the  sentiments  by  which 
these  plunderers  and  destroyers  of  innocent  nations  conceived  them- 
selves to  be  actuated.  After  having  made  a  certain  progress  in  the 
country,  the  soldiers,  when  they  saw  the  numbers  and  the  courage 
of  their  new  enemies,  murmured  aloud,  that  it  was  folly  to  proceed, 
that  retreat  would  soon  be  impossible,  and  that  they  would  leave 
Corti^s  to  go  alone,  if  he  persisted  in  his  impracticable  enterprise. 

"  I  told  them  to  be  of  good  courage,"  says  Cortes,  in  his  Second 
Letter ;  "  to  remember  that  they  were  the  subjects  of  your  Majesty  ; 
that  Spaniards  had  never  been  wanting  in  proper  spirit ;  that  we 
were  so  happily  situated,  that  ours  would  be  the  fortune  to  acquire 
for  your  Majesty  greater  kingdoms  and  dominions  than  the  whole 
world  could  elsewhere  furnish ;  that  we  ought  to  behave  ourselves 
like  good  men,  and  like  Christians  who  were  to  be  rewarded  by  su- 
preme felicity  in  the  life  to  come,  —  by  greater  honor  and  renown  in 
this  than  any  other  generation  had  ever  acquired ;  and  that  they  were 
to  consider  the  assistance  which  was  afibrded  us  by  that  Almighty 
with  whom  nothing  was  impossible,  and  who  evidenced  his  favor  to 
our  cause  by  the  victories  which  he  vouchsafed  to  us,  —  so  fatal  to 
the  enemy,  so  bloodless  to  oarselves.'* 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES.  865 

Such  were  the  motives  which  Cortes  produced  to  his  sovereigns. 
He  omits  another,  which  he  certainly  produced  to  his  soldiers,  —  the 
prospect  of  gold  and  plunder;  no  doubt,  the  never-ceasing  and 
strongly  exciting  cause  of  all  that  astonishing  perseverance  which 
the  Spaniards,  already  brave,  exhibited  in  the  discovery  and  con- 
quests of  the  New  World. 

Again,  Cortes,  as  he  proceeded  in  his  enterprise,  clearly  perceived, 
that,  though  he  had  a  powerful  monarch  and  an  immense  empire  to 
oppose  in  Montezuma  and  Mexico,  still  that  he  should  find  allies  as 
he  went  along,  and  that,  therefore,  success  was  at  least  not  impossible. 
"  It  was  with  the  greatest  pleasure,"  says  he,  "  that  I  saw  their  dis- 
sensions and  animosities,  for  a  way  was  thus  opened  me  for  their  sub- 
jection. '  From  the  mountain  proceeds,'  according  to  the  proverb, 
'  what  burns  the  mountain ' ;  and  '  The  kingdom,'  says  the  Gospel, 
'that  is  divided  against  itself,  cannot  stand.'  " 

One  of  the  most  daring  achievements  of  the  military  skill  and 
policy  of  Gortes  was  the  seizure  of  Montezuma  in  his  palace  at  mid- 
day. He  takes  no  pains  to  varnish  over  this  transaction  to  his  court ; 
to  such  a  court  (that  of  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth)  it  would 
have  been  unnecessary.  "  I  thought,"  says  Cortds,  "  that  it  would 
be  of  material  consequence,  and  conduce  to  the  advancement  of  your 
Majesty's  state,  and  very  much  to  our  protection  and  security,  if  thr 
'  aforesaid  Lord  Montezuma  was  placed  within  my  power."  He  men 
tions  the  pretences  he  made  use  of ;  but  he  hurries  over,  with  all  pos- 
sible brevity,  the  distress  and  expostulations  of  the  unfortunate 
emperor.  "  There  was  a  long  altercation  between  us,"  says  he,  "  on 
these  points ;  and  it  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  what  .passed  on 
each  side."  From  a  word  that  escapes  Cortes,  and  from  a  single 
word  only,  may  be  conjectured  the  eiFect  that  was  produced  on  the 
nobles  by  this  extraordinary  outrage  on  the  majesty  of  their  sover- 
eign :  —  "In  the  deepest  silence  and  with  tears  they  placed  him  on 
his  litter  "  :     "  Flentes  lecticse  imposuerunt." 

Cortes  says  nothing  of  the  real  intrepidity  and  hardiness  of  this 
transaction ;  and  Caesar  himself  relates  not  his  exploits  with  a  more 
distant  neutralit}^  than  through  the  whole  of  these  Letters  does  the 
conqueror  of  Mexico.  But  Bernal  Diaz  del  Castillo,  who  is  more  dis- 
posed to  do  himself  justice,  cannot  help  observing,  —  "  Now  let  the 
curious  consider  upon  our  heroic  actions ;  first,  in  destroying  our 
ships,  and  therewith  all  hope  of  retreat ;  secondly,  in  entering  the 
city  of  Mexico  after  the  alarming  warnings  that  we  had  received ; 
thirdly,  in  daring  to  make  prisoner  the  great  Montezuma,  king  of  all 
that  country,  in  his  own  capital,  and  in  the  centre  of  his  own  palace, 
surrounded  by  his  numerous  guards ;  and,  fourthly,  in  publicly  burn- 
ing his  officers  in  front  of  his  palace,  and  putting  the  king  in  irons 
during  the  execution.  Now  that  1  am  old,  I  frequently  revolve  and 
reflect  upon  the  events  of  that  day,  which  appear  to  me  as  fresh  as 


866  LECTURE  XXI. 

if  they  had  just  passed,  —  such  is  the  impression  they  have  made 
upon  my  mind.  I  say  that  it  was  not  we  who  did  these  things,  but 
that  all  was  guided  by  the  hand  of  God;  for  what  men  on  earth 
would  otherwise  have  ventured,  their  numbers  not  amounting  to  four 
hundred  and  fifty,  to  have  seized  and  put  in  irons  a  mighty  monarch, 
and  publicly  burned  his  officers  for  obeying  his  orders,  in  a  city  larger 
than  Venice,  and  at  a  distance  of  a  thousand  and  five  hundred  leagues 
from  their  native  country  f  There  is  much  matter  for  reflection  in 
this,  and  it  merits  to  be  detailed  otherwise  than  in  the  dry  manner  in 
which  I  relate  it."  —  Bernal  Diaz,  page  158. 

The  horrible  outrage  to  which  Bernal  Diaz  here  alludes  certainly 
took  place.  Montezuma  was  obliged  to  deliver  up  to  Cortes  the  offi- 
cers who  by  his  own  order  had  fallen  upon  a  party  of  the  Spaniards 
and  had  put  some  of  them  to  death.  Cortes  ordered  these  unfortunate 
subjects  and  defenders  of  an  invaded  monarch  to  be  burnt  alive,  he 
saw  the  sentence  executed,  and  he  even  threw  Montezuma  himself 
into  chains.  Even  these  transactions  he  relates  in  no  apologetical 
manner ;  he  seems  to  think  it  sufficient  that  Montezuma's  officers  had 
killed  the  Spaniards,  —  no  further  crime  was  necessary  in  them ;  and 
that  Montezuma  had  ordered  them  to  do  so,  —  this  was  an  offence  suf- 
ficient in  him.  "  Et  hoc  modo,"  these  were  his  words,  "  fuerunt 
publice  in  platea  sine  aliquo  tumultu  aut  seditione  combusti."  Again: 
"  Eodem  die  quo  combusti  fuere,  Montezuma  in  compedes  collocari 
jussi." 

The  last  scene  of  degradation  for  Montezuma  yet  remained ;  he 
was  publicly  to  acknowledge  himself  the  vassal  of  the  king  of  Spain. 
Here  Cortes  does  not  disguise,  for  it  enhanced  his  own  merit  with  the 
court,  the  mortification  and  pangs  of  an  outraged  monarch  and  his  in- 
sulted people.  He  gives  the  speech  of  Montezuma  ;  it  was,  no  doubt, 
dictated  to  him  by  Cortes.  Its  purport  was  to  show  that  the  master 
of  Cortes  was  the  true  descendant  of  the  original  head  of  the  Mexi- 
can race,  to  whom  they  owed  allegiance.  "  Such  were  the  words," 
says  Cortds,  "  which  he  dehvered,  with  tears  and  sighs  more  and 
more  deep  than  any  tongue  can  adequately  tell."  The  nobles  par- 
ticipated in  the  anguish  of  their  sovereign ;  and  even  the  Spaniards 
themselves,  the  unfeeling  arbiters  of  his  fate,  could  not  escape  from 
the  contagion  of  the  general  sympathy.  Nothing,  it  is  probable,  but 
such  passions  as  avarice  and  ambition  could  have  kept  them  firm  to 
their  purpose. 

In  this  Second  Letter  of  Cort(3S  may  also  be  found  a  description 
of  the  city  of  Mexico.  The  facts  he  states  are  many  and  curious. 
The  single  fiict  of  his  seeing  more  than  sixty  thousand  people  every 
day  meeting  in  a  place  for  the  purposes  of  buying  and  selling  is  quite 
sufficient  to  indicate  the  general  civilization  and  importance  of  any 
community.  "  Est  in  eadem  civ^tate  platea  ubi  quotidie  ultra  sexa- 
ginta  millia  hominum  vendentium  ementiumque  cernuntur." 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES.  8G7' 

The  Third  Letter  contains  the  account  of  the  protracted  siege  and 
final  conquest  of  the  city  of  Mexico.  The  bravery  of  Guatemozin, 
the  virtuous  Hector  of  his  Troy,  is  noted  by  Cortds ;  but  there  is  no 
accourt  of  the  subsequent  transactions  which  relate  to  this  unfortu- 
nate prince,  and  which  have  consigned  the  principal  followers  of  Cor- 
tes, and  even  Cortes  himself,  to  the  eternal  reprobation  of  mankind. 

The  work  of  Bemal  Diaz  has  been  described  by  Robertson,  and 
must  by  the  recommendation  of  such  an  author  as  Robertsoft  be  suf- 
ficiently introduced  to  your  curiosity.  I  know  of  no  portion  of  this 
original  work  that  can  be  well  omitted,  as  the  whole  is  not  long,  and 
as  it  is  not  an  historian  writing,  but  an  old  soldier  talking  to  us,  deep- 
ly impressed,  and  very  naturally  impressed,  with  his  own  merits  and 
those  of  his  companions,  and  with  the  extraordinary  scenes  in  which 
he  had  been  engaged.  It  is  not  easy  to  turn  away  from  a  recital 
which,  however  rambling  and  often  confused,  bears  always  its  own 
internal  evidence  of  fairness  and  truth.  "  Let  the  wise  and  learned," 
says  this  honest  veteran,  "  read  my  History  from  beginning  to  end, 
and  they  will  then  confess  that  there  never  existed  in  the  world  men 
who  by  bold  achievement  have  gained  more  for  their  lord  and  king 
than  we,  the  brave  conquerors,  amongst  the  most  valiant  of  whom  I 
was  considered  as  one,  and  am  the  most  ancient  of  all.  I  say  again, 
that  I,  —  I  myself,  —  I  am  a  true  conqueror,  and  the  most  ancient 
of  all."  —  Bernal  Diaz,  page  501. 

The  narrative  of  Bemal  Diaz  is  always  more  minute  and  artless, 
and  therefore  very  often  of  greater  value,  than  even  the  Letters  of 
Cortds ;  and  there  is  scarcely  a  point  which  can  attract  our  curiosity 
that  is  not  in  some  part  or  other  touched  upon. 

In  the  two  quartos  of  the  work  of  Clavigero,  the  last  three  chap- 
ters  of  the  first  volume,  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh,  are  worth  read- 
ing, and  may  be  compared  with  Robertson.  His  preface  should  be 
looked  at,  and  the  list  of  authors  and  original  authorities.  Most  of 
the  second  volume  is  also  worth  reading ;  and  it  is  very  agreeable, 
and  in  some  respects  instructive,  to  compare  together  Bernal  Diaz, 
Clavigero,  and  Robertson.  Clavigero  is  too  minute,  and  Robertson, 
perhaps,  not  enough  so. 

For  the  next  division  of  the  general  subject,  the  conquest  of  Peru, 
I  cannot  but  consider  the  account  of  Robertson  as  sufficient.  Bizar- 
re was,  after  all,  a  vulgar  conqueror,  and  is  from  the  first  detested, 
though  he  seizes  upon  our  respect,  and  retains  it  in  defiance  of  ourselves, 
from  the  powerful  and  decisive  nature  of  his  courage  and  of  his  un- 
derstanding. The  Peruvians,  too,  excite  in  us  no  emotions  but  those 
of  the  most  genuine  compassion.  They  repel  not  our  imagination,  as 
do  the  Mexicans,  by  the  abominable  rites  of  their  superstition ;  but 
neither,  on  the  other  hand,  do  they  occupy  our  respect  by  any  prop- 
er defence  of  their  country. 

When  the  facts  of  the  discovery  and  conquest  of  the  New  Woxld 


368  LECTURE  XXL 

Lave  "been  thus  investigated,  the  original  subject  of  interest  should 
then  again  present  itself  to  your  consideration.  In  this  new  world 
we  have  races  of  men  who  were  never  before  suspected  to  be  in 
existence.  Are  they,  then,  like  ourselves?  If  different,  in  what 
respect  different  ?  Are  there  any  new  principles  in  human  nature 
to  be  here  discovered,  or  is  there  only  to  be  seen  a  confirmation  of 
the  old  ?  What  materials  are  here  supplied  for  the  consideration  of 
the  statesman,  the  moralist,  the  metaphysician  ?  It  is  with  this  sort 
of  speculating  spirit  that  the  history  of  the  New  World  and  of  its 
inhabitants  should  be  considered  anew,  after  the  curiosity  which  be- 
longs to  the  mere  narrative  has  been  once  satisfied. 

Robertson,  in  his  references  and  in  his  own  very  calm  and  intelli- 
gent observations,  opens  a  wide  field  for  meditation  to  a  contemplative 
mind,  and  has  neither  declined  nor  treated  unworthily  this  important 
part  of  his  general  subject.  But  no  observation  upon  it  can  be  ex- 
pected from  me,  when  it  has  not  only  been  discussed  by  such  a  writ- 
er, but  is  in  itself  too  extensive  for  a  lecture. 

On  the  whole,  the  distinction  which  Dr.  Robertson  has  made  be- 
tween the  inhabitants  of  Mexico  and  Peru  and  all  the  otiier  more 
rude  nations  of  America  will  be  found  to  contribute  miaterially  to  a 
clear  view  of  the  whole  subject.  With  respect  to  these  latter  (the 
more  savage  nations),  I  would  recommend,  in  addition  to  the  pages 
of  Robertson,  the  notes  in  Murphy's  translation  of  Tacitus,  "  De 
Moribus  Germaniae."  These  will  afford  you  a  general  idea  of  the 
uniform  effect  of  natural  and  moral  causes  upon  human  beings,  by 
the  comparison  which  is  there  exhibited  between  the  characters  and 
manners  of  our  savage  ancestors  in  the  woods  of  Grermany  and  of 
the  savages  in  the  woods  of  America. 

But  with  respect  both  to  these  more  savage  nations  and  also  to 
the  Mexicans  and  the  Peruvians,  I  may  remark,  on  the  whole,  that 
in  this  new  world,  as  in  our  own,  it  is  still  the  same  human  nature 
which  appears  before  us.  The  metaphysician  will  find  the  human 
being  still  furnished  with  ideas  exactly  in  proportion  to  his  sources  of 
sensation  and  reflection,  and  the  same  pervading  influence  of  the 
principle  of  association.  The  moralist  will  see,  in  like  manner,  the 
same  original  feeling  of  selfishness,  modified  more  or  less  by  the  so- 
cial feeling  ;  the  same  hopes  and  fears,  pleasures  and  pains,  affections 
and  passions.  The  naturaUst  will  perceive  the  same  influence  of 
climate ;  and  the  statesman,  of  political  institution.  There  are,  no 
doubt,  some  very  remarkable  varieties  in  the  Peruvian  character,  not 
only  of  a  physical,  but  of  an  intellectual  nature,  —  more,  indeed,  than 
Robertson  can  entirely  explain ;  but  our  knowledge  of  the  political 
situation  of  the  Peruvians,  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  is  very  im- 
perfect, and  our  knowledge  of  the  effect  and  operation  of  climate  not 
adequate  to  the  discussion  of  the  subject. 

It  may  be  added,  with  a  reference  to  Robertson's  account,  that  tho 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES.  369 

difficulty  is  not  how  the  Mexican  superstition  became  ferocious  and 
terrible,  but  how  the  Peruvian  could  ever  have  been  mild  and  inno-^ 
cent ;  and  he  gives  a  description  of  the  state  of  property  in  the  Pe- 
ruvian nation  which  is  scarcely  to  be  understood,  —  not  at  all,  but 
upon  the  supposition,  that  the  Peruvians,  with  respect  to  waste  land, 
were  still  in  the  situation  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  new  country. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  observed,  that,  after  we  have  entered 
npon  the  history  of  this  new  world,  and  for  some  time  accompanied 
the  march  of  Cortes,  we  perceive  that  it  is  our  own  fellow-mortals 
with  whom  we  are  still  concerned,  and  that  we  might  in  many  respects 
conceive  ourselves  to  be  still  reading  the  history  of  Europe.  We 
find  a  large  tract  of  country  divided  into  different  states ;  we  see 
different  forms  of  government,  republics  and  monarchies,  a  sort  of 
feudal  system,  an  aristocracy,  different  ranks  and  professions,  wars 
and  insurrections,  conquests  and  rebellions,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the 
New  World  not  distinguishable  in  their  principles  of  political  action 
from  the  nations  we  are  already  acquainted  with  in  the  Old. 

The  first  impression,  too,  of  wonder,  with  which  we  hear  of  the 
conquest  of  a  whole  continent  by  a  handful  of  Spaniards,  abates  as 
wC' proceed.  Cortes  conquered  the  great  empire  of  Mexico  as  much 
by  his  Indian  alhes  as  by  his  European  followers.  That  empire,  it 
appears,  had  spread  its  conquests  far  and  wide,  and  had  everywhere 
become  an  object  of  hatred  or  terror  by  its  ambition  and  harsh  gov- 
ernment. The  fall  of  Mexico  is  only  one  instance  in  the  New 
World,  to  be  added  to  all  those  in  the  Old,  of  the  impolicy  of  such 
harsh  government  and  of  such  unprincipled  ambition. 

When  the  Spaniards  appeared,  the  superiority  of  their  arms  and 
discipline  made  them  be  considered,  and  indeed  actually  rendered  them, 
for  all  purposes  of  war,  superior  beings.  In  the  battles  of  Homer, 
the  only  difference  between  the  celestial  and  terrestrial  combatants  is, 
that  the  former  cannot  be  killed.  The  same  was  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Europeans  and  their  opponents.  For  instance,  the  Indians 
had  such  a  superiority  of  numbers  in  one  of  the  engagements,  that 
Bernal  Diaz  declares,  "  They  could  have  buried  us  under  the  dust 
they  could  have  held  in  their  hands."  But  it  appears,  from  the  ac- 
count of  the  same  eyewitness,  that,  when  the  field  was  afterwards 
walked  over  and  examined,  there  were  upwards  of  eight  hundred 
Indians  lying  dead  or  dying  of  their  wounds,  and  only  two  Europeans, 
one  by  a  wound  in  the  ear,  and  the  other  by  one  in  the  throat.  The 
wonder  is  rather  that  the  ^lexicans  defended  their  empire  so  well, 
when  we  consider  the  nature  of  the  Spanish  soldiery,  and  the  unfor- 
tunate description  of  the  character  of  Montezuma. 

Pizarro,  in  like  manner,  had  every  necessary  advantage  over  the 
Peruvians :  a  disputed  succession,  a  civil  war  raging  in  the  country, 
allies  wherever  he  moved,  and  a  people  so  inferior  in  the  military 
art,  that  these  new  invaders  were  here  also  considered,  and  very 
naturally  considered,  as  more  than  human. 
47 


S70  LECTURE  XXL 

One  topic,  among  many  others,  connected  with  the  discovery  and 
conquest  of  the  New  World,  is  that  of  the  cruelties  which  were  exer- 
cised by  the  Spaniards  upon  the  defenceless  Indians.  These  cruel- 
ties, while  they  have  left  an  eternal  stain  on  the  Spanish  name,  have 
iconsigned  to  immortality  the  virtuous  labors  of  Las  Casas,  the  cele- 
brated bishop  of  Chiapa.  His  efforts  in  the  cause  of  suffering  hu- 
manity make  a  short,  but  interesting,  portion  of  the  History  of  Robert- 
son. The  bishop's  own  book  will,  I  think,  disappoint  expectation.  It 
is  somewhat  too  declamatory  and  sweeping  in  its  statements.  This 
mode  of  writing  and  of  statement,  however,  rather  presupposes  than 
invalidates  the  general  truth  of  the  account.  It  is  natural  for  a  man 
to  write  thus,  who  is  full  of  his  subject,  and  of  the  heinousness  and 
extent  of  the  crimes  he  is  reprobating.  Such  a  man  feels  calmness 
and  detail  and  minuteness  impossible,  and  a  sort  of  insult  on  his 
feelings. 

The  empires  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  their  situation  and  conquest,  are 
the  great,  and  indeed  the  only,  subjects  in  the  history  of  the  Spanish 
achievements  that  deserve  our  study.  But  there  are  other  subjects 
connected  with  the  East  and  West  Indies  that  must  be  attended  to, 
and  on  which  I  must,  before  I  conclude,  refer  you  to  some  sources  of 
information. 

While  the  Spaniards  were  stretching  away  to  the  west,  the  Portu- 
guese, who  had  been  for  some  time  creeping  down  the  coast  of  Africa, 
at  length  doubled  the  Cape,  finding  in  Yasco  de  Gama  and  Albu- 
querque the  Columbus  and  the  Cortes  of  the  Eastern  Indies.  On 
this  subject,  information  will  be  found  in  a  few  pages  of  the  fifty- 
seventh  Letter  of  Russell ;  and  a  more  elaborate  account  (though  not 
more  than  should  be  read),  in  the  first  three  sections  of  the  eighth 
volume  of  the  Modem  History.  Dr.  Robertson's  last  work  on  India 
should  be  read,  as  a  very  complete  introduction  to  the  whole. 

As  the  Spaniards  went  round  the  world  in  one  direction,  and  the 
Portuguese  in  another,  they  at  length  met ;  and  their  concerns  and 
conquests  became  extremely  entangled.  On  this  subject  there  is  a 
great  deal  more  than  can  well  be  considered  in  the  eighth  volume  of 
the  Modern  Ilisbory.  There  is  an  account  of  the  Brazils  in  Harris's 
Voyages.  The  Brazils  had  been  seized  upon  by  the  Portuguese. 
When  Portugal  fell  under  the  dominion  of  the  Spanish  crown,  the 
Dutch  made  their  appearance  everywhere  as  the  invaders  of  the  pos- 
sessions of  their  enemies.  Of  their  conquests,  settlements,  and  dis- 
coveries a  sufficient  account  is  given  in  the  thirty-third  chapter  of 
the  Modern  History.  A  very  tedious  detail  is  also  given  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  English  East  India  Company ;  and  all  these  subjects  are 
shortly  despatched  in  the  eleventh  Letter  of  Russell.*  All  these 
works  refer  to  more  elaborate  accounts,  which  may  be  consulted,  if 
necessary. 

*  History  of  Modem  Europe,  Part  ii.,  Letter  11.  —  N. 


EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES.  871 

But  the  more  interesting  part  of  the  English  achievements  in  these 
new  worlds  was  their  attempt  to  establish  settlements  in  North  Amer- 
ica. Of  this  very  curious  subject  a  very  adequate  idea  may  be 
formed  from  the  beginning  of  a  great  work  which  Dr.  Robertson  did 
not  live  to  finish,  and  which  has  been  since  very  properly  published 
by  his  son.  The  references  will  conduct  you  to  the  original  and 
more  circumstantial  histories  of  others.  The  first  half  of  the  first 
volume  of  the  Life  of  Washington,  lately  published  by  Mr.  Marshall, 
will  be  sufficient  to  supply  what  Dr.  Robertson  did  not  attempt  to 
give. 

The  work  of  Raynal  treats  of  every  thing  that  can  be  sought  for 
connected  with  these  subjects.  But  as  the  author  comprehended  in 
his  plan  so  extensive  a  field  of  inquiry,  it  was  not  possible  that  he 
should  not  be  often  inaccurate  j  and  as  he  does  not  cite  his  authorities 
(an  unpardonable  omission),  he  suffers  the  fate  of  Voltaire,  and  is 
seldom  quoted  but  to  be  reprehended.  If,  however,  the  student  will 
pursue  through  the  work  all  the  great  leading  historical  events,  with- 
out troubling  himself  with  the  Abba's  exclamations  and  superfluous 
eloquence,  and  without  depending  on  the  minuter  parts  of  his  relation, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  celebrated  volumes,  thus  perused, 
will  be  found  not  only  agreeable,  but  highly  useful. 

And  now  I  must  allude,  in  a  few  words,  to  a  celebrated  and  some- 
what singular  work,  of  which  the  title  is,  "  An  Account  of  the  Euro- 
pean Settlements  in  America."  I  would  recommend  the  perusal  of 
this  work  before  the  details  I  have  proposed  have  been  begun,  and 
again  after  they  have  been  gone  through ;  that  is,  I  would  recom- 
mend the  perusal  of  it  twice.  It  may  be  a  map  of  the  subject  in  the 
first  instance,  and  a  summary  in  the  second. 

This  work  has  been  always  understood  to  be  the  work  of  Mr.  Burke. 
Indeed,  it  could  be  attributed  to  no  man  of  the  period  in  which  it  was 
published,  though  a  sort  of  Augustan  age  in  England,  but  him. 
From  the  ease  of  the  narrative,  and  the  beauty  of  its  observations,  it 
might  have  belonged  to  Goldsmith.  But  there  is  a  greater  acquaint- 
ance with  the  commerce  and  politics  of  the  European  nations  than 
could  well  be  supposed,  even  in  an  author  whose  pen  could  touch  up- 
on every  thing,  and  upon  every  thing  with  success.  Add  to  this,  that 
the  rapid  and  fine  philosophy,  the  careless  spirit,  and  all  that  afflu- 
ence of  mind  which  so  uniformly  distinguished  the  works  of  Burke, 
are  all  as  clearly  discernible,  in  many  parts  of  this  anonymous  and 
unpolished  production,  as  in  any  of  the  most  regular  performances  of 
that  extraordinary  man.  As  the  work  proceeds,  the  subjects  diminish 
in  real  interest ;  and  the  delight,  though  not  always  the  instruction, 
of  the  reader,  diminishes  also.  It  has  been  said,  and  with  much  ap- 
pearance of  probability,  that  these  volumes  were  written  by  Burke  in 
conjunction  with  his  brother,  who  had  lived  in  the  West  Indies,  and 
who  must  have  had  much  local  and  valuable  information  to  communi- 


372  LECTURE  XXI. 

cate  ;  that  the  heavier  parts  were  consigned  by  the  orator  to  his  more 
humble  associate  ;  and  that,  after  treating,  himself,  the  more  interest- 
ing topics  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  work,  he  did  no  more  than  revise 
and  retouch  the  remainder. 

The  great  misfortune  of  the  work  is,  that  subjects  which  deserved 
all  the  powers  of  Burke  are  often  despatched  in  too  summary  a  man- 
ner ;  the  great  defect,  that  the  author  announces  not  his  own  sources 
of  information,  and  leaves  his  readers  without  a  wish  to  inquire  after 
any  other  works  but  Harris's  Collection  of  Voyages  and  Lafitau,  — 
valuable  works,  no  doubt,  but  Mr.  Burke  might  have  assisted  an  in- 
quirer with  his  observations  on  all  the  writers  and  documents  which 
he  had  consulted,  and  such  observations  would  have  been  inferior  in 
value  only  to  the  work  itself. 

During  the  period  which  we  are  now  considering,  the  commerce  of 
the  world,  and  its  knowledge,  were  rapidly  progressive.  There  are 
those  who  have  a  pleasure  in  tracing  out  the  steps  which  lead  to  per- 
manent alterations  and  improvements  in  the  concerns  of  mankind. 
To  minds  of  this  speculative  and  superior  cast  the  early  collections  of 
voyages  may  be  recommended,  —  Hakluyt  and  Purchas.  Works 
like  these  are  very  curious  monuments  of  the  nature  of  human  enter- 
prises, human  testimony  and  credulity,  —  of  the  nature  of  the  human 
mind  and  of  human  affairs.  Much  more  is,  indeed,  offered  to  a  re- 
fined and  philosophic  observer,  though  buried  amid  this  unwieldy 
and  unsightly  mass,  than  was  ever  supposed  by  its  original  readers, 
or  even  its  first  compilers. 

In  addition  to  the  sort  of  interest  which  belongs  to  these  ancient 
accounts  of  the  first  efforts  of  discoverers  and  settlers,  in  the  latter 
volumes  of  Purchas  will  be  found  very  valuable  abridgments  of  the 
original  accounts  relative  to  the  achievements  of  the  Spaniards  in 
South  America,  particularly  a  curious  exhibition  of  the  Mexican 
painting ;  and  a  very  sufficient,  though  too  favorable,  idea  may  be 
here  formed  of  Las  Casas's  book,  of  which  the  greatest  part  is  given. 
These  cpllections  of  voyages  were  followed  by  the  collections  of 
Churchill  and  Harris.  But  you  must  note,  that,  when  Harris's  work 
is  quoted,  it  is  the  last  edition,  not  the  first,  that-  is  referred  to. 

Before  I  conclude,  I  must  observe  that  this  most  extensive  subject 
of  the  conquests  and  settlements  of  the  European  nations  in  the  East 
and  West  Indies  divides  itself  into  two  great  departments  of  inquiry : 
—  First,  What  were  the  conquests  made,  and  what  was  their  history  ? 
Secondly,  What  were  the  consequences  .of  these  discoveries  and  con- 
quests ?  With  respect  to  the  first  part  of  the  subject,  I  have  already 
endeavoured  to  introduce  my  hearers  to  such  works  as  I  conceive 
will  be  adequate  to  their  information.     The  second  part  of  the  sub- 

i'ect  (the  consequences)  belongs  to  the  remaining  portion  of  modem 
listory.     The  discovery  of  these  new  tracts  of  country,  those  new 
sources  of  afifluence  and  strength,  as  they  were  everywhere  consid- 


WILLIAM  THE  THIRD.  873 

ered,  necessarily  affected,  and  has  never  ceased  to  affect,  the  politics 
of  the  nations  of  Europe.  A  new  object  of  observation  is  thus  opened 
to  the  philosophic  reader  of  history ;  and  this  is  to  be  added  to  those 
which  have  before  occupied  his  attention. 

Modern  history  thus  appears  to  me  to  present  two  great  fields  of 
investigation,  —  the  progress  of  the  human  mind,  and  the  progress 
of  human  prosperity :  the  progress  of  the  human  mind,  as  seen  in  the 
advancement  of  literature  and  science,  and  as  seen  in  the  different 
modes  which  the  European  nations  have  adopted  for  administering 
the  blessings  of  government  and  religion ;  to  be  traced,  it  must  be 
confessed,  through  the  wars  and  the  disputes,  foreign  and  domestic, 
which  such  most  serious,  most  interesting  subjects  could  not  fail  to 
occasion :  the  progress  of  human  prosperity,  as  seen  in  the  growth, 
multiplication,  and  extension  of  the  accommodations  of  life ;  to  be 
traced,  it  must  also  be  confessed,  through  systems  of  unenlightened 
legislation,  through  monopolies  and  restrictions,  and,  what  is  still 
more  to  be  lamented,  through  atrocious  enterprises  of  cruelty  and 
conquest.  To  the  former  of  these  subjects,  to  the  fortunes  of  the 
civil  and  religious  liberties  of  majikind,  we  have  hitherto  more  par- 
ticularly adverted ;  for  they  form  the  most  important  and  critical  por- 
tion of  the  first  part  of  modern  history.  But  the  latter,  the  subject 
of  the  internal  trade,  manufactures,  commercial  greatness,  and  rival- 
ship  of  the  different  states  of  Europe  must  hereafter  share  also  our 
attention.  When  united,  they  constitute  the  great  interest  and  m- 
struction  of  the  more  modern  jaistory  of  Europe  and  of  the  world. 


LECTURE    XXII. 
1811. 

WILLIAM  THE   THIRD. 

The  great  subject  of  all  history  is  the  civil  and  religious  liberties 
of  mankind,  for  on  these  depend  their  intelligence,  their  prosperity, 
their  happiness,  private  and  public ;  and  hence  arises  the  extraordi- 
nary interest  which  belongs  to  the  era  of  our  Revolution.  In  conse- 
quence of  that  most  fortunate  event,  these  liberties  were  in  England 
asserted  with  a  success  unexampled  in  the  history  of  the  nations  of 
the  earth ;  and  we  must  now,  therefore,  proceed  to  consider,  as  we 


874  '  LECTURE  XXII. 

have  already  in  part  done,  how  far  thej  were  at  that  period,  of  1688, 
adjusted  and  established,  and  what  was  their  subsequent  progress. 

The  first  object  of  our  attention  is  the  reign  of  William  the  Third ; 
then  follows  that  of  Queen  Anne  :  both  very  critical.  This  will  ap- 
pear very  evident  to  those  who  examine  them  with  any  care,  more 
particularly  to  those  who  have  the  faculty  of  placing  themselves  in 
the  scenes  that  they  see  described  by  the  historian,  —  a  faculty  of 
great  consequence  to  those  w^ho  are  to  read  history. 

In  the  present  lecture,  I  shall  first  mention  the  books  that  must  be 
either  consulted  or  read.  I  shall  then  make  some  observations  on 
the  parties  by  which  these  and  subsequent  periods  have  been  distin- 
guished. I  shall  then  allude  to  some  of  the  constitutional  questions 
which  occurred  in  the  reign  of  William,  such  as  were  then  of  impor- 
tance, and  such  as  I  conceive  will  be  ever  of  importance  to  the  inhab- 
itants of  this  country,  while  their  free  and  mixed  form  of  government 
remains. 

And  now,  when  we  enter  upon  the  reign  of  William,  we  have  no 
longer  the  assistance  of  the  philosophic  Hume.  We  have  no  longer 
within  our  reach  those  penetrating^ observations,  those  careless  and 
inimitable  beauties,  which  were  so  justly  the  delight  of  Gibbon,  and 
which,  with  whatever  prejudices  they  may  be  accompanied,  and  how- 
ever suspicious  may  be  those  representations  which  they  sometimes 
enforce  and  adorn,  still  render  the  loss  of  his  pages  a  subject  of  the 
greatest  regret,  and  leave  a  void  which  it  is  impossible  adequately  to 
supply. 

In  the  absence  of  Hume,  the  Histories  of  Dr.  Somerville  will  be 
found  very  useful ;  nor  are  they  as  yet  sufficiently  known  or  duly 
estimated. 

Belsham  will,  I  think,  in  like  manner  be  found,  for  a  considerable 
part  of  his  work,  very  valuable,  —  spirited,  intelligent,  an  ardent  friend 
to  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and  though  apparently  a  Dissenter,  not 
a  sectarian.  In  his  latter  volumes,  indeed,  from  the  breaking  out  of 
the  late  French  war  in  1793,  he  has  departed  from  the  equanimity  of 
an  historian,  and  has  degenerated  into  the  warmth,  and  almost  the 
rage,  of  a  party  writer. 

^  Of  these  authors  (Somerville  and  Belsham)  the  use  to  the  student 
will  be  the  same.  They  will  show  him  those  more  important  subjects 
of  reflection  which  the  detail  of  the  history  contains  ;  they  will  oifer 
to  him  observations  generally  very  judicious,  and  always  the  results 
of  much  more  labor  and  investigation  than  he  will  himself  be  disposed 
to  undertake.  These  more  important  subjects  may,  whenever  occa- 
sion requires,  be  followed  up  in  their  references  ;  and  some  of  them 
may  be  investigated  in  this  more  complete  manner  on  account  of  their 
own  general  importance,  and  as  a  portion  of  the  proper  labor  of  a 
philosophic  reader  of  history. 

For  the  detail^  Tindal  will  be  found  not  unworthy  to  be  the  succes- 


WILLIAM  THE  THIRD.  875 

sor  of  Rapin ;  equally  diligent  and  copious,  with  the  same  attachment 
to  the  best  interests  of  Englishmen,  and,  like  his  predecessor,  a  sort 
of  general  substitute,  in  the  absence  of  other  writers. 

But  the  great  historian  for  detail,  even  more  than  Tindal,  is  Ralph. 
Such  subjects  as  may  be  thought,  from  the  representations  of  Bel- 
fiham  and  Somerville,  to  be  important,  may  be  read  with  much  ad- 
vantage in  this  author ;  ill-humored,  no  doubt,  but  laborious  and  im- 
partial. Indeed,  the  whole  work  should  be  looked  over,  though  it 
cannot,  and  for  general  purposes  it  need  not,  be  regularly  read. 

Burnet  must,  of  course,  be  dihgently  perused,  as  an  eyewitness 
and  actor  in  the  scene.  His  merits  and  defects  seem  to  remain,  in 
this  part  of  his  History,  what  they  were  from  the  first.  He  is  often 
blamed,  but  his  reports  and  representations  are  seldom  without  their 
reasonableness  or  their  foundation,  and  must  always  be  at  least  taken 
into  account.  Of  late  the  credit  of  Burnet,  even  for  accuracy,  has 
been  rising ;  and  since  I  drew  up  this  lecture,  a  new  edition  of  the 
work  has  been  very  properly  published  at  Oxford,  in  which,  for  the 
first  time,  are  given  the  abusive  notes  of  Swift,  the  unfriendly  com- 
ments of  Lord  Dartmouth,  and  the  very  excellent  and  constitutional 
observations  of  Speaker  Onslow. 

Cobbett  will  supply  the  debates.  In  the  appendix  to  the  fifth  vol- 
ume, there  are  several  tracts  published,  which  will  give  an  idea  of 
the  views  of  reasoners  and  statesmen  at  the  time,  and  there  is  not 
one  of  them  that  will  not  be  found,  in  some  way  or  other,  valuable  ; 
more  particularly,  Lord  Shaftesbury's  tract.  No.  1,  containing  his 
objections  to  the  representation  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  a 
scheme  for  its  reform  ;  Lord  Somers's,  No.  4,  —  his  explanation  and 
vindication  of  the  merits  of  the  Revolution  and  the  subsequent  sys- 
tem ;  Mr.  Hampden's,  No.  6,  —  a  general  description  of  the  state  of 
public  opinion  at  the  time,  and  of  the  constitution,  and  against  an 
excise  ;  Mr.  Lawton's,  No.  9,  is  a  sort  of  specimen  of  the  discontents 
of  the  Whigs ;  in  No.  13  will  be  found  all  the  arguments  in  favor  of 
the  liberty  of  the  press  ;  No.  15  is  worth  reading ;  and  particularly 
Nos.  17  and  18,  the  Kentish  petition,  &c. 

The  leading  views  that  I  should  propose  to  the  student,  of  the 
reign  of  William,  are  these :  —  Supposing  himself,  as  usual,  to  be 
acquainted  with  all  subsequent  events,  he  is  to  consider,  as  the  great 
object  before  him,  first,  the  liberties  of  England,  —  secondly,  the  hb- 
erties  of  the  Continent :  that  is,  in  other  words,  first,  whether  the 
Revolution  of  1688  was  destined  to  succeed,. —  whether  the  exiled 
family  was  to  be  restored  ;  secondly,  whether  the  ambition  of  Louis, 
whether  the  aggrandizement  of  France,  was  to  be  checked.  These 
seem  the  questions  to  which  all  others  may  be  considered  as  subor- 
dinate, and  within  which  they  may,  for  the  most  part,  be  included. 

And  first  with  respect  to  England.  To  all  reasoners  at  the  time, 
the  ultimate  success  of  the  Revolution  must  have  appeared  very 


8Y6  LECTURE  XXII. 

doubtful.  The  student  cannot  have  reflected  upon  the  history  of  thia 
Revolution  in  1688,  without  observing  the  fortunate  manner  in  which 
it  was  accomplished ;  that  the  success  of  it  was  owing,  not  only  to 
the  great  prudence  and  merit  of  William,  but  to  the  great  mistakes  and 
faults  of  James,  and  above  all,  to  the  zeal  of  the  latter  for  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  religion.  The  Church  party,  and  the  Tory  party,  com- 
prehending so  large  a  portion  of  the  nation,  always  looked  upon  the 
crown  as  really  belonging  to  the  Stuart  family.  France  was,  in  the 
mean  time,  considered  not  only  as  pledged  to  the  cause  of  James,  but 
as  a  power  not  easily  to  be  resisted.  Charles  the  Second,  it  could 
not  but  be  remembered,  though  long  a  wanderer  on  the  Continent, 
had  been  at  last  most  triumphantly  restored.  Any  good  fortune  or 
good  management  in  James,  the  want  of  them  in  William,  the  death 
of  either,  a  thousand  contingencies,  such  as  often  ta^e  place  in  the 
affairs  of  the  world,  might  obviously  be  sufficient  to  reinstate  the 
Stuarts  in  their  hereditary  right.  They  had  been  driven  away  by 
a  movement  forced  and  unnatural  to  the  English  nation  ;  their  return 
was  therefore,  on  the  w^hole,  very  probable ;  and  while  this  probar 
bility  continued,  the  cause  of  the  Revolution  must  all  along  be  con- 
sidered as  still  at  issue. 

The  very  doubtful  nature  of  the  success  of  the  Revolution  w^ill  ap- 
pear, not  only  from  a  consideration  of  the  state  of  opinions  in  Eng- 
land, and  the  general  instability  of  every  thing  that  relates  to  the 
politics  of  kingdoms,  but  from  a  due  reflection  on  the  intrigues  that 
were  carrying  on,  and  it  was  but  too  natural  to  expect  would  con- 
tinue to  be  carried  on,  between  the  exiled  family  and  many  individu- 
als of  great  power  and  consequence  in  England,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland.  We  might  have  inferred  the  fact  from  the  general  princi- 
ples of  human  conduct ;  but  we  are  furnished  with  direct  evidence 
to  this  effect  in  the  state  papers  of  Macpherson,  which  must  therefore 
be  examined. 

The  journal  of  James  himself,  which  Macpherson  gives,  belongs  to 
our  present  subject,  from  March,  1689  ;  it  is  not  long,  and  should  be 
perused.  We  have  here  particulars  relating  to  the  siege  of  London- 
derry ;  to  the  battle  of  the  Boyne  ;  the  advances  made  to  James  by 
Churchill,  afterwards  the  celebrated  Duke  of  Marlborough ;  by  Go- 
dolphin  ;  a  letter  of  duty  and  repentance  by  the  Princess  of  Den- 
mark, afterwards  Queen  Anne ;  communications  with  Russell^  and 
Shrewsbury ;  and  various  documents  and  reports  relative  to  the  in- 
vasion of  England,  and  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  different  peri- 
ods of  the  reign  of  William.  Among  other  letters  the  student  will 
be  surprised,  and  surely  concerned,  to  find  one  from  Churchill,  in 
1694,  which  betrays  the  expedition  then  intended  against  Brest,  the 
expedition  which  terminated  (though  not  in  consequence  of  Churchill's 
letter)  in  a  manner  so  calamitous  to  the  EngUsh  forces  and  their  high- 
3pirited  commander.     These  papers  may  reasonably  give  rise  to  a 


WILLIAM  THE  THIRD.  877 

variety  of  reflections  ;  and  I  would  wish  to  refer  my  hearers  very  par- 
ticularly to  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Dr.  Somerville,  where  they  will 
find  the  subject  of  the  intrigues  with  the  exiled  family  well  discussed  ; 
and,  on  the  whole,  they  will,  I  conceive,  acquiesce  in  the  general  esti- 
mate formed  by  the  historian.  It  is  this  :  —  "  That,  during  the  whole 
reign  of  William,  his  person  and  government  were  exposed  to  ex- 
treme danger ;  that,  from  his  coronation,  till  his  title  was  acknowl- 
edged by  the  French  king,  at  the  peace  of  Ryswick,  a  correspond- 
ence was  constantly  carried  on  between  James  and  ma.ny  persons  of  the 
first  rank  and  influence  in  England ;  that  individuals  of  every  party, 
and  even  some  of  those  who  had  been  the  most  zealous  agents  in  the 
Revolution,  were  accessory  to  that  correspondence  ;  that  many  con- 
spiracies were  formed,  and  very  considerable  preparations  made  for. 
restoring  the  authority  of  James ;  and  that  even  the  most  base  and 
atrocious  designs  were  set  on  foot  to  put  an  end  to  the  power  and 
life  of  William." 

But  there  were  some  circumstances  that  operated  most  happily  to 
assist  and  support  the  establishment  of  the  new  government.  For 
instance,  it  was  difficult,  under  the  vigilant  administration  of  William, 
possessed  of  the  military  force  of  the  kingdom,  to  erect  the  standard 
of  revolt  without  the  protection  of  a  Fre\ich  army.  It  was  diffi- 
cult, in  the  mean  time,  for  Louis  to  see  a  sufficient  chance  of  success, 
unless  some  insurrection  first  encouraged  his  interference.  It  was 
not  easy  for  the  parties  to  combine  their  measures  and  views.  The 
personal  character  of  James  was  ill  fitted  to  recommend  his  cause. 
The  character  of  William,  on  the  contrary,  was  marked  by  great 
qualities  which  were  worthy  of  the  confidence  of  brave  and  intelligent 
men.  The  friends  of  James  were  even  divided  in  their  political  sen- 
timents ;  some  who  were  friends  to  him  meant  (so  endless  are  the 
mistakes  of  men  on  political  subjects)  to  be  friends  (can  it  be  be- 
lieved ?)  to  the  constitution,  and  by  no  means  to  establish  arbitrary 
power.  William  was  often  absent  from  England,  and  the  regency  of 
Queen  Mary  was,  on  these  occasions,  conducted  with  a  prudence  and 
moderation  that  gained  friends  among  every  party  in  the  nation,  — 
not  to  mention  that  she  was  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  exiled  mon- 
arch, —  and  her  rule  was,  therefore,  more  agreeable  to  the  prejudices 
of  the  Tories.  Her  death  only  united  the  interests  of  William  and 
the  Princess  Anne,  and  set  the  exiled  family  at  a  greater  distance, 
by  intercepting  their  more  immediate  return,  and  giving  an  opportu- 
nity of  securing  the  descent  of  the  crown  in  a  line  of  Protestant 
successors.  Lastly,  as  the  constitution  improved,  all  orders  in  the 
state  became  more  and  more  alienated  from  the  maxims  of  arbitrary 
prerogative,  and  were  more  and  more  disposed  to  a  settlement  which 
gave  them  a  greater  share  and  interest  in  the  constitution  of  their 
country. 

On  the  whole,  the  Revolution  in  1688,  while  William  lived,  ap- 
48  FF* 


378  LECTURE  XXII. 

peared  to  succeed ;  and  on  his  death-bed,  he  had  the  gratification  of 
reflecting,  not  only  that  he  had  maintained  this  great  cause  during 
his  reign,  but  that  he  saw,  through  his  exertions,  the  crown  descend 
to  Anne  on  the  principles  of  the  Revolution,  and  provision  made  for 
its  subsequent  transmission  to  the  Protestant  line,  in  exclusion  of  the 
exiled  family. 

The  next  question,  therefore,  is.  To  whom  are  we  indebted  for  the 
happy  issue  of  so  doubtful  an  experiment  during  this  most  critical 
period  of  the  reign  of  Wilham  ? 

On  inquiry,  it  will,  I  think,  be  found  that  the  greatest  share  of  the 
merit  must  be  allotted  to  William  himself;  but  much  will  still  remain 
to  the  great  Whig  leaders,  and  to  their  friends  and  adherents  in  the 
Parliament  and  the  nation ;  very  Httle  to  the  Church  and  Tory  party, 
who  acquiesced  in  the  new  order  of  things,  and  nothing  more,  and 
who  negatively,  rather  than  positively,  contributed  to  its  establish- 
ment. It  was,  on  the  whole,  very  fortunate  for  these  kingdoms  that 
the  growing  prosperity  of  the  community  had  multiplied  a  description 
of  men  in  the  great  cities  and  commercial  and  manufacturing  towns, 
who  were  active,  independent,  and  intelligent ;  who  were,  therefore, 
favorable  to  the  Whigs,  and  could  be  successfully  opposed  to  the 
landed  proprietors,  —  persons  of  great  natural  consequence  and 
power,  who  in  general  had  inherited,  with  their  estates,  opinions  and 
feelings  unfavorable  to  the  civil  and  religious  interests  of  mankind, 
derived  from  their  too  literal  interpretation  of  particular  texts  in  the 
Epistles.  But  these  conclusions  can  be  drawn  only  from  a  consider- 
ation of  the  conduct  of  all  concerned,  —  that  is,  from  the  history  of 
the  reign.     To  that  history  I  therefore  refer  you. 

With  this  inquiry  will  be  found  connected  another,  by  no  means 
unworthy  of  consideration,  —  the  conduct  of  William  with  respect 
to  the  two  great  parties  then  in  the  state,  the  Whigs  and  the  Tories. 

Every  thing  which  a  speculator  on  human  nature  could  have  an- 
ticipated with  regard  to  the  situation  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  when  he 
became  king,  was  abundantly  realized.  William  endeavoured  to  bal- 
ance between  the  two  parties,  —  to  retain  the  affections  of  the  Whigs, 
and  yet  acquire  those  of  the  Tories,  —  to  give  his  favor  to  the  one,  but 
not  to  exclude  the  other  from  his  kindness.  The  propriety  and  wisdom 
of  his  conduct,  under  all  the  existing  circumstances,  can,  of  course,  bo 
estimated  only  by  a  consideration  of  the  history  of  his  reign  in  all  its 
detail,  and  must,  after  all,  be  not  a  little  decided  by  the  general  con- 
fidence of  the  reader  in  his  sagacity  and  good  sense. 

But,  on  the  whole,  he  failed,  and  the  failure  of  such  a  man  is  an 
example  to  show  the  difficulty  of  mediating  between  two  parties,  and 
the  impossibility  of  receiving  the  proper  benefit  of  the  talents  and 
virtues  of  both.  No  monarch  ever  possessed  more  knowledge  of  hu- 
man nature,  more  equanimity,  more  elevation  of  mind,  than  William  ; 
yet  he  found  it  impracticable  to  harmonize  to  the  purposes  of  his 
government  men  animated  by  principles  and  interests  so  discordant. 


WILLIAM  THE  THIRD.  379 

But  the  king,  though  failing  in  the  manner  and  to  the  degree  I 
have  noticed,  was  successful  in  the  main.  He  so  triumphed  over  the 
difficulties  of  his  situation,  violent  passions  on  the  one  side,  and  un- 
fortunate opinions  on  the  other,  that  he  at  least  supported  the  cause 
of  the  Revolution ;  and  though  his  own  personal  comforts  and  com- 
posure of  mind  were  continually  disturbed,  and  sometimes  destroyed, 
the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  a  great  people  and  of  the  Continent 
were,  with  whatever  sacrifices,  embarrassments,  and  dangers  to  him- 
self, asserted  and  maintained.  This  is  a  merit  which  will  always 
place  him  high  in  the  scale  of  estimation,  even  when  compared  with 
the  greatest  of  his  felloe-mortals. 

On  the  whole,  the  first  Parliament  in  King  William's  reign  was  the 
Convention  Parliament,  which  legalized  the  Revolution,  and  enacted 
the  Bill  of  Rights.  But  this  was  the  work  of  the  Whigs  ;  and  if  they 
had  done  nothing  more,  they  might,  by  these  merits,  have  compen- 
sated for  any  subsequent  faults,  any  faults  but  that  of  undoing  their 
great  work,  and  bringing  the  Stuarts  back  to  the  throne.  This  last 
crime,  however,  to  the  liberties  of  their  country  they  neither  did 
commit  nor  endeavoured  to  commit.  It  is  painful,  it  is  disgusting,  it 
is  astonishing,  to  find  individuals  among  them  corresponding  with  the 
exiled  monarch,  as  if  they  were  disposed  to  propitiate  him,  at  least, 
and  be  considered  as  his  friends  rather  than  as  his  enemies,  if  for- 
tune, by  any  of  her  unworthy  caprices,  placed  him  once  more  upon 
the  throne.  Of  this  baseness  there  were  too  many  of  them  guilty, — 
guilty  as  individuals ;  but  as  a  body,  and  as  a  party,  they  were  never 
guilty.  They  were  faithful  to  England  and  the  best  interests  of 
mankind ;  and  they  never  failed  to  show  a  lively  sense  of  the  great 
cause  which  was  at  issue,  whenever  the  personal  safety  of  William 
was  in  danger,  or  his  throne  was  seen,  as  it  sometimes  was  seen, 
really  to  shake  under  him.  This  is  their  paramount  merit  to  all  suc- 
ceeding generations :  they  were  the  authors,  the  conductors,  and  the 
maintainors  of  the  Revolution. 

The  reign  of  Elizabeth  is  recommended  by  Hume  to  the  particular 
study  of  those  who  would  wish  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  Eng- 
lish constitution ;  so  may,  I  think,  the  period  before  us.  By  the 
Revolution  and  the  Bill  of  Rights,  no  doubt,  the  liberties  of  the  coun- 
try received  a  most  important  advancement.  But  the  constitution 
was  settling,  not  settled ;  and  questions  of  great  consequence  to  its 
interests  were  agitated  during  the  whole  of  this  reign  of  William. 
We  have  the  Civil  List,  the  Place  Bill,  the  Triennial  Bill,  the  Trea- 
son Bill,  the  question  of  the  liberty  of  the  press,  the  question  of  stand- 
ing armies,  of  the  responsibility  of  ministers ;  and  finally,  we  have  the 
veto  of  the  king  more  than  once  exercised,  and  even  a  sort  of  debate 
in  the  Commons  upon  this  assertion  of  the  prerogative.  We  have  all 
these  questions  making  their  appearance  in  the  course  of  a  single 
reign  of  thirteen  years.     They  comprehend  most  of  the  points  which 


380  LECTURE  XXII. 

belong  to  tlie  formation  of  a  good  government,  and  it  is  to  these  ques- 
tions, the  debates  upon  them,  the  conduct  of  the  two  parties  and  of 
the  king,  that  I  would  more  particularly  wish  to  call  your  attention. 

But  when  I  recommend  it  to  you  to  pursue  these  subjects  through 
the  debates  of  the  Houses,  and  in  some  instances  through  the  statute- 
book,  I  am  obliged  to  confess  that  the  debates  themselves  will  on  these 
occasions  much  disappoint  your  expectations.  They  have  been  taken 
down  so  imperfectly,  that  each  of  the  speeches  given  seems  to  resem- 
ble the  hints  or  heads  of  a  speech  put  down  by  a  speaker  before  its 
delivery,  rather  than  the  report  of  a  speech  already  delivered.  Many 
of  the  parts  are  unconnected  with  each  other ;  the  sentences,  as  they 
stand,  often  unintelligible  ;  and  passages  in  the  speech  of  one  member 
replying  to  passages  in  the  speech  of  another  which  do  not  appear. 
All  this  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  what  was  at  that  time  con- 
sidered as  a  privilege  of  the  House,  one  which  the  House  ought  al- 
ways to  insist  upon,  —  the  privacy  of  their  debates.  Their  privilege 
it  is  still,  and  ought  always  to  be  ;  but  it  is  now,  very  properly,  insist- 
ed upon  only  occasionally,  under  some  particular  circumstances  that 
seem  to  the  House  to  require  it.  Instances  of  the  assertion  of  this 
privilege  occurred  during  this  reign,  in  1694  ;  one  Dyer,  a  news-letter 
writer,  having  presumed  in  his  news-letter  to  take  notice  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  House,  he  was  summoned  to  the  House,  reprimand- 
ed, &;c. ;  and  on  the  Journals  appears  the  following  order :  —  "  That 
no  news-letter  writers  do,  in  their  letters  or  other  papers  that  they 
disperse,  presume  to  intermeddle  with  the  debates  or  any  other  pro- 
ceedings of  this  House." 

No  stronger  proof  need  be  given  of  the  advanced  state,  not  only  of 
society,  but  of  the  political  situation  of  the  country,  than  the  decided 
improvement  that  has  gradually  taken  place  in  this  important  particu- 
lar. An  estimate  can  now  be  formed,  not  only  of  the  topics  insisted 
upon  by  the  speakers  in  either  House,  but  generally  of  the  relative 
beauty  and  eloquence  of  the  speeches  themselves.  The  judgment 
that  may  now  be  made,  the  criticism  that  may  now  be  exercised,  not 
only  on  the  integrity,  but  on  the  ability,  of  the  members  of  the  two 
Houses,  cannot  but  be  of  the  most  salutary  consequence  to  them  as 
well  as  to  the  public.  Posterity  will  be  able  to  derive  an  entertain- 
ment and  instruction  from  the  Parliamentary  debates,  which  is  to  us, 
during  a  long  period  of  our  annals,  not  at  all,  or  but  too  imperfectly, 
supplied.  It  is  in  vain  for  us  to  inquire  after  the  Parliamentary  elo- 
quence of  Hampden  or  Lord  Bolingbroke  ;  but  after  ages  will  not  be 
entirely  without  the  means  of  appreciating  the  powers  of  the  two 
great  orators  of  our  own  days,  —  of  Mr.  Fox  and  Mr.  Pitt,  the  De^ 
mosthenes  and  the  Cicero  of  modern  history. 

But  to  return.  In  examining  such  questions  as  T  have  stated  to 
occur  in  the  reign  of  William,  recourse  must  be  I  ad,  for  want  of 
better  materials,  to  the  debates,  which  may  be  found  in  Cobbett ;  and 


WILLIAM  THE  THIRD.  381 

if  reference  be  had  to  his  authorities,  thej  will  be  found  properlj 
represented  ;  and  concise,  broken,  and  unsatisfactory  as  they  may  be, 
they  may  still  convey  much  valuable  instruction ;  and  from  different 
paragraphs  scattered  over  the  speeches  of  a  debate,  a  general  notion 
may  always  be  formed  of  the  tone  and  temper  of  the  period  before 
us,  and  of  the  progress  of  the  constitution  of  the  country.  Black- 
stone  also,  and  the  statute-book,  must  occasionally  be  referred  to. 
The  statute-book,  it  must  always  be  remembered,  is  itself  a  history ; 
to  a  philosophic  eye  none  so  instructive.  To  convert  it,  however, 
into  a  history  requires  leisure,  and  capacity,  and  knowledge,  and  very 
patient  habits  of  reflection  and  study. 

The  subject  of  the  civil  list  is  embarrassed  by  what  was  then  the 
mixed  nature  of  the  revenue  of  the  crown.  There  is  some  account  of 
this  revenue  in  Blackstone.  But  the  best  notice  of  it,  as  far  as  re- 
lates to  William's  reign,  is  to  be  seen  in  Burnet ;  and  as  the  passages 
in  his  History  are  characteristic  of  the  times  and  of  the  opinions  of 
former  statesmen,  I  recommend  them  to  your  perusal. 

It  appears  that  the  revenue  was  first  given  for  a  year,  then  for  five 
years,  then  for  life.  At  last,  in  the  April  of  1689,  the  revenue  was 
properly  distinguished  into  different  parts,  and  it  was  resolved  that 
six  hundred  thousand  pounds  should  be  allowed  for  the  charge  of  the 
civil  government,  and  seven  hundred  thousand  pounds  "  towards  the 
occasions  and  charge  of  the  navy." 

To  us,  no  doubt,  it  must  appear  that  the  distinction  between  the 
personal  expenses  of  the  sovereign  and  those  that  belong  to  the  state, 
which  were  formerly  confounded,  is  not  only  perfectly  just,  but  some- 
what obvious  ;  that  it  was  not  only  desirable,  but  necessary,  that  the 
crown  should  be  furnished  with  a  regular  revenue  of  its  own,  either 
by  inheritance  or  by  the  positive  settlement  of  Parhament,  and  not  be 
left  to  come  continually  to  the  House  for  pecuniary  support,  like  a  de- 
pendent on  a  benefactor.  But  the  sentiments  which  our  ancestors 
had  imbibed,  not  only  from  the  analogies  and  general  spirit  of  the 
constitution,  but  from  the  dreadful  lessons  of  former  events,  are  suffi- 
ciently plain  from  their  speeches  and  resolves  on  all  these  occasions, 
and,  as  such,  highly  worthy  of  remark. 

A  Place  Bill  was  brought  in ;  by  this  bill  all  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons  were  incapacitated  from  holding  places  of  trust  and 
profit ;  it  was  brought  in  by  the  Whigs,  but  at  a  time  when  they  were 
in  opposition.  It  was  rejected  by  the  Lords,  but  only  by  a  very 
trifling  majority,  and  not  till  after  a  very  celebrated,  though  not  very 
valuable  or  comprehensive,  speech  in  favor  of  it  by  Lord  Mulgrave, 
which  you  will  see  in  Cobbett.  When  the  Whigs  were  in  power,  it 
must  be  observed  that  the  bill  was  again  brought  forward,  was  carried 
through  the  Houses,  and  lost  only  by  the  positive  and  very  reason- 
able rejection  of  the  king.  The  Commons  were  angry,  and  addressed 
his  Majesty.     They  received  a  civil,  though  evasive  reply,  and  they 


882  LECTURE  XXII. 

then  proceeded  to  comment  very  freely  upon  this  reply;  but  the 
power  of  the  veto  was  not  denied ;  and  when  the  motion  for  a  further 
and  more  explicit  answer  from  the  king  was  made,  it  was  very  prop- 
erly overruled  by  a  majority  of  two  hundred  and  twenty-nine  to  eighty- 
eight.     The  whole  proceedings  are  very  curious. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  this  Place  Bill  went  to  incapacitate 
all  members  of  the  House  from  holding  posts  and  places  of  trust  and 
profit.  The  bill  was  modified  in  this  respect  afterwards,  when  it  was 
brought  forward  in  Queen  Anne's  reign.  It  is  a  very  different  ques- 
tion, whether  all^  or  whether  some^  are  to  be  incapacitated. 

The  third  subject  which  I  mentioned  was  the  Triennial  Bill.  This 
bill  was  in  like  manner  brought  forward  by  the  Whigs  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  It  was  passed  by  the  Commons,  two  hundred  and  ten  to 
one  hundred  and  thirty-two  on  the  first  reading,  and  only  two  hun- 
dred to  one  hundred  and  sixty-one  on  the  second.  The  speakers  in 
favor  of  it  seem  to  have  been  the  Whigs,  and  the  arguments  in  sup- 
port of  it  were  all  drawn  from  their  school  of  political  reasoning. 
This  bill  was  also  rejected  by  the  king.  Two  years  afterwards,  how- 
ever, the  bill  was  once  more  carried  through  the  two  Houses,  and  at 
last  received  the  royal  assent.  This  bill,  in  the  ancient  Parliamen- 
tary manner  of  truck  and  barter,  was  coupled  with  a  bill  of  supply ; 
and  the  consideration  of  this  supply,  united  to  the  expectation  of  the 
queen's  death,  probably  procured  from  the  king  that  assent  which  he 
had  before  so  positively  denied. 

This  statute  is  not,  as  has  been  represented,  an  infringement  of  any 
right  or  custom  of  annual  Parliaments.  No  such  right  or  custom 
ever  existed  since  the  known  appearance  of  the  House  of  Commons ; 
it  was,  on  the  contrary,  a  limitation  of  the  length  of  Parliaments, 
which  had  been  accustomed  to  sit  till  the  crown  thought  proper  to 
dissolve  them  and  call  a  new  one  ;  in  Charles  the  Second's  time,  one 
and  the  same  Parliament  sat  nearly  eighteen  years.  The  statute  of 
William  was  to  limit  the  continuance  of  any  one  Parliament  to  three 
years  ;  it  was  a  most  distinct  infringement  of  the  power  of  the  cro^vn, 
which  in  this  point,  as  it  then  stood,  was  inordinate ;  it  was  felt  as  an 
infringement,  and  so  resisted,  even  by  WilHam  the  Third. 

We  owe  this  bill,  and  this  happy  alteration  of  the  constitution  in 
this  particular  respect,  to  the  Whigs,  which  should  be  remembered 
by  those  who  undertake  to  censure  them  for  their  Septennial  Bill  jn 
the  reign  of  George  the  First. 

The  Treason  Bill  was  revived  and  carried.  By  this  bill  it  was 
enacted,  that  the  accused  should  have  a  copy  of  his  indictment, 
counsel  to  plead  for  him,  not  be  indicted  except  on  the  oaths  of  two 
witnesses,  and  within  three  years  of  the  offence ;  that  a  list  of  the 
jury  should  be  furnished,  and  a  power  to  summon  witnesses  allowed. 
That  provisions  like  these,  so  natural  and  so  indispensable  to  the 
eause  of  justice,  should  be  still  wanting  in  the  year  1695,  and  in  a 


WILLIAM  THE  THIRD.  383 

country  like  England,  where  of  all  other  countries  the  principles  of 
civil  liberty  had  been  most  uniformly  and  successfully  vindicated,  — 
that  enactments  like  these  should  still  even  in  this  kingdom  be  want- 
ing, —  surely  forms  a  very  striking  proof  of  the  difficulty  with  which 
all  efforts  in  the  cause  of  political  right  can  be  successfully  made.  I 
need,  surely,  say  nothing  of  the  merit  of  those  men  who  engage  in 
such  attempts,  or  of  the  good  fortune  of  the  country  where  such  ad- 
vantages are  obtained. 

The  reign  of  William  is  also  remarkable  for  the  sentiments  and 
conduct  of  our  ancestors  on  the  subject  of  a  standing  army.  Their 
jealousy  was  such,  that  the  king  was  denied  not  only  the  continuance 
of  his  defence  against  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  but  even  his  Dutch 
guards,  the  companions  of  his  victories  and  the  followers  of  his  doubt- 
ful fortunes  ;  an  intolerable  outrage,  he  could  not  but  think,  on  his 
feelings  of  natural  and  honorable  attachment.  This  subject  is  weU 
treated  by  Somerville,  and  in  pamphlets  and  speeches  that  may  be 
found  in  Cobbett.  In  our  own  times,  with  our  large  masses  of  man- 
ufacturing population,  such  jealousy  is  in  vain. 

The  liberty  of  the  press  is  likewise  one  of  the  subjects  belonging 
to  this  remarkable  period.  I  will  dwell  a  little  on  the  subject,  on 
account  of  its  importance. 

The  first  measure  which  a  country  naturally  adopts  is,  to  take  the 
regulation  of  the  press  into  its  own  hands,  or  rather,  to  leave  the  exec- 
utive magistrate  to  do  so.  It  was,  therefore,  with  us,  at  first  regulated 
by  the  king's  proclamations,  prohibitions,  charters  of  privilege  and 
license,  and  finally  by  the  decrees  of  the  Star-Chamber.  A  licenser 
is  among  the  first  expedients  resorted  to  by  a  government,  and  be- 
yond this  stage  in  France  the  state  seems  never  to  have  advanced. 

So  slow  is  the  progress  of  mankind  on  such  subjects,  that  even  the 
Long  Parliament,  while  it  demolished  the  Star-Chamber,  assumed  the 
very  powers  which  the  Star-Chamber  had  exercised  with  respect  to 
the  Hcensing  of  books ;  and,  as  if  the  constitution  was  in  this  point 
to  be  benefited  by  no  variety  of  change,  a  licenser  was  still  the  ex- 
pedient after  the  Restoration.  This  appears  from  the  act  made  in 
the  year  1662,  when  the  subject  fell  again  under  the  consideration 
of  the  legislature,  or  rather  of  Clarendon.  The  act  itself  should  be 
perused.  It  is  in  the  eighth  volume  of  the  Statutes.  A  hcenser, 
I  must  repeat,  was  still  the  expedient. 

The  language  of  the  preamble  is  the  natural  language  of  mankind 
on  these  occasions  ;  it  is  this :  —  "  That  by  the  general  licentiousness 
of  the  late  times  many  evil-disposed  persons  have  been  encouraged  to 
print  and  sell  heretical,  schismatical,  blasphemous,  seditious,  and 
treasonable  books,  &c.,  &c.,  for  prevention  whereof  no  surer  means 
can  be  advised  than  by  reducing  and  limiting  the  number  of  printing- 
presses,"  &c. 

Ard  what,  then,  is  to  follow  ?     First,  "  That  no  person  or  persons 


884  LECTURE  XXII. 

whatsoever  shall  presume  to  print,  or  cause  to  be  printed,  within  this 
realm  of  England,  &c.,  any  heretical,  seditious,  schismatical,  or  offen- 
sive books  or  pamphlets,  wherein  any  doctrine  or  opinion  ^hall  be  as- 
serted or  maintained,  which  is  contrary  to  the  Christian  faith,  or  the 
doctrine  or  discipline  of  the  Church  of  England,  or  which  shall  or 
may  tend,  or  be,  to  the  scandal  of  religion  or  the  Church,  or  the  gov- 
ernment or  governors  of  the  Church,  state,  or  commonwealth,  or  of  any 
corporation  or  particular  person  or  persons  whatsoever,  nor  shall  im- 
port, publish,  sell,  or  disperse  any  such  book  or  books,"  &c.,  &c. 
These  are  very  general  and  comprehensive  terms. 

What,  then,  were  the  printers  or  authors  to  do  ?  As  the  terms 
were  so  general  and  comprehensive,  how  were  they  to  be  secure  from 
offending  ?  Why,  by  the  next  clause,  all  books  concerning  the  com- 
mon laws  of  this  realm  were  to  be  printed  by  the  special  allowance 
of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  Lords  Chief  Justices,  &c.,  or  one  of 
their  appointment;  all  books  of  history  and  affairs  of  state,  &c.,  by 
the  license  of  the  Secretaries  of  State,  &c. ;  books  of  divinity, 
physic,  philosophy,  &c.,  by  the  license  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury.* 

The  penalties  of  the  act  were,  that  the  printer,  for  the  first  offence, 
should  be  disenabled  from  exercising  his  trade  for  the  space  of  three 
years,  and  for  the  second,  be  disenabled  for  ever  ;  with  further  pun- 
ishment of  fine,  imprisonment,  or  other  corporal  punishment,  not  ex- 
tending to  fife  or  limb,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  judges. 

Now  here  we  have  the  first  movement  that  is  made  by  a  state  on 
this  momentous  subject.  It  wishes  for  knowledge,  for  inquiry,  for 
literary  exertion,  for  government,  and  for  rehgion ;  but  for  no  knowl- 
edge and  no  inquiry  inconsistent  with  the  interests  of  either  that 
government  or  religion  which  is  actually  established  at  the  time.  It 
therefore  denounces  every  thing  that  is  in  its  opinion  heretical  and 
seditious,  and  produces  its  licensers.  And  this  I  conceive  to  be  the 
first  stage  of  legislation  on  the  subject. 

The  next  stage  is,  to  lay  aside  the  expedient  of  a  hcenser,  to  have 
no  previous  restraint  on  publications,  but  to  give  a  general  description 
of  such  books  or  writings  as  are  illegal,  and  then  to  punish  the  au- 
thors or  printers  of  any  publications  that  come  under  such  general 
description. 

This  is  the  second  stage,  and  one  of  great  improvement,  —  that  to 

*  The  act  designates  four  classes  of  books,  with  their  respective  licensers :  —  1st,  books 
concerning  the  Common  Laws  of  the  realm,  to  be  licensed  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  or 
Lord  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal,  the  Lords  Chief  Justices  and  Lorc^  Chief  Baron,  or 
by  their  appointments ;  2(1,  books  of  History,  or  concerning  any  AfFaii-s  of  State,  to 
be  licensed  by  the  Principal  Secretaries  of  State,  &c. ;  3(1,  books  of  Heraldry,  to  be 
licensed  by  the  Earl  Marshal,  &c. ;  4th,  all  other  books,  whether  of  Divinity,  Physic, 
Philosophy,  or  whatsoever  other  science  or  art,  to  be  licensed  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  &c.,  or  by  either  one  of  the  Chancellors  or 
Vice- Chancellors  of  either  of  the  Universities.  —  N. 


William  the  third  385 

wMcIi  you  will  see  Blackstone  allude,  and  in  which  he  seems  to  rest 
content.  But  much  remains  to  be  discussed  and  determined.  For 
instance,  What  really  are  the  general  terms  which  the  state  makes 
use  of?  For,  if  general  terms  are  to  be  used,  there  is  no  work,  where 
the  slightest  freedom  of  thought  is  exercised,  that  may  not  be  brought 
within  their  meaning.  Here  there  is  a  great  difficulty ;  and  yet 
how  is  this  difficulty  to  be  avoided  ?  "What  terms  but  general  terms 
can  be  adopted  ?  No  other,  certainly ;  it  is  therefore  of  very  great 
importance  what  the  general  terms  are  ;  and  this  reflection  will  im- 
mediately lead  to  another  inquiry, —  Who  are  to  decide  whether 
the  publication  in  question  fairly  comes  within  the  general  description 
of  the  law  or  not  ?  The  judges  of  the  land,  it  will  be  answered,  on 
the  first  view  of  the  subject ;  for  such  men  can  alone  know  what  is 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  general  terms  made  use  of,  from  their  long 
familiarity  with  the  phraseology  of  the  laws ;  and  they  must,  from 
their  situation,  necessarily  possess  minds  more  enlightened,  and  un- 
derstandings more  powerful,  than  can  be  expected  to  fall  to  the  lot 
of  ordinary  jurymen. 

And  thus  we  arrive  at  the  completion  of  the  second  stage  of  legis- 
lation on  the  subject ;  no  longer  a  licenser,  as  in  the  first,  but  a  law 
made  in  general  terms,  and  the  judges  of  the  land  left  to  decide 
whether  an  author  has  offended  against  the  law  or  not.  This  is  a 
situation  of  things  much  more  favorable  to  the  interests  of  mankind. 

But  at  length  men  will  reason  thus :  —  What  is  it  that  the  laws 
mean  ?  Only  to  prevent  and  punish  such  writings  as  are  injurious 
to  morals  and  religion,  or  dangerous  to  the  state  ?  They  mean  noth- 
ing more ;  they  crught  to  mean  nothing  more.  If,  therefore,  the 
writings  are  such  that  twelve  ordinary  men  can  see  neither  injury  to 
morals  and  religion,  nor  danger  to  the  state,  in  any  reasonings  or  ex- 
pressions which  they  contain,  what  can,  in  fact,  be  the  injury  or 
the  danger  ?  The  province,  therefore,  of  deciding  upon  such  cases, 
it  will  be  argued,  ought  to  be  withdrawn  from  the  judges,  who  are 
not,  on  the  whole,  sufficiently  unprejudiced  and  disinterested,  and 
should  be  transferred  to  twelve  ordinary  men,  to  whom  no  such  ob* 
jection,  and  certainly  no  very  reasonable  objection,  can  be  made. 

Here  we  seem  to  have  the  third  and  last  stage  to  which  this  most 
important  subject  can  be  brought ;  a  law  in  general  terms,  and  a  jury 
to  decide  whether  the  law  has  been  broken. 

One  point  still  remains,  —  the  penalty.  When  the  nature  of  the 
penalty  has  been  previously  described  by  the  law  in  general  terms, 
—  imprisonment  and  fine,  for  instance,  —  the  degree  of  it  must  be 
left  to  the  discretion  either  of  the  jury  or  of  the  judges ;  to  which, 
then,  of  the  two  ?  With  whatever  hesitation,  we  must  intrust  it  to 
the  latter,  —  the  judges  ;  that  is,  to  those  who  are  accustomed  to  the 
uu  of  power,  to  the  exercise  of  their  judgments  on  different  cases, 
and  who  decide,  happily  for  their  country,  in  the  face  of  the  bar  and 
49  OQ 


>86  LECTURE  XXII. 

of  mat  country.  To  men  like  these  rather  than  to  successive  bodied 
of  men  like  jurymen,  who  would  each  act  upon  views  of  their  own ; 
whose  punishments  would,  therefore,  be  capricious,  and  not  to  be  cal- 
5ulated  upon  beforehand ;  and  who,  being  liable  to  be  affected,  still 
more  than  judges,  by  the  passions  of  the  hour,  would  make  their  de- 
cisions sometimes  improperly  lenient,  and  at  other  times  preposterous- 
ly severe. 

Here  I  must  leave  the  subject,  but  I  must  leave  it  with  addressing 
three  observations  to  those  who  wish  to  make  it,  what  it  highly  de- 
serves to  be,  a  subject  of  their  meditation. 

The  first  is  this,  —  that  the  law  must  unavoidably  make  use  of 
some  general  terms  to  describe  what  it  prohibits.  The  difficulty, 
then,  is,  to  determine  what  those  general  terms  shall  be,  —  what 
words  and  phrases  will  best  allow  to  society  all  the  means  of  informa- 
tion, and  yet  secure  to  it  the  peaceable  enjoyment  of  some  of  its  most 
important  interests.  The  difficulty  is  very  great ;  and  it  will  be 
found  more  and  more  great,  the  more  it  is  considered ;  at  the  same 
time  that  it  is  the  very  point  which  must  be  labored,  whenever  any 
improvement  in  any  existing  system  is  thought  of. 

My  next  observation  is,  that,  as  the  jury  is  to  decide  whether  the 
law  has  been  violated,  it  is  of  great  consequence  how  that  jury  is 
composed ;  who  is  the  officer  that  selects  them  ;  in  what  manner,  &c. 
Discretion  must  be  lodged  somewhere,  no  doubt ;  but  here  is  another 
point  in  itself  difficult,  and  that  should  be  well  considered. 

My  last  observation  is,  that  we  have  been  obliged  to  leave  the  de- 
gree of  penalty  to  depend  on  the  good  pleasure  of  the  judges,  and 
that  therefore  the  subject  of  the  liberty  of  the  press  cannot  be  con- 
sidered as  one  that  can  ever  be  dismissed  from  public  anxiety ;  be- 
cause, though  judges  are  men  who  go  through  the  duties  of  their 
situation  with  more  uniform  accuracy,  integrity,  and  inteUigence  than 
perhaps  any  other  description  of  public  functionaries  that  can  be 
mentioned,  still  it  must  be  observed  that"  they  are  not  likely  to  be  of 
themselves  very  favorable  to  the  liberty  of  the  press.  They  are  men 
accustomed  to  observe  the  benefits,  not  of  criticizing  the  laws  and 
government  of  a  country,  but  of  administering  them  ;  —  peace,  order, 
precedent,  usage,  these  are  the  objects  that  naturally  excite  their 
respect;  the  necessity  of  control,  of  punishment,  of  reverence  for 
established  laws  and  institutions,  these  are  the  considerations  that  are 
alone  familiar  to  their  minds.  The  habits  of  their  lives,  the  learning 
they  possess,  lead  to  no  other  trains  of  thinking  or  sympathy ;  and 
they  are  not  likely  to  be  very  indulgent  critics  of  popular  feelings  or 
even  jpopular  rights.  Whatever  be  their  personal  integrity  or  pro- 
fessional ability,  they  are  clearly  distinguishable  from  the  philosopher 
or  patriot,  who  may  be  speculating  both  on  them  and  the  laws  they 
administer  and  the  government  they  serve,  and  the  extent  and  ulti- 
mate wisdom  of  whose  opinions  they  are  never  very  willing  to  examine 
and  understand. 


WILLIAM  THE  THIRD.  387 

They  are  not,  therefore,  very  eligible  dispensers  of  the  penalties 
of  the  law,  if  any  less  objectionable  could  be  found ;  but  none  can, 
and  here,  therefore,  is  a  difficulty  not  entirely  to  be  overcome,  —  the 
unfavorable  temperament  of  the  judges.  But  the  temperament  of 
the  judges  will  sympathize  with  the  temperament  of  the  surrounding 
society,  the  bar  in  whose  presence  they  act,  the  houses  of  legislature, 
and  every  intelligent  man  in  the  kingdom. 

Discretion  must  always  be  lodged  somewhere,  but  the  manner  in 
•which  it  is  exercised  will  always  depend  on  the  habits  of  thought  and 
feeling  known  at  the  time  tp  exist  in  the  community ;  so  little  can  a 
constitution  provide  for  its  own  administration  and  securit3». 

The  liberty  of  the  press  is,  therefore,  a  very  faithful  index  of  the 
state  of  the  public  mind  and  of  the  public  happiness ;  for  the  press  is 
more  or  less  restrained,  —  it  can  never  be  left  without  some  restraint, 
from  the  very  nature  of  some  particular  subjects,  —  but  it  is  more  or 
less  restrained,  as  a  country  enjoys  more  or  less  a  pure  religion,  and 
a  reasonable  government,  a  wide  circulation  of  knowledge,  and  a 
general  diifusion  of  commercial  and  manufacturing  prosperity. 

To  conclude  my  enumeration  of  important  subjects,  the  student 
must  not  omit  to  consider  the  proceedings  in  the  case  of  the  impeach- 
ment of  Lord  Somers.  I  mention  them  for  the  sake  of  one  conclu- 
sion that  may,  at  least,  be  drawn  from  them,  —  the  responsibility  of 
ministers  for  every  thing  they  do ;  that  they  are  not  to  shelter  them- 
selves under  any  plea  of  deference  to  the  opinions  of  their  sovereign ; 
that  they  are  not  to  advise  or  to  act  in  any  manner  inconsistent  with 
their  own  views  of  propriety  and  policy,  when  the  case  before  them 
is  of  sufficient  importance. 

From  a  consideration  of  the  debates  and  transactions  of  this  period, 
the  constitution  appears  to  be  in  the  act  of  assuming  its  last  and  more 
regular  form.  Its  different  parts  must  be  looked  upon  as  at  that  time 
falling,  rather  than  as  having  already  fallen,  into  their  appointed 
places.  Thus,  we  have  in  the  cabinet  administrations  made  up  of  men 
differing  from  each  other  in  their  principles  ;  in  the  Houses,  the  mem- 
bers of  a  party  often  opposing  the  measures  of  their  friends  in  office  ; 
the  king  giving  his  veto  to  bills  that  had  passed  the  Houses,  fiom  his 
inabihty  to  resist  them  in  any  other  manner ;  the  decisions  of  the 
Commons,  and  even  of  the  Lords,  very  uncertain;  their  debates 
stormy.  Occurrences  like  these  indicate  a  constitution  settling, 
rather  than  settled.  But  the  whole  is,  on  this  account,  only  tho 
more  interesting  and  instructive. 

The  civil  liberties  of  the  country  must,  upon  a  review  of  the  ques- 
tions and  the  proceedings  to  which  I  have  now  briefly  alluded,  be 
considered  as  in  a  state  of  rapid  progress :  and  this  it  was  natural  to 
expect  would  be  the  case,  when  the  king  was  seated  on  the  throne  on 
the  popular  principles  of  resistance  to  illegal  rule  ;  when  the  patrons 
of  arbitrary  power  v/ere  thrown  into  opposition,  and  therefore  often 


888  LECTURE  XXn. 

compelled  to  adopt  language  and  measures  favorable  to  civil  freedom  , 
when  the  Whigs,  who  were  now  become  the  courtiers  of  the  realm, 
could  not  but  be  influenced  bj  their  old  habits  of  thinking  and  feeling 
on  constitutional  questions  ;  and  when  the  nation  itself  could  adopt  no 
sentiments  favorable  to  arbitrary  power  without  being  immediately  re- 
minded of  James  the  Second,  his  judges  and  his  priests,  of  Popery, 
and  all  the  evils  they  had  so  narrowly  escaped. 

With  regard  to  the  religious  liberties  of  the  country,  progress  had 
likewise  been  made  by  the  passing  of  the  Act  of  Toleration. 

The  king's  efforts  in  this  great  cause  I  have  already  noticed,  — 
his  somewhat  unsuccv^ssful  efforts.  No  brighter  part  of  his  character 
can  be  found.  Of  the  Whigs,  the  best  panegyric,  as  far  as  relates 
to  this  subject,  may  be  seen  in  the  accusations  of  their  political  oppo- 
nents, the  Tories,  who  always  called  them  Dissenters,  and  represent- 
ed them  as  indifferent  to  the  real  interests  of  religion.  This,  how- 
ever, was  not  their  fault.  They  were  guilty  of  no  indifference  to  re- 
ligion, but  of  a  base  fear  of  such  accusations,  and  of  a  disgraceful 
compliance  with  the  intolerant  measures  proposed  to  them,  —  pro- 
posed to  them  by  those  who  were  not  unfrequently,  on  these  occa- 
sions, their  rivals  for  popularity,  that  doubtful  criterion  of  public 
merit  on  many  subjects,  but  above  all  on  religious  subjects ;  for  on 
rehgious  subjects  popularity  can  always  be  acquired  by  stigmatizing 
with  terms  of  reproach,  or  pursuing  with  penalties  or  restrictions,  any 
opposers  of  the  established  system. 

When,  therefore,  we  mention  the  Toleration  Act  which  William 
procured,  we  must  not  forget  the  penal  acts  that  were  also  passed. 
The  Papists,  the  Arians,  the  Socinians,  fell  more  particularly  under 
the  persecutions  of  the  legislature.  These  descriptions  of  men  saw 
themselves  proclaimed  in  different  penal  statutes,  —  the  one,  the  Pa- 
pists, enemies  of  the  state,  who  were  not  to  exercise  the  offices  of 
their  religion,  nor  educate  their  children  as  they  thought  best,  nor  re- 
ceive the  inheritances  of  their  fathers ;  and  the  other,  the  Arians  and 
Socinians,  pubhshers  of  "  many  blasphemous  and  impious  opinions,"  (1 
use  the  words  of  the  act,)  "  contrary  to  the  doctrines  and  principles 
of  the  Christian  religion,  greatly  tending  to  the  dishonor  of  Almighty 
God,  and  that  may  prove  destructive  to  the  peace  and  welfare  of  this 
kingdom." 

"  If  any  Popish  bishop,  priest,  or  Jesuit  whatsoever,"  says  the 
third  clause  of  the  11th  and  12th  of  William,  chapter  4th,  "  shall  say 
mass  or  exercise  any  other  part  of  the  office  or  function  of  a  Popish 
bishop  or  priest  within  these  realms,  &c.,  or  if  any  Papist,  &c., 
shall  keep  school  or  take  upon  themselves  the  education  or  gov- 
ernment or  boarding  of  youth  in  any  place  within  this  realm,  &c. 
every  such  person  shall,  on  conviction,  be  adjudged  to  perpetual  im- 
prisonment." If,  on  the  contrary,  any  person  should  be  convicted 
of  sending  his  child  abroad  to  be  educated  in  the  Komish  religion,  he 


WILLIAM  THE  TfflRD.  389 

was  to  forfeit  one  hundred  pounds,  bj  the  sixth  clause  of  the  same  act. 
Bj  the  fourth  clause,  if  a  Papist  took  not  the  oath  of  supremacy 
(which  a  Papist  could  not  take,  —  Sir  Thomas  More  could  not,  nor 
Bishop  Fisher,  and  they  were  therefore  put  to  death),  he  was  "  dis- 
abled and  made  incapable  to  inherit  or  take  by  descent,"  &c.,  &c. ; 
and  if,  again,  he  was  possessed  of  any  capital  in  money,  he  was  equal- 
ly disabled  from  purchasing  lands.  In  the  former  case,  the  lancl  be- 
queathed was  even  to  go  to  the  next  of  kin  who  was  a  Protestant. 
Such  was  the  state  of  the  public  toleration  with  respect  to  the  Pa- 
'pists. 

With  respect  to  the  Arians  and  Socinians,  the  act  of  the  9th  and 
10th  of  WiUiam  (c.  32,  p.  275)  declares,  that,  if  any  person,  "  hav- 
ing been  educated  in,  or  at  any  time  having  made  profession  of,  the 
Christian  religion  within  this  realm,  shall,  by  writing,  printing,  teach- 
ing, or  advised  speaking,  deny  any  one  of  the  persons  in  the  Holy 
Trinity  to  be  God,  or  shall  assert  or  maintain  there  are  more  Gods 
than  one,  or  shall  deny  the  Christian  religion  to  be  true,  or  the  Holy 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  to  be  of  divine  authority," 
such  person  shall,  for  the  first  offence,  be  disabled  from  enjoying  any 
office,  ecclesiastical,  civil,  or  military  ;  and,  if  a  second  time  convicted 
of  the  said  crimes,  "  shall  from  thenceforth  be  disabled  to  sue,  prose- 
cute, plead,  or  use  any  action  or  information,  in  any  court  of  law  or 
equity,  or  to  be  guardian  of  any  child,  or  executor  or  administrator 
of  any  person,  or  capable  of  any  legacy  or  deed  of  gift,  or  to  bear 
any  office,  civil  or  military,  or  benefice  ecclesiastical,  for  ever  within 
this  realm,  and  shall  also  suffer  imprisonment  for  the  space  of  three 
years  without  bail,"  &c. 

Acts  of  ParUament  like  these  make  a  considerable  approach  to  the 
excommunication  of  the  Romish  see  in  the  Dark  Ages.  The  truth 
of  the  doctrines,  and  of  the  principles  which  these  acts  were  meant 
to  propagate  and  secure,  is  no  part  of  the  question  now  before  us. 
Truth  cannot  be  so  propagated,  and  must  not,  even  if  it  were  possible, 
be  so  secured.  The  inteUigence  and  humanity  of  the  present  age 
would  revolt  from  acts  of  ParUament  like  these.  Such  is  the  happy 
influence  of  general  prosperity  and  of  a  free  government,  not  only  on 
the  community,  but  on  the  mistaken  men  who  forget,  in  the  ardor  of 
their  zeal,  and  the  supposed  duties  of  their  situation,  all  the  rights  of 
the  human  mind,  and  all  the  precepts  of  their  divine  Master.  But 
these  acts  must  ever  remain  portions  of  historical  reading,  as  indica- 
tive of  the  nature  of  the  human  mind  on  these  important  subjects. 

Before  I  conclude  my  lecture,  I  must  allude,  however  shortly,  to 
the  second  object  of  inquiry  which  I  originally  proposed :  the  foreign 
politics  of  William,  or  the  history  of  the  civil  and  religious  Uberties  of 
Europe. 

The  general  description  of  this  part  of  our  labors  may  be  short. 
Louis  was  everywhere  the  enemy  of  mankind ;  William  their  defend- 

GG* 


t90  LECTURE  XXII. 

er.  His  campaigns  against  the  celebrated  Luxembourg,  the  peace 
of  Rjswick,  the  two  partition  treaties,  and  the  renewal  of  the  general 
confederacy  against  France,  just  before  the  death  of  William,  form 
the  chief  topics  of  examination  and  reflection.  Particulars  respecting 
these  subjects  may  be  found  in  the  Memoirs  of  St.  Simon ;  in  Bur- 
net's History  of  his  own  Times  ;  in  the  Hardwicke  Papers  ;  and,  final- 
ly, there  is  an  estimate  of  the  whole  subject  in  Bolingbroke's  Letters 
on  History,  in  the  seventh  and  eighth,  —  an  estimate  so  full,  so  rear 
sonable,  and  in  every  respect  so  masterly,  that  it  is  useless  for  me  to 
do  more  than  refer  to  it. 

Macpherson  has  written  a  History  of  Great  Britain  from  the 
Restoration  to  the  Accession  of  the  House  of  Hanover.  This  His- 
tory may  always  be  resorted  to,  whenever  an  unfavorable  representor 
tion  is  wanted  of  the  conduct  or  character  of  William.  Yet,  even 
with  respect  to  that  part  of  our  subject  which  is  at  present  before  us, 
the  foreign  politics  of  William,  Macpherson  is  obhged  to  allow,  that 
William  was  placed  at  the  head  of  his  native  country  as  the  last  hope 
of  her  safety  from  conquest  and  a  foreign  yoke  ;  that  he  was  raised 
to  the  throne  of  Great  Britain  under  the  name  of  her  deliverer  from 
civil  tyranny  and  religious  persecution  ;  that  he  was  considered  in  the 
same  important  light  by  the  rest  of  Europe  ;  that  the  Empire,  Spain, 
and  Italy  looked  up  to  his  counsels  as  their  only  resource  against  the 
exorbitant  ambition  and  power  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth ;  and  that 
France  herself,  when  she  affected  to  despise  his  power  the  most, 
owned  his  importance  by  an  illiberal  joy  upon  a  false  report  of  his 
death.  Higher  praise  than  this^  cannot  possibly  be  received.  Men 
who  engage  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  and  have  talents  sufficient  to 
influence  and  control  them  as  William  did,  can  neither  appear  to  be 
nor  can  really  be  without  decided  faults.  But  if  such  be  the  bright 
side  of  any  human  character,  we  may  turn  away  from  its  obscurities. 

William  was  a  patriot  and  a  hero,  but  not  a  successful  warrior.  It 
was  said  that  he  had  raised  more  sieges  and  lost  more  battles  than 
any  general  of  his  age.  But  he  was  opposed  to  the  most  consummate 
commanders  that  even  France  has  produced ;  and  his  own  armies 
were  composed  of  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  different  nations.  "  His 
defeats,"  says  Bolingbroke,  "  were  manifestly  due,  in  a  great  meas- 
ure, to  circumstances  independent  on  him ;  and  that  spirit  which 
even  these  defeats  could  not  depress  was  all  his  own.  He  had  diffi- 
culties in  his  own  commonwealth  ;  the  governors  of  the  Spanish  Low 
Countries  crossed  his  measures  sometimes ;  the  German  allies  disap- 
pointed and  broke  them  often ;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  was 
frequently  betrayed." 

The  peace  of  Ryswick  was  loudly  censured  by  the  French  politi- 
cians. It  may  be  considered,  on  the  whole,  as  a  monument  to  the 
glory  of  William.  Wifh  respect  to  the  partition  treaties,  the  letters 
in  the  Hardwicke  Papers  sufficiently  exculpate  William  from  the  cen 


WILLIAM  THE  THIRD.  391 

sures  and  accusations  of  his  detractors.  They  have  been  defended 
bj  Bolingbroke  as  the  onlj  measure  which  the  king  had  it  in  his 
power  to  take. 

The  wars  of  WiUiam  on  the  Continent  may  be  read  in  the  accounts 
of  the  reign.  They  are  portions  of  history,  and  must  be  considered. 
I  cannot  enter  into  any  detail  or  even  description  of  such  transactions. 
But  I  may  stop,  perhaps,  to  mention,  that  they  are  now  connected 
with  the  literature  of  our  own  country,  —  that  they  give  life  and 
beauty  to  some  of  the  pages  of  Sterne.  Steenkirk,  and  Landen,  and 
Count  Solms,  and  the  siege  of  Namur  are  names  well  known  to  those 
who  are  conversant  with  the  writings  of  that  enchanting,  but  som©' 
times  objectionable  author ;  and*the  student,  while  he  is  travelling 
through  the  records  of  reaZ  calamity,  and  contemplating  in  history  the 
picture  of  the  dreadful  warfare  of  mankind,  may  be  often  reminded 
of  those  more  pleasing  moments  when  he  surrendered  his  fancy  to 
the  harmless  campaigns  of  my  Uncle  Toby  and  Trim,  and  his  heart 
to  the  story  of  Lefevre. 

I  conclude  this  reign  of  William  with  observing,  that  almost  all  the 
important  subjects  connected,  not  only  with  our  constitution,  such  as 
I  have  mentioned,  but  also  with  our  systems  of  internal  and  external 
pohcy,  appear  before  us  during  this  particular  period.  A  union  with 
Scotland  was  recommended  by  William  ;  the  case  of  Ireland  occurred, 
—  its  dependence  on  the  legislature  of  England ;  the  affairs  of  the 
East  India  Company  were  considered ;  the  Bank  of  England  was 
erected ;  societies  for  the  suppression  of  vice  were  formed ;  the  em- 
ployment of  the  poor  was  made  a  topic  in  the  speeches  of  the  king ; 
the  coinage  was  adjusted ;  experiments  on  finance  and  paper  securi- 
ties were  attempted ;  and,  above  all,  a  funded  debt  was  created. 

These  are  subjects  and  concerns  that  have  subsisted  to  the  present 
times ;  and  it  is  now  the  business  of  a  reader  of  history  to  observe 
them  on  their  first  appearance,  with  the  reasonings  of  our  ancestors 
upon  them,  in  the  speeches  and  pamphlets  of  the  day.  They  must 
be  borne  in  mind,  and  traced,  if  possible,  through  their  effects,  as  we 
continue  to  read  the  history  of  the  last  century,  down  to  the  present 
hour.  To  them  must  be  added,  and  to  be  treated  in  the  same  man- 
ner, and  for  the  same  reason,  the  great  question  of  the  interference 
of  England  in  the  affairs  of  the  Continent ;  an  interference  which  now 
began  more  particularly  to  be  a  feature  of  our  general  policy,  and 
therefore  from  this  time  began  to  be,  as  it  has  never  ceased  to  be,  a 
subject  of  controversy  and  discussion  among  our  philosophers  and 
statesmen. 


392  LECTURE  XXIII. 


LECTURE    XXIII 


ANNE. 

The  reign  of  "William  is  interesting  on  many  accounts :  from  its 
immediate  connection  with  the  Revolution  of  1688  ;  from'the  suspense 
in  which  the  cause  of  that  Revolution  still  hung,  on  account  of  the 
parties  that  then  existed ;  from  the  conduct  of  William  to  those 
parties  ;  from  their  conduct  to  him  ^nd  to  each  other ;  from  their  rela- 
tive merits ;  from  the  relation  w^hich  questions  connected  with  the 
monarch  and  such  parties  must  alivays  bear  to  our  mixed  and  free 
constitution ;  from  the  great  subjects  that  occurred  in  the  course  of 
the  administration  of  Wilham,  —  the  Civil  List,  the  Place  Bill,  the 
Triennial  Bill,  the  liberty  of  the  press,  a  standing  army,  the  responsi- 
bility of  ministers,  the  veto  of  the  crown ;  from  many  other  subjects 
connected  with  our  internal  and  external  policy,  —  the  situation  of 
Ireland,  the  East  India  Company,  the  Bank  of  England,  questions 
of  finance,  of  the  coinage,  the  funded  debt,  and  others,  such  as  I 
could  only  mention.  These  are  topics  that  must  always  deserve  the 
attention  of  the  inhabitants  of  these  kingdoms.  The  very  narrative 
of  the  reign  is  also  interesting,  and  full  of  events  and  business,  foreign 
and  military,  as  well  as  civil  and-  domestic ;  add  to  this,  that  this  era 
of  our  aimals  has  always  been  highly  attractive  to  the  readers  of  his- 
tory. William  is  not  only  the  deliverer  of  England,  but  the  great 
hero  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived ;  and  they  who  have  accustomed 
themselves  to  meditate  on  the  characters  of  men,  and  the  fortunes  of 
the  huma^  race,  have  always  lamented  that  the  story  of  Wilham  has 
never  been  undertaken  by  any  writer  so  distinguished  for  the  superi- 
ority of  his  talents  as  to  be  worthy  of  a  theme  so  splendid  and  so  im- 
portant. 

This  lecture  was  written  many  years  ago,  but  at  this  moment, 
while  I  am  now  reading  it,  occurs  the  great  subject  of  regret  to  literary 
men,  and  particularly  those  interested  in  the  history  of  their  country, 
the  loss  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh.  This  great  thinker  and  accom- 
plished writer  was  worthy  of  such  a  theme,  and  had  undertaken  it ; 
what  he  has  left  us  is  the  best  account  we  have  of  the  first  ominous 
proceedings  of  the  reign  of  James  the  Second. 

The  reign  of  Anne  may  be  considered  as  a  continuation  of  the 
reign  of  Wilham.  The  great  features  are  the  same :  national  ani- 
mosity against  France ;  resistance  to  the  aggrandizement  and  the 
ambition  of  Louis ;  contending  parties,  the  Whigs  and  Tories ;  the 
constitution  settling  j  and  the  great  question  of  the  return  of  the  ex 
iled  family  —  that  is,  the  success  of  the  Revolution,  —  that  is,  tho 


ANNE.  393 

cause  of  tlie  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  England  —  still  suspended 
on  a  shifting,  doubtful  balance. 

Our  best  means  of  information  are  likewise  the  same.  St.  Simon 
and  the  French  writers,  Burnet,  Macpherson's  Original  Papers,  the 
debates  in  Parliament,  the  Statute-Book  and  Journals,  Tindal,  Bel- 
sham,  and  Somerville,  are  to  be  read  or  referred  to  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  before.  To  these  sources  of  information,  on  which  I  originally 
depended,  I  can  now  add  the  Life  of  Marlborough,  by  Mr.  Coxe,  which 
has  been  lately  completed  from  the  Blenheim  papers.  To  write  the  life 
of  Marlborough  is  to  write  the  history  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  ; 
and  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  judge  properly  of  this  part  of  our 
annals  without  a  diligent  perusal  of  this  very  entertaining  and  valua- 
ble w^ork.  I  must  also  observe,  that  a  very  good  idea  may  be  formed 
of  the  general  subjects  connected  with  this  period,  and  of  the  orig- 
inal memoirs  and  documents  which  should  be  referred  to,  by  reading 
the, appendix  to  Belsham's  History :  it  is  very  well  drawn  up. 

My  hearer,  therefore,  will  bear  in  mind,  that  the  great  subjects 
before  him  are,  the  resistance  made  to  Louis  the  Fourteenth  and  the 
power  of  France,  abroad ;  and  at  home,  the  different  parties  of  the  Whigs 
and  Tories,  the  various  questions  that  arose  connected  with  our  civil 
and  religious  liberties,  the  union  with  Scotland,  and,  above  all,  the 
great  question  of  the  success  of  the  Revolution,  the  security  of  the 
Protestant  succession,  and  the  chance  of  the  restoration  of  the  house 
of  Stuart. 

We  will  first  advert  to  the  foreign  concerns ;  afterwards  to  the  do- 
mestic. Many  subjects  must  necessarily  be  omitted,  and  cannot  even 
be  mentioned,  but  they  will  occur  to  you  in  the  reading  of  the  history ; 
some  can  be  but  adverted  to ;  a  few,  and  but  a  few,  on  account  of 
their  superior  importance,  may  be  a  little  dwelt  upon ;  but  on  this 
occasion,  and  on  every  other  through  the  whole  of  these  lectures,  I 
am  oppressed  with  the  consciousness  that  I  can  attempt  little  more 
than  barely  lead  up  my  hearer  to  the  consideration  of  different  sub- 
jects, and,  having  stated  their  claim  upon  his  attention,  must  leave 
him  to  examine  them  for  himself. 

The  reign  opens  with  the  great  War  of  the  Succession.  I  have 
already  observed,  that  questions  of  peace  and  war  are  peculiarly 
deserving  of  attention.  They  cannot  be  made  too  often  or  too 
much  the  subjects  of  your  examination.  No  more  valuable  result 
can  be  derived  from  the  meditation  of  history  than  habits  of  dis- 
passionate' reflection,  of  caution,  foresight,  a  strong  sense  of  the 
riglits  of  independent  nations,  of  justice,  and  of  humanity,  on  such 
momentous  topics.  It  is  on  these  occasions  more  particularly  that 
the  philosophic  statesman  is  distinguished  from  the  ordinary  politician  ; 
and  when  we  suppose  a  minister  in  a  cabinet,  a  member  of  either  of 
the  Houses  in  his  place,  an  individual  at  a  public  meeting,  or  an  in- 
telligent man  in  the  private  circles  of  social  life,  contributing  to  make 
60 


394       '  LECTURE  XXIII. 

his  countrymen  more  upright,  reasonable,  concihatory,  patient,  while 
the  tremendous  issues  of  war  are  dependent,  are  hanging  on  the  bal- 
ance of  words  and  expressions,  are  dependent  not  merely  on  the  wis- 
dom or  the  folly,  but  the  good  and  ill  humor  of  the  parties,  we,  in 
fact,  suppose  a  man  elevated  to  something  above  his  nature,  and  for 
a  season  assuming  the  character  and  office  of  a  superior  being,  one 
whose  voice  breathes  the  heavenly  accents  of  peace  on  earth  and 
good-will  towards  men.  In  a  government  that  is  free,  where  every 
individual  is  educated  upon  a  system,  not  of  servility  and  baseness, 
but  of  personal  dignity  and  independence,  of  submission  to  no  power 
but  the  laws,  —  in  such  a  government,  one  like  our  own,  there  is  no 
fear,  on  these  occasions,  of  any  want  of  sensibility  to  national  honor, 
or  of  any  contemptible  sacrifice  to  present  ease  and  short-sighted  pol- 
icy. The  danger  is  on  the  other  side,  and  the  habits  of  thought  to 
be  cherished  in  free  and  powerful  countries  are  entirely  those  of  a 
deliberative,  cautious,  and  pacific  nature. 

The  opening  of  this  reign  of  Anne  afibrds  an  opportunity  to  the 
student  such  as  I  have  described.  One  of  these  great  questions  is 
before  him,  that  of  the  War  of  the  Succession,  a  long  and  dreadful 
contest.  Let  him  try  to  examine  and  consider  it  in  all  its  bearings 
and  aspects  ;  and  in  this  manner  he  may  school  his  mind,  and  prepare 
it  for  important  occasions,  when  he  is  hereafter  to  interfere,  as  every 
man  of  education  ought  actively  to  do,  in  the  concerns  of  the  com- 
munity. 

I  will  now  make  an  effort  to  give  him  some  slight  idea  of  what  I 
mean,  some  idea  of  the  subject  now  presented  to  him ;  and  I  must 
begin,  in  point  of  time,  at  some  distance  from  the  period  more  im- 
mediately before  us. 

At  the  peace  of  the  Pyrenees,  Mazarin  united  the  royal  family  of 
France  with  that  of  Spain.  As  this  union  might  eventually  make 
the  princes  of  the  house  of  Bourbon  heirs  to  the  crown  of  Spain, 
this  was  always  looked  upon  as  a  masterpiece  of  policy. 

The  first  question  which  I  would  propose  to  the  student  is,  whether 
it  was  so.  The  king  of  Spain  was  at  the  time  sufficiently  aware  of 
the  possible  consequences,  and  he  therefore  took  due  care  that  all 
title  to  the  future  succession  to  the  crown  of  Spain,  of  whatever  kind, 
should  be  publicly  and  for  ever  renounced.  This  is  a  part  of  the 
case,  and,  being  so,  the  policy  of  the  whole  transaction,  as  far  as 
Mazarin  is  concerned,  may,  I  think,  be  proposed  as  a  question. 

Among  other  considerations  that  will  occur  to  the  student  when  ho 
looks  at  the  history,  I  would  wish  to  leave  the  following  more  partic- 
ularly to  his  examination : — 

First,  whether  the  avoidance  of  all  causes  of  war,  and  all  tempta- 
tions to  war,  is  not  the  first  point  of  policy  to  be  secured. 

Secondly,  whether  the  union  of  the  families  was  likely  to  influence 
materially  the  future  intercourse  of  the  two  nations,  and  make  it  more 


ANNE.  895 

friendly  than  it  hitherto  had  been.  If  so,  this  was  a  most  weighty 
consideration  in  favor  of  the  measure.     But,  on  the  other  side,  and 

Thirdly,  whether  the  union  of  the  families  did  not  rather  hold  up 
to  the  ambition  of  all  succeeding  princes  of  France  the  most  tempt- 
ing object,  the  succession  to  the  crown  of  Spain,  and  yet  the  renun- 
ciation render  that  ambition  totally  unlawful ;  and  whether  the  result 
was  not,  therefore,  sure  to  be,  that  France  would  be  engaged  in  a 
series  of  dishonest  intrigues  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  object, 
and  afterwards  in  a  war  with  the  powers  of  Europe  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  this  unlawful  object,  if  those  intrigues  were  successful,  — 
for  the  acquiescence  of  the  powers  of  Europe,  without  a  struggle, 
could  not  possibly  be  expected. 

Now,  if  this  last  question  be  answered  in  the  affirmative,  as  well 
as  the  first,  where  was  the  policy  of  Mazarin  ? 

The  event  turned  out  to  be,  that  the  prospect  of  the  succession 
kept  continually  opening  to  Louis,  and  that  his  family  at  last  became 
the  regular  heirs  to  the  Spanish  monarchy.  But  it  must  not  be  for 
gotten  that  they  were  incapacitated  by  their  renunciation.  This  re- 
nunciation was  the  very  condition  of  their  birth,  for  it  was  the  condition 
on  which  Louis  was  married  to  the  Infanta  of  Spain,  in  right  of  whom 
they  claimed. 

I  must  now  recommend  the  sixty-seventh  chapter  in  Coxe's  Aus- 
tria, where  the  subject  of  the  Spanish  succession  is  concisely  and 
clearly  stated,  and  on  the  proper  authorities.  The  claimants  were 
the  Dauphin  of  France,  the  Emperor  Leopold,  who  had  married  the 
next  sister  of  the  Infanta,  and  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  who  had  es- 
poused the  issue  of  this  last  marriage,  and  was  the  son-in-law  of  Le- 
opold. The  father,  Leopold,  it  must  be  observed,  had  induced  his 
daughter,  on  her  marriage  with  the  elector,  to  renounce  her  claims 
to  the  Spanish  succession ;  but  this  renunciation  was*  considered  in- 
valid, as  not  having  been  approved  by  the  king  of  Spain,  nor  ratified 
by  the  Cortes. 

In  this  state  of  things,  the  second  question  that  I  should  wish  to 
propose  to  the  student  is  this :  —  What  was  our  own  King  William 
to  attempt  to  do  ?  How  was  he  to  prevent  the  succession  from  de- 
volving on  Louis,  a  prince  who  was  not  Hkely  to  adhere  to  his  original 
renunciations  ?  As  I  have  before  recommended  Coxe,  I  must  now 
recommend  the  eighth  letter  of  Bolingbroke  on  the  Study  of  History, 
as  the  most  ready  and  complete  means  of  putting  you  into  possession 
of  all  the  reasonings  that  belong  to  the  subject.  I  must  suppose  these 
parts,  both  of  Coxe  and  Bohngbroke,  read,  particularly  the  latter.  I 
cannot  give  any  abridgment  or  representation  of  it,  because  I  think 
the  meditation  of  the  whole  of  it  the  very  best  practice,  to  use  a  com- 
mon term,  for  a  statesman,  that  perhaps  the  compass  of  our  literature 
affords. 

William  made  a  partition  treaty  with  Louis ;  that  is,  he  compound 


896  ^  LECTURE  XXIII. 

ed  with  Mm.  He  consented  that  part  of  the  Spanish  possessions 
ehould  be  transferred  to  France,  the  better  to  secure  the  remainder 
from  the  ambition  of  Louis ;  and  to  this  end,  that  the  elector  might 
receive,  undisturbed,  the  main  part  of  what,  by  inheritance,  devolved 
upon  him,  —  that  in  this  manner  the  balance  of  Europe  might  be  toler- 
ably well  preserved,  and  yet  a  war  avoided.  These  were  his  objects. 
Lord  Bolingbroke  contends  that  there  was  no  other  measure  which 
William  could  possibly  take.  He  is  great  authority,,  and  cannot  be 
supposed  too  partial  to  the  monarch. 

Unfortunately,  the  elector  died,  and  a  second  partition  treaty  was 
therefore  to  be  made  ;  the  archduke  was  substituted  for  the  elector, 
and  the  terms  made  more  advantageous  to  France.  Now  the  point! 
would  submit  to  your  consideration  is  this  :  —  Whether,  besides  the 
alternatives  which  Lord'  Bolingbroke  enumerates  as  all  that  the  case 
admitted  of,  another  did  not  remain,  —  that  of  doing  nothing  at 
all ;  not  abandoning  all  care  of  the  succession,  but  taking  no  distinct 
measure, —  certainly  none  but  with  the  privity  of,  and  in  conjunction 
with,  the  court  of  Spain.  To  parcel  out  the  dominions  of  an  inde- 
pendent kingdom,  however  agreeably  to  the  general  interests  of 
Europe,  and  from  the  best  of  motives,  without  the  interference  or 
consent  of  that  kingdom,  was  in  itself  unjust,  and  therefore  not  to  be 
thought  of;  and  was  at  the  same  time  so  offensive  to  Spain,  that  it 
could  not  possibly  have  any  other  effect  but  that  of  throwing  her  into 
the  arms  of  France,  for  the  sake  of  preserving  the  integrity  of  her 
empire  and  the  dignity  of  her  crown. 

What  line  of  policy,  in  the  mean  time,  was  the  emperor  to  pursue  ? 
Of  this  there  can  be  little  question ;  he  was  to  send  to  the  court  of 
Spain  a  minister  of  attractive  manners,  and,  by  conciliating  at  the 
same  time  his  own  Hungarian  subjects,  to  leave  himself  in  possession 
of  the  full  force  of  his  empire,  in  case  he  had  to  contend  with  France. 
The  emperor  did  neither :  he  neither  sent  a  minister  of  an  agreeable, 
accommodating  temper,  nor  did  he  relax  his  harsh,  severe  system 
of  policy  to  his  Hungarian  subjects.  It  seems  impossible  for  the 
haughty  and  ceremonious  ever  to  think  there  is  any  thing  of  value  in 
the  world  but  dignity  and  form ;  and  the  policy  of  mild  government 
is  a  secret  which,  on  some  account  or  other,  can  never  be  discovered 
by  those  who  have  an  opportunity  of  exercising  it. 

But  to  return  to  the  succession.  The  king  of  Spain  died,  and, 
most  unfortunately,  at  last  made  a  will  in  favor  of  the  French  line. 

Here  comes  the  next  question :  Was  Louis  to  accept  the  testar 
ment?  On  this  point  must  be  read,  not  only  Lord  Bolingbroke,  but 
that  part  of  the  Works  of  St.  Simon  which  relates  to  the  succession ; 
it  is  not  long.  In  De  Torcy's  Memoirs  will  be  found  the  defence  of 
Louis,  who  did  accept  the  testament ;  and  in  Mably's  "  Droit  Public 
de  I'Europe"  (not  his  History),  an  argument  in  opposition  to  the 
reasoning  of  De  Torcy,  and  in  favor  of  adhering  to  the  treaty  of  par- 


ANNE.  397 

tition.  Many  other  books  might  be  referred  to ;  but  these  will  be 
found  very  ample  to  supply  the  reader  with  materials  for  his  medita- 
tion. He  is  to  suppose  himself  placed  in  the  cabinet  of  Louis,  and 
then  to  consider  what  advice  he  would  have  given. 

In  the  third  volume  of  St.  Simon's  Memoirs,  and  in  De  Torcy, 
will  be  found  accounts  of  the  debate  that  actually  did  take  place  m 
the  presence  of  Louis.  There  is  some  little  difference  in  the  repre- 
sentations of  these  two  authors  with  respect  to  the  part  which  the 
speakers  took ;  and  Madame  de  Maintenon  was  consulted,  according 
to  St.  Simon,  which  is  positively  denied  (though  it  is  somewhat  im- 
possible to  suppose  that  she  was  not)  by  De  Torcy. 

The  question  debated  was,  whether  the  king  should  accept  the  tes- 
tament, or  adhere  to  the  second  partition  treaty ;  and  the  case  sup- 
posed was  (which  was,  indeed,  the  fact),  that  the  succession  was  to 
be  offered  instantly  to  the  house  of  Austria,  if  declined  by  the  French 
monarch.  On  the  one  side  it  was  observed,  even  in  the  cabinet  of 
Louis,  — "  The  national  faith  is  pledged ''  (I  translate  from  the 
Prench  writers)  ;  "  and  even  in  point  of  mere  advantage,  more  will 
in  fact  be  gained  by  the  partition  treaty  than  by  placing  the  French 
line  on  the  throne  of  Spain ;  the  princes  of  which  will  soon  lose  their 
partiality  to  France,  and  become  as  jealous  of  her  power  as  have 
hitherto  been  the  princes  of  the  house  of  Austria.  If  we  accept  the 
testament,  a  war  must  follow  ;  Europe  will  necessarily  oppose  itself  to 
what  will  then  be  thought  the  colossal  power  of  France.  We  have 
already  had  one  war ;  we  are  now  only  taking  breath ;  we  are  our- 
selves exhausted ;  so  is  Spain ;  of  a  new  war  it  will  be  for  us  to  sup- 
port all  the  charge.  We  have  here,  therefore,  before  us  a  train  of 
consequences  of  which  the  final  issue  no  one  can  presume  to  tell ;  but 
in  the  gross,  and  at  once,  it  is  easy  to  pronounce  that  it  is  but  com- 
mon prudence  to  avoid  them  by  adhering  to  the  partition  treaty. 
France,  by  this  proof  of  her  good  faith,  will  conciliate  all  Europe,  — 
Europe,  which  she  has  seen  leagued  against  her  because  she  has  been 
considered  as  aspiring,  like  the  house  of  Austria,  to  universal  monar- 
chy ;  and  if  she  now  accept  this  testament,  will  the  truth  of  these  ac- 
cusations admit  longer  of  a  doubt  ?  " 

Such  was,  according  to  the  more  probable  account  of  St.  Simon, 
the  statement  of  De  Torcy  himself,  —  offered  by  him  as  the  statement 
of  one  side  of  the  question.  But  such  were  entirely,  and  stated  as  a 
proper  estimate  of  the  whole  of  the  case,  the  sentiments  of  the  Due 
de  Beauvilhers,  the  tutor  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  the  discerning 
and  good  man  who  had  selected  Fdnelon  to  assist  him  in  his  momen- 
tous office ;  and  similar  to  these  are  always  the  sentiments  of  discern- 
ing and  good  men  on  all  such  occasions.  These  are  the  natural  and 
weighty  topics  that  are  insisted  upon  by  all  such  reasoners,  when 
peace  and  war  can  be  made  a  question :  national  faith ;  the  opinions 
of  surrounding  nations  on  our  conduct ;  what  there  is,  or  what  there 

HH 


398  _  LECTURE  XXin. 

may  be,  of  justice  in  their  accusations ;  the  advantages  that  may  as- 
suredly be  derived  from  peace ;  the  evils  that  inevitably  result  from 
war;  the  calamities  that  will  certainly,  the  very  serious  ruin  that  it 
is  possible,  at  least,  may^  result  from  dangerous  experiments. 

In  the  instance  before  us,  the  successes  of  Marlborough,  the  ap- 
pearance of  such  a  commander  among  the  enemies  of  France,  could 
not,  indeed,  have  been  expected  by  Louis  or  his  counsellors.  But  even 
according  to  the  ordinary  nature  of  events,  there  were  not  only  pos- 
sibilities, but  there  were  probabilities ;  and  there  were  certainties 
sufficient  to  induce  the  Due  de  Beauvilliers  to  insist,  as  he  did  insist, 
on  the  solid  wisdom  of  the  counsels  which  he  recommended. 

The  chancellor,  on  the  contrary,  too  much  disposed,  as  it  is  thought 
by  St.  Simon,  to  sacrifice  to  the  wishes  of  his  master,  (such  men  will 
always  be  found  among  the  counsellors  of  princes,)  presented  to 
Louis  views  more  splendid  and  reasonings  more  attractive.  He  found 
it  easy  to  show  how  fitted  were  the  kingdoms  of  France  and  Spain  to 
constitute  a  great  empire  under  the  dominion  of  the  house  of  Bour- 
bon. There  was  no  difficulty  in  depreciating  the  advantages  pre- 
sented by  the  treaty  of  partition,  or  in  rendering  suspected  the  policy 
of  any  system  to  which  William,  the  great  enemy  of  France,  had 
become  a  party.  It  was  not  difficult  to  show  that  it  must  always 
make  a  very  material  difierence  to  France,  whether  there  were  seated 
on  the  throne  of  Spain  princes  of  the  house  of  Bourbon  or  princes  of 
the  house  of  Austria,  however  interested  the  former  might  at  length 
become  in  the  prosperity  of  the  particular  kingdom  which  they 
governed.  These  were  topics  of  fair  debate,  provided  the  question 
could  ever  have  been  brought  to  a  point  where  it  was  proper  to  dis 
cuss  them. 

The  chancellor  also  insisted,  that,  since  the  treaties  of  partition 
were  made,  new  circumstances  had  occurred  which  rendered  them  no 
longer  binding:  the  testament,  for  instance,  had  been  made  in  Louis's 
favor.  This  is  the  sort  of  dishonest  reasoning  that  on  all  such  oc- 
casions is  produced,  and  it  is  therefore  unive^rsally  instructive.  For 
the  chancellor  omitted  to  state,  that  the  testament  had  been  procured 
by  the  intrigues  of  France,  and  that  Louis  was  thus  to  profit  by  his 
own  wrong. 

Again:  "  France,"  said  the  minister,  "by  refusing  the  testament, 
will  gain,  not  the  character  of  moderation,  but  that  of  pusillanimity ; 
will  .become  an  object  of  ridicule,  not  of  respect,  to  surrounding 
nations,  as  was  our  good  Louis  the  Twelfth,  and  Francis  the  First,  to 
Ferdinand,  Charles  the  Fifth,  the  Pope,  and  the  Venetians :  not, 
indeed,  that  the  point  of  honor  is  against  us,"  said  the  chancellor. 
"  Can  it  be  supposed  that  such  a  succession  as  that  of  Spain  is  ever 
to  fall  into  our  hands  without  a  war  ?  Even  to  the  treaty  of  partition 
the  emperor  will  not  assent.  And  if,  then,  we  are,  on  every  suppo- 
sition, to  have  a  war,  is  it  not  better  to  fight  for  the  proper  benefits 


ANNE.  399 

of  success,  after  first  possessing  ourselves  of  what  is  already  within 
our  grasp  ?  Let  us  at  least  contrive  not  to  show  ourselves  to  the 
world  unworthy  of  the  high  fortune  to  which  we  are  so  unexpectedly 
called." 

These  also  are,  I  think,  arguments  universally  instructive  ;  for  it  is 
by  considerations  of  this  kind  that  nations  are  always  inflamed,  their 
passions  excited,  and  their  judgments  betrayed  by  their  orators,  states- 
men, and  princes.  It  is  even  by  considerations  of  this  kind  that 
they  who  should  counsel  others  are  themselves  led  astray  ;  and  these, 
therefore,  as  they  continually  occur  in  history,  become  the  genuine 
instruction  of  history. 

On  the  whole  of  the  case,  Louis  might  accept  the  testament.  He 
did  so.  The  defence  of  this  measure  will  be  foj^nd  in  De  Torcy,  and 
in  the  reasons  given  by  the  chancellor  in  St.  Simon. 

Secondly,  he  might  have  rejected  the  testament,  and  adhered  to 
the  remaining  partition  treaty.  This  measure  is  proposed  and  sup- 
ported by  the  Abb^  de  Mably. 

Lastly,  he  might  have  done  neither.  The  whole  question  is  argued 
by  Lord  Bolingbroke.  But  when  he  considers  it  under  three  diiferent 
views,  —  the  view  of  right,  of  policy,  and  of  power,  —  the  first,  that 
of  right,  is  surely  too  loosely  determined,  and  too  hastily  dismissed. 

The  fact  was,  that,  when  the  Spanish  line  was  originally  connected 
with  the  French,  every  precaution  was  taken  by  the  Spanish  monarch 
to  prevent  a  crisis  of  the  nature  that  afterwards  took  place,  and  all 
future  title  to  the  crown  of  Spain,  whether  by  treaty,  will,  testament, 
or  otherwise,  was  renounced.  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  therefore,  should 
not  have  left  WilHam  to  suppose  that  the  treaties  of  partition  were  at 
all  necessary.  He  should  not  have  thought  it  honorable  to  receive 
any  advantages  which  could  be  oifered  him  only  on  the  supposition 
that  he  was  not  likely  to  fulfil  his  original  engagements.  On  the 
same  account  he  should  not  have  accepted  the  testament,  for  to  ac- 
cept it  was  contrary  to  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  the  most  positive 
and  solemn  engagements.  The  testament  itself  would  never  have 
been  made  in  his  favor,  if  he  from  the  first  had  openly  and  sincerely 
disclaimed  the  succession,  and  had  spoken  from  the  first  steadily  and 
clearly  the  language  of  uprightness  and  honor.  Whatever  right  the 
monarch  of  Spain  might  have  to  offer  Louis  the  succession  by  his  tes- 
tament, Louis  had  no  right  to  receive  it.  The  offer  had  been  made 
in  consequence  of  a  long  series  of  intrigues,  all  of  them  in  every  re- 
spect, and  from  the  first,  dishonorable  to  him  and  base.  Their  suc- 
cess could  give  Louis  no  right  which  belonged  not  to  him  before.  He 
was  not  to  profit,  as  I  have  before  observed,  by  his  own  wrong. 

The  question  of  ambition  and  aggrandizement,  the  considerations 
that  alone  weighed  with  him  and  some  of  his  counsellors,  may  be  dis- 
posed of  with  a  rapidity  that  would  have  been  inconceivable  to  Louis 
and  his  cabinet.     To  France,  above  all  kingdoms,  the  most  effective 


400  LECTURE  XXm 

means  of  aggrandizement  were  peace,  and  justice,  and  honor.  Her 
people  full  of  genius  and  activity,  her  territories  pregnant  with  the 
most  varied  and  inestimable  advantages,  she  had  only  to  defend  her- 
self, and,  if  possible,  keep  Europe  at  peace,  and  she  could  not  fail  of 
being  prosperous  and  happy. 

The  politicians  of  the  world  have  never  ceased  on  these  subjects  to 
commit,  as  did  first  Mazarin,  and  afterwards  Louis,  the  most  cruel 
mistakes.  The  gain  of  one  country  has  always  been  supposed  the  loss 
of  every  other :  colonies  are  to  be  fought  for,  and  commerce  is  to  be 
fought  for,  and  kingdoms  are  to  be  fought  for,  and  all  for  the  sake  of 
prosperity  and  power.  Human  life  is  to  be  wasted,  all  the  proper 
materials  of  strength  and  accumulation  are  to  be  dissipated  and  anni- 
hilated, to  be  directed  to  the  purposes  of  destruction,  and  every 
experiment  is  to  be  attempted  but  one,  the  only  proper  and  rational 
experiment,  that  of  making  governments  gradually  more  free,  the  laws 
more  equal,  and  the  maintaining  of  peace. 

Turning  now  from  the  Continent,  the  next  question  before  us  is  the 
conduct  of  our  own  country,  and  the  point  to  be  determined  is, 
whether  we  had  no  honorable  or  safe  alternative  but  war.  William 
the  Third  had  but  just  time  before  his  death  to  decide  that  we  had  no 
other.     He  thought  the  ambition  of  Louis  left  no  other. 

The  reign  of  Anne  opens  with  the  speeches  of  the  queen  to  the  Privy 
Council  and  the  two  Houses,  with  their  answers.  Mention  is  here 
made  of  measures  entered  into  to  reduce  the  exorbitant  power  of 
France,  to  obtain  such  a  balance  of  power  and  interests  as  may 
effectually  secure  the  liberties  of  Europe.  This  is  the  language  of 
reason  and  sound  pohcy.  But  the  causes  of  the  war  are  more  distinctly 
shown  in  the  declaration  of  war  itself,  and  the  question  then  is, 
whether  the  acknowledgment  of  the  pretended  Prince  of  Wales  by 
Louis,  under  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  was  such  an  affront  to 
the  English  crown  as  could  be  vindicated  only  by  a  war,  and  Avhether 
representations  had  been  made  to  Louis,  on  the  subject  of  his  aggres- 
sions and  offences,  sufficiently  patient  and  conciUatory  to  render  the 
war  on  our  part  a  war  for  the  defence  of  the  balance  of  power  in 
Europe,  and  therefore  for  our  own  dignity  and  safety ;  whether  no 
reparation  could  be  procured  to  our  honor,  but  by  arms ;  whether  the 
offence  was  sufficient  to  justify  such  an  extremity ;  whether  it  was 
reasonable  to  expect  that  the  affair  of  the  succession  could  now  be 
materially  altered  for  the  better  by  an  appeal  to  force,  and  the  re- 
newal of  the  calamities  of  Europe. 

These  are  questions  that  may  fairly  be  supposed  open  to  discussion, 
for  the  national  animosity  to  France  was,  on  all  occasions,  very  strong, 
and  even  Tories  and  Whigs  united  when  a  sentiment  was  to  be  ex- 
pressed of  hostility  to  that  kingdom. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  decision  of  the  student  on  the  general 
question  (and  it  may  turn  out  to  be  very  different  from  what  he  might 


iNNE.  401 

at  first  have  expected),  let  him  carefully  remember,  that  It  was  to 
reduce  the  exorbitant  power  of  France,  and  to  vindicate  the  honor  of 
the  English  crown,  insulted  by  the  acknowledgment  of  the  pretended 
Prince  of  Wales,  —  that  these  were  the  objects  of  the  war,  and  that  war 
was,  on  every  supposition,  no  longer  to  be  maintained  when  these 
objects  were  once  accomplished.  All  this  is,  I  say,  to  be  well  re- 
membered ;  for  we  may  remember  it,  perhaps,  with  some  advantage 
hereafter,  when  we  come  to  the  remaining  transactions  of  the  reign, 
—  those  more  particularly  connected  with  our  foreign  politics.  This 
war  with  France  is  the  great  centre  on  which  they  all  turn,  and  there- 
fore, with  respect  to  our  foreign  politics,  the  two  great  points  of 
attention  which  I  shall  propose  to  you  are, — first,  the  character 
and  victories  of  Marlborough;  secondly,  the  use  that  was  made  of 
them. 

On  these  subjects  the  historical  works  of  Mr.  Coxe  must  be  studied : 
first,  his  House  of  Austria ;  secondly,  his  Memoirs  of  the  Kings  of 
Spain;  and  lastly,  and  more  particularly,  his  Life  of  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough. 

This  last  work  I  have  had  to  consider  since  I  drew  up  my  present 
lecture.  I  have  had  to  modify  a  little  my  opinion  of  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough.  I  can  no  longer  consider  him  as  so  betrayed  by  a 
spirit  of  personal  ambition  as  I  had  once  suspected ;  for  he  seems  not 
to  have  been  more  ready  to  persevere  in  the  war  against  France  than 
Godolphin  and  others,  and  sometimes  to  have  been  more  reasonable ; 
and  I  have  a  still  stronger  impression  of  his  amiable  nature  in  do- 
mestic life. 

Of  his  talents  for  public  life,  I  could  not  have  entertained  a  higher 
opinion  than  I  had  already  formed ;  the  same  must  have  been  always 
the  opinion  of  every  reader  of  history.  The  great  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough has  always  been  his  proper  appellation,  and  he  is  only  made 
greater  by  being  made  more  known  from  the  publication  of  Mr.  Coxe ; 
nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  he  would  appear  greater  still,  the  more  the 
difficulties  with  which  he  was  surrounded  on  all  occasions  could  be 
appreciated.  These  difficulties,  however,  may  now,  from  the  work 
just  mentioned,  be  partly  estimated:  the  impetuous  temper  and 
consequent  imprudence  of  a  wife  whom  for  her  beauty,  her  talents, 
and  her  affection  he  naturally  idolized ;  the  low,  narrow  mind  and 
mulish  nature  of  the  queen  he  served ;  the  unreasonable  wishes  and 
strange  prejudices  of  the  men  of  infi\ience  in  his  own  country;  the 
discordant  interests  and  passions  of  different  states  and  princes  on  the 
Continent ;  the  pertinacity  of  the  field  deputies  of  Holland,  whom  he 
could  not  send  over  into  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  their  more  proper 
station,  ai\d  to  whose  absurdities  it  gave  him  the  headache  to  listen. 
As  we  continue  our  progress  through  the  pages  of  Mr.  Coxe,  the 
queen,  the  court,  the  houses  of  legislature,  the  nation,  fall  deeply  into 
the  shade  ;  the  duke  is  dismissed. 

51  HH* 


402  LECTURE  XXIlI. 

"  Diram  qui  contudit  hydram, 
Comperit  invidiam  supremo  fine  domari." 

He  is  actually  sued  for  the  expenses  of  the  workmen  at  Blenheim ; 
is  obliged  to  retire  to  the  Continent ;  and  it  is  there,  not  in  his  own 
country,  that  he  is  to  see  his  victories  remembered  and  his  merit 
acknowledged. 

In  Tindal's  Continuation  of  Rapin,  and  now  more  completely  in 
Coxe,  may  be  read  the  history  of  his  military  exploits ; ,  and  it  is  here 
that  Marlborough  seems  to  tower  above  all  praise.  It  would  be  diffi 
cult  to  find  any  commander  in  any  age  or  country  to  whom  he  can  be 
thought  inferior ;  he  might  rather  seem  to  have  united  the  merits  of 
them  all.  He  had  the  praise  of  Hannibal ;  for  he  had  to  oppose  the 
armies  of  one  great  military  nation  by  armies  composed  of  many  differ- 
ent nations.  He  had  the  praise  of  Caesar ;  for,  though  an  enterprising, 
he  was  a  safe  commander ;  he  lost  no  battle ;  he  failed  in  no  siege ;  he 
was  no  desperate  knight-errant,  like  Alexander  in  ancient  story,  or 
Charles  the  Twelfth  in  modern.  He  lived  not,  like  Attila,  or  Tamer- 
lane, among  barbarous  nations,  when  the  event  of  a  single  battle 
decided  the  fate  of  an  empire,  and  when,  if  fortune  once  smiled,  her/ 
smiles  were  afterwards  superfluous ;  nor  did  he  live,  like  the  great 
conqueror  in  our  own  times,  the  emperor  of  France,  in  a  revolutionary 
age,  whei^  the  new  and  dreadful  energies  of  a  particular  nation  could 
be  seized  upon  and  directed  against  surrounding  nations,  —  against 
armies  formed  on  a  different  model,  statesmen  obliged  to  deliberate 
under  a  different  system,  and  governments  submitted  to  different 
habits  and  principles  of  action. 

The  Duke  of  Marlborough  was  in  no  favorable  situation  like  any  of 
these  creatures  of  dynasties  or  destroyers  of  kingdoms ;  much  the 
contrary.  He  flourished  when  war  had  been  reduced  to  a  science, 
and  when  likewise  it  could  be  waged  in  no  sweeping  or  convulsive 
manner ;  he  had  to  do  with  regular  governments,  orderly  statesmen, 
soldiers  animated  by  no  fury  of  enthusiasm,  pohtical  or  religious; 
princes,  magistrates,  financiers,  officers  civil  and  military,  individuals 
in  all  their  divisions  and  departments,  moving,  each  of  them,  after  the 
prescribed  rate  and  fashion  of  society  in  its  most  civilized  and  appointed 
state ;  nay  more,  he  had  to  sway  the  factions  of  England,  to  animate 
the  legislative  bodies  of  Holland,  to  harmonize  the  members  of  the 
Germanic  body,  and  all  to  the  one  single  purpose  of  overpowering  on 
the  Continent  the  vast,  concentrated,  prompt,  and  matured  strength  of 
France,  —  an  object,  this,  which  no  human  art  or  genius  could  ever, 
before  or  since,  be  properly  said  to  have,  by  regular  miUtary  );\arfare, 
accomplished.  Even  the  great  William,  trained  up  amid  a  life  of 
diflficulties  and  of  war,  with  an  intrepid  heart  and  a  sound  ui;ider3tand 
ing,  was  able  only  to  stay  the  enterprises  of  Louis,  —  successfully  to 
resist,  but  not  to  humble  him.  It  was  for  Marlborough  to  teach  that 
unprincipled  monarch  the  danger  of  ambition  and  the  instability  of 


ANNE.  403 

numan  grandeur ;  it  was  for.  Marlborough  to  disturb  his  dreams  of 
pleasure  and  of  pride,  by  filling  them  with  spectres  of  terror  and 
images  of  desolation.  Of  Marlborough  "might  be  said,  in  a  far  more 
extensive  sense  of  the  words,  what  was  afterwards  said  of  Lord  Chat- 
ham, that  with  one  hand  he  wielded  the  aristocracy  of  England,  and 
with  the  other  he  smote  the  house  of  Bourbon. 

The  great  praise  of  Marlborough  is,  that  his  glory  was  reached  step 
by  step,  by  no  sudden  indulgence  of  fortune,  by  no  single  effort  of 
military  skill  and  valor.  Enterprise  succeeded  to  enterprise,  cam- 
paign to  campaign,  and  the  result  was  always  the  same,  —  progressive 
fame,  and  victories  and  triumphs  either  accomplished  or  prepared. 
If  commanders  were  sent  against  him  who  made  the  slightest  mistake, 
victories  like  Blenheim  and  Ramillies  were  the  consequence.  If  a  man 
of  consummate  skill,  like  Yendome,  was  opposed  to  him,  he  consent- 
ed to  attempt  nothing  impracticable.  No  success  improperly  inflamed 
his  expectations ;  yet  could  he  show,  as  in  his  campaign  with  Villars, 
that  no  necessity  of  caution,  no  respect  for  his  opponent,  excluded 
from  his  mind  the  chances  at  least  of  success,  and  he  could  seize 
them  with  effect,  and  prove,  that,  whatever  might  be  his  circum- 
spection, he  was  equally  gifted  with  the  powers  of  military  invention 
and  the  spirit  of  military  enterprise. 

The  care&r  of  other  great  generals  has  always  been  marked  by 
varieties  of  chance  and  change,  of  light  and  shade,  of  success  and 
defeat.  But  the  panegyric  of  Marlborough  is  contained  in  a  single 
word,  —  he  was  always  right ;  that  is,  he  proportioned  well  his  means 
to  his  ends,  and  did  not,  like  other  statesmen  and  generals,  mistake 
passion  for  wisdom,  wishes  for  possibilities,  and  words  for  things.  On 
the  whole,  though  in  his  character  as  a  man  some-  failings  must  be 
allowed,  parsimony  for  instance,  (the  result  so  often  of  the  necessity 
of  economy  in  early  life,)  and  the  fault,  the  crime,  of  corresponding 
with  the  exiled  family,  —  on  the  whole,  a  degrading  and  a  most  un- 
worthy attention  to  his  own  interest,  —  such  was  his  good  sense,  his 
mihtary  genius,  the  charms  of  his  address  and  appearance,  and  his 
high  and  commanding  qualities  of  every  description,  that  he  must 
even  now  be  considered,  what' Lord  Bolingbroke  was  compelled  to 
call  him  in  his  day,  the  greatest  of  generals  and  of  ministers. 

Turning  now  from  the  character  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  who 
wim  the  victories  that  distinguished  this  reign,  to  the  use  that  was 
made  of  them,  though  no  difference  of  opinion  can  exist  with  regard 
to  the  first,  much  may  with  regard  to  the  second  question :  —  How 
far  the  alUes  were  or  were  not  unreasonable  in  their  demands  ;  which 
of  the  parties  was  most  in  fault  during  the  negotiations  for  peace, 
particularly  during  the  first,  that  at  the  Hague. 

I  cannot  repeat  too  often,  that  questions  of  this  sort  are  among  the 
most  profitable  portions  of  study  which  can  belong  to  the  readers  of 
history.     We  may  not  be  able  always  to  understand  by  what  varie- 


104  LECTURE  XXm. 

ties  of  character  or  of  personal  interest,  in  the  agents  or  in  the  prin- 
cipals, negotiations  break  oiF  or  terminate  with  success  ;  but  by  being 
removed  to  a  distance,  we  can  take  a  commanding  view  of  what  were 
the  real  interests  of  the  parties  at  the  time.  Such  speculations  are 
well  fitted  to  prepare  us  for  the  discussion  of  similar  subjects  when 
we  come  to  be  ourselves  concerned,  to  save  us  from  unreasonable 
terrors  or  extravagant  hopes,  and,  above  all,  to  prevent  us  from  mag- 
nifying points,  for  which  we  have  been  contending,  into  an  importance 
which  does  not  belong  to  them,  and  which  temporary  importance  be- 
comes to  succeeding  politicians  not  unfrequently  a  subject  of  surprise, 
compassion,  or  even  contempt. 

I'he  authors  you  must  consult  are  Dr.  Somerville,  Coxe,  Tindal, 
De  Torcy,  and,  lastly.  Swift's  pamphlet  on  the  Conduct  of  the 
Allies,  —  a  pamphlet  most  effective  at  the  time,  but  disgraced  by  the 
most  vulgar  matter  and  exaggerated  statements,  and  therefore  now 
very  edifying  as  a  specimen  of  what  a  party  pamphlet  may  be,  and 
not  unfrequently  is. 

I  cannot  attempt,  for  want  of  time^  any  discussion  of  this  great 
question.  You  will  see  what  is  sa>i  very  fully  and  distinctly  by 
Coxe.  I  cannot  think,  for  my  o^n  part,  that  proper  use,  that  the 
right  use,  was  made  by  Marlborough  and  Godolphin  of  the  victories 
of  Blenheim  and  Ramillies ;  and  I  cannot  think  so,  e%en  after  the 
perusal  of  every  thing  that  this  valuable  historian  has  delivered  to 
the  contrary,  in  his  Life  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough. 

I  must  now  remind  you,  as  I  apprised  you  I  should,  of  the  reasons 
for  the  war  which  were  given  when  it  first  broke  out.  It  is  curious  to 
remark  the  manner  in  which  the  tone  of  the  allies  altered^  and  their 
views  enlarged,  with  their  victories.  This  may  be  very  jiatural^  but 
it  is  not  entirely  and  ultimately  wise.  A  war  is  not  to  be  entered 
upon  without  a  grave  and  specific  object ;  but  when  success  has  ena- 
bled a  nation  to  obtain  that  object,  (and  this  had  surely  been  ef- 
fected by  the  great  battles  just  alluded  to,)  upon  every  principle  of 
wisdom  as  of  humanity,  the  war  must  close.  If  new  objects  are  to 
arise,  and  to  be  considered  as  indispensable  to  peace,  the  system  of 
warfare  is  then  converted  into  a  system  to  each  nation  the  most  pro- 
tracted possible,  and  therefore  the  most  ruinous  possible,  —  a  system 
more  protracted  than  the  passions  of  our  nature,  violent  as  they  are, 
at  all  require.  Peace  is  the  great  cause  of  human  nature  ;  it  is  the 
great  secret  of  prosperity  to  all  nations,  collectively  and  individually. 
It  is,  therefore,  the  common  policy  of  all ;  not  to  say,  that,  even  ac- 
cording to  the  short-sighted  notions  of  rivalry  and  selfishness,  a  suc- 
cessful nation  often  carries  on  a  war  too  long ;  more  is  lost  by  the 
expense  of  an  additional  campaign  than  the  advantages  of  a  cam- 
paign do  or  can  repay ;  and,  what  is  of  still  more  consequence,  the 
fortune  of  the  contest  may  alter. 

Again,  it  should  have  been  considered  that  those  who  propose  fair 


ANNE.  405 

terms  of  peace,  as  Louis  did,  never  fail  of  securing  a  most  advanta- 
geous alternative.  They  obtain  either  a  peace  or  a  just  cause.  Louis, 
for  instance,  could  not  bring  the  allies  to  grant  him  honorable  condi- 
tions (hard  terms  are  never  the  true  policy)  ;  he  therefore  published 
those  which  they  had  insisted  upon,  and  he  had  it  then  in  his  power 
to  say,  as  he  did  say,  to  his  subjects,  in  a  public  address,  "  If  it  had 
depended  on  me,  you  should  have  enjoyed  this  blessing  which  you  so 
earnestly  desire,  the  blessing  of  peace  ;  but  it  must  be  procured  by 
new  efforts  ;  the  immense  sacrifices  I  have  offered  are  of  no  avail.  I 
can  perfectly  sympathize  with  all  that  my  faithful  subjects  must  en- 
dure, but  I  am  persuaded  they  would  themselves  recoil  from  condi- 
tions of  peace  as  repugnant  to  justice  as  to  the  honor  of  the  French 
name."  These  considerations  were  not  addressed  to  the  French  peo- 
ple in  vain,  and  they  never  will  or  can  be  addressed  in  vain  to  any 
people  by  their  rulers. 

It  is  true,  that,  when  the  successes  of  the  allies  were  so  great,  it 
then,  as  the  Whigs  thought,  became  to  them  a  question,  whether  the 
opportunity  was  not  to  be  taken  of  attempting  to  deprive  France  of 
all  the  additions  which  she  had  made  to  her  power  since  the  peace  of 
Westphalia ;  but  surely  it  should  rather  have  been  thought  (and  long 
before  this  extreme  point  of  depression  in  the  affairs  of  France  had 
occurred)  that  the  failure  of  the  succession  in  the  family  of  Spain, 
and  the  provisions  of  the  will  of  Charles,  created  a  conjuncture  the 
most  unfortunate  that  could  possibly  have  happened,  one  from  which 
it  was  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  Europe  should  be  able  entirely 
to  extricate  itself ;  that  the  people  and  grandees  of  Spain  had  clearly 
decided  against  the  pretensions  of  the  house  of  Austria  and  the  pro- 
jects of  the  allies ;  that,  if  Europe  was  to  be  protected  from  the  am- 
oition  of  Louis,  some  effort  of  a  very  different  nature  must  be  made  ; 
that  the  transfer  of  Spain  and  the  Indies  to  the  house  of  Austria  was 
impossible,  —  was,  at  all  events,  the  least  feasible  project  that  could 
be  attempted  ;  and  that,  on  the  w^hole,  taking  into  account  the  natural 
and  honorable  feelings  of  a  distinguished  monarch  like  Louis  and  a 
great  nation  like  France,  and  again  the  same  natural  and  honorable 
feelings  of  the  grandees  and  people  of  Spain,  —  taking  into  account 
these  important  points,  surely  it  should  have  been  thought  that  all 
that  was  reasonable,  and  at  all  events  all  that  was  practicable,  might 
have  been  procured  by  the  allies  at  an  early  period  immediately  after 
the  battle  of  Ramillies,  or  even  before,  and  certainly  during  the  ne- 
gotiation at  the  Hague. 

The  Whigs  ought,  surely,  to  have  been  eager  to  make  the  best  bar- 
gain for  Europe  which  they  could,,  from  the  obvious  probability  that 
the  queen,  who  always  hated  and  feared  them,  as  they  well  knew, 
would  contrive  to  get  other  ministers,  and  the  consequence  be  a 
peace  on  terms  much  less  advantageous  to  England  and  the  Conti- 
nent than  they  could  themselves  obtain.     They  might  easily  see  how 


406  LECTURE  XXIII. 

diflScult  it  was  to  keep  up  a  combination  of  powers  against  France, 
and  how  many  chances  and  how  many  reasons  might  make  a  war  un- 
popular. 

These  I  conceive  to  be  some  of  the  points  for  you  to  consider ;  and 
you  should  fix  your  attention  on  early  periods  in  the  war,  immediately 
after  the  battle  of  Ramillies,  and  rather  on  the  negotiations  that  pre- 
ceded than  those  that  took  place  at  Geertruidenberg ;  the  peace 
should  have  been  made  long  before  the  conferences  at  (jeertruiden- 
berg.  They  who  would  decide  this  question  in  the  shortest  time 
possible  may  take  into  their  consideration  a  few  pages  in  the  differ- 
ent chapters  of  Coxe's  Austria,  and  Somerville's  History  of  Queen 
Anne. 

I  cannot  but  observe,  as  I  am  finally  quitting  this  subject  of  the 
use  which,  the  allies  made  of  their  victories,  that,  in  every  free  gov- 
ernment, it  is  the  interest  of  the  members  of  a  cabinet,  even  with  a 
view  to  their  own  personal  aggrandizement,  to  proceed  as  much  as 
possible  on  a  system  of  peace  ;  for  the  uneasiness  which  is  occasioned 
by  the  pressure  of  war  is  very  easily  converted  by  their  political  op- 
ponents into  the  means  of  dislodging  them  from  their  power.  In  all 
free  governments,  those  who  make  a  war,  as  was  the  case  in  the  pres- 
ent instance,  seldom  make  a  peace  ;  war  comes  at  last,  with  or  with- 
out due  reason,  to  be  unpopular ;  and  the  war  and  its  advisers  are 
discarded  together. 

Again,  from  the  whole  of  the  War  of  the  Succession,  it  is  evident 
how  great  must  always  be  the  difiiculty  of  supporting  a  combination 
of  many  states  against  one.  Their  interests,  or  at  least  their  own 
views  of  their  interests,  are  seldom  the  same  while  the  war  is  carried 
on,  still  less  when  peace  begins  to  be  thought  of.  It  is  very  difficult 
to  combine  them  so  as  to  render  them  successful  for  any  long  period. 
Prosperity  disunites  them,  from  jealousy ;  adversity  still  more,  from 
views  of  self-preservation. 

In  combinations  of  different  powers,  the  great  duty  of  all  is  dis- 
interestedness. In  this  respect  the  Whig  ministry  of  England  set  an 
example  highly  creditable  to  their  characters  as  wise  and  honoi*able 
statesmen.  They  might  mistake  (it  is  a  great  question)  the  wisdom 
of  the  case  at  the  proper  season ;  but  their  language  and  their  views 
were,  resistance  to  the  ambition  of  France,  the  establishment  of  the 
general  interests  of  Europe. 

But  the  question  is,  whether  they  suffered  not  the  justice  of  the 
cause  at  last  to  be  transferred  to  the  French  monarch.  He  had  re- 
course to  negotiation,  was  unsuccessful,  and  then  appealed  to  his 
people  and  to  the  world.  I  must  ask  again,  —  Were  the  allies  and 
their  ministers  sufficiently  attentive  to  the  claims  of  humanity  and 
to  all  the  suggestions  of  sober  policy  at  home  and  abroad,  on  this 
occasion,  and  in  the  course  of  these  successes  ?  To  me  it  appears 
not. 


ANr^E.  407 

If  the  rulers  of  mankind  would  not  mix  their  own  passions  in  the 
contests  of  nations,  it  is  impossible  that  these  appeals  to  negotiation 
should  not  be  more  frequent,  it  is  impossible  that  wars  should  be 
drawn  out  to  the  protracted  period  we  so  often  witness.  All  parties 
would  be  thrown  more  and  more  into  a  state  of  deliberation ;  would 
be  rerakided  of  the  desirableness  of  peace  ;  that  it  is  the  proper  and 
only  end  of  all  war ;  that  the  real  causes  of  hostility  are  always  ex- 
aggerated ;  that  in  these  cases  there  is  nothing  to  be  met  with  but 
misapprehension,  fury,  and  absurdity.  But  the  whole  system  cf 
national  policy  is  mistaken,  and  cabinets,  instead  of  considering  how 
their  own  nation  may  be  extricated  from  a  contest  with  safety  and 
honor,  think  only  how  the  enemy  may  be  reduced  to  the  lowest  pos- 
sible state  of  depression,  how  their  own  views  of  political  aggrandize- 
ment may  be  realized,  how  their  own  particular  nation  may  be  left 
hereafter  without  an  equal,  and  the  rest  of  mankind  be  taught  to  fall 
down  and  worship  themselves  and  their  countrymen.  I  cannot  fur- 
ther allude  to  this  question,  and  it  must  now  be  left  to  your  own  dili- 
gence and  curiosity. 

As  you  proceed  in  the  general  history,  you  will  find  the  influence 
of  Marlborough  and  the  Whig  ministry  gradually  decline,  and  at  last 
a  new  Tory  ministry  formed,  and  a  peace  concluded.  These  events 
will  be  found  sufficiently  explained  in  the  authors  I  have  already  re- 
ferred to ;  and  after  their  details  have  been  perused,  the  account 
which  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough  herself  gives  of  her  conduct,  from 
her  first  coming  to  court  till  the  year  1710,  should  by  all  means  be 
read.     It  is  not  long,  is  sometimes  important,  and  always  entertaining. 

But  peace  was  at  last  made,  and  made  by  the  Tories.  Some 
opinion  should  be  formed  of  the  merits  of  it,  and  of  the  negotiations 
that  led  to  it. 

To  the  account  that  is  given  by  the  regular  historians  should  be 
added  the  third  volume  of  the  Memoirs  of  De  Torcy.  It  is  still  the 
French  statement  and  view  of  the  case,  but  even  as  such  it  should  be 
read.  The  work,  hoAvever,  is  not  only  in  many  places  characteristic 
of  the  nation  to  which  the  author  belongs,  but  the  notices  that  are  to 
be  found  of  the  English  people  and  of  the  views  and  characters  of  the 
parties  of  our  island  are  often  amusing  and  instructing.  It  may 
serve  to  display  the  nature  of  negotiations,  the  difficulties  that  con- 
tinually arise,  and  the  patience  and  dexterity  that  are  always  neces- 
sary to  compose  the  differences  of  belhgerent  powers,  even  when  the 
negotiators  themselves  feel  and  know  that  it  is  their  interest  to  come 
to  an  adju^ment. 

When  the  detail  of  these  transactions  has  been  read  in  De  Torcy 
and  our  common  historians,  the  Correspondence  of  Bolingbroke, 
which  was  not  long  ago  published  by  Mr.  Parke,  should  be  looked  at. 
It  touches  only  on  the  surface  of  these  important  negotiations,  but, 
after  the  detail  is  known,  the  rapid  allusions  and  brief  notices  that 


iOS  LECTURE  XXni. 

are  taken  by  tlie  Secretary  Bolingbroke,  from  time  to  time,  of  these 
affairs,  are  not  without  their  interest.  Those  of  Prior's  letters  which 
appear  here  are  Kvelj  and  entertaining ;  so  are,  indeed,  those  of 
Bohngbroke ;  but .  from  a  correspondence  of  this  sort  we  expect  to 
acquire  a  greater  insight  into  the  transactions  to  which  thej  refer 
than,  it  must  be  confessed,  we  can  here  obtain.  ^ 

The  merits  of  the  peace  of  Utrecht  was  a  question  which  you  will 
perceive,  from  the  occurrences  that  took  place  in  and  out  of  Parlia- 
ment during  the  close  of  this  and  the  opening  of  the  succeeding  reign, 
extremely  agitated  the  public  mind.  There  is  a  short  disquisition  on 
the  subject  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of  Somerville,  to  which  I  must 
refer.  The  historian  there  arrives  at  a  conclusion  which  appears  to 
me  reasonable,  —  that  the  peace  was  censurable  rather  as  being  dis- 
proportioned  to  the  success  of  the  war  than  as  having  fallen  short  of 
the  ends  of  the  grand  alliance. 

The  question  of  the  peace,  as  between  the  Whigs  and  Tories,  may 
be  seen  argued  in  the  eighth  letter  of  Bolingbroke  on  the  Study  and 
Use  of  History,  and  in  the  reply  of  the  first  Horace  Walpole.*  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  French  court  saw  that  it  would  be  the  per- 
sonal interest  of  the  English  ministers  to  make  a  peace  ;  that  of  this 
advantage  France  was  ready,  most  ungenerously  to  those  ministers, 
to  avail  herself;  and  that  the  English  ministers  exerted  themselves 
in  no  proper  manner  to  preclude  France  from  any  such  advantage 
They  in  no  respect  showed,  as  they  ought  to  have  done,  that,  though 
desirous  of  peace,  as  good  and  wise  men  should  always  be,  — ^  that, 
though  cooler  and  more  equital)le  in  this  important  respect  than  the 
Whigs,  —  still,  they  were  as  determined  as  the  Whigs  to  make  a 
common  cause  with  Europe  against  the  power  of  France ;  and  that, 
whatever  France  might  conceive  with  respect  to  their  personal  inter 
est  as  leaders  of  a  party  in  England,  they  would  still  do  nothing  in 
consistent  with  their  character  as  the  arbiters  (for  such  they  were  at 
the  time)  of  the  great  interests  of  the  most  civilized  portion  of  man- 
kind. 

De  Torcy,  through  the  whole  of  the  third  volume  of  his  Memoirs, 
cannot  help  repeatedly  contrasting  with  pleasure  the  existing  and  the 
former  situation  of  France  ;  and  these  expressions,  connected  with  the 
attendant  circumstances  of  the  case,  amount  to  something  like  a  re 
preach  to  the  Tory  ministers,  with  whom  France  had  now  to  deal,  in 
stead  of  Marlborough  and  the  Whigs. 

Again,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Harley,  the  first  minister  in  the 
Tory  administration,  by  the  shuffling,  temporizing,  and  nariww  nature 
of  his  mind,  was  totally  unfit  to  compose  the  differences  and  adjust 
the  interests  of  Europe  at  that  remarkable  crisis.  Bolingbroke 
should  have  been  the  Tory  minister,  not  Harley,  if  any  great  and  de- 

*  Horatio  Lord  Walpole,  brother  to  Sir  Robert.     Sec  Memoirs,  by  Coxe.  —  N. 


AJNNE.  409 

cisive  alteration  was  to  be  made  in  the  policy  and  measures  of  the 
country,  and  if  a  peace  was  to  be  attempted.  England  would  not 
then  have  been  disgraced  by  some  of  the  wretched  and  even  dis- 
honorable measures  that  were  resorted  to.  Bohngbroke,  in  his  very 
curious  close  of  his  eighth  letter,  seems  often  to  defend  more  than  he 
can  approve,  —  to  defend  measures  of  which  certainly  he  would  not 
have  been  the  author,  and  to  some  of  which,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  if 
prime  minister,  he  would  not  have  submitted. 

To  the  general  train  and  object  of  Bolingbroke's  very  able  and 
spirited  reasonings,  the  Memoirs  of  De  Torcy  seem  to  me,  though 
little  intended  for  any  such  purpose,  to  be  a  very  adequate  reply. 
The  question  is  not,  whether  the  Whigs  made  a  proper  use  of  their 
success  in  war,  when  they  came  to  negotiations  for  a  peace,  but,  when 
that  question  has  been  decided,  as  I  think  it  must  be,  against  the 
Whigs,  the  question  is,  whether,  next,  the  Tory  ministers  made  fair 
use  of  that  success,  and  whether  tJiey  conducted  themselves  in  a 
spirit  of  good  faith  with  their  allies,  or  proper  sympathy  with  the 
l^reat  interests  of  their  country.  This  second  question  must,  I  think, 
be  determined  against  them,  —  decidedly,  and  even  with  indignation. 

Since  I  wrote  the  lecture  which  I  have  now  delivered,  the  work 
of  Mr.  Coxe  has  appeared,  his  Memoirs  of  the  Kings  of  Spain  of  the 
House  of  Bourbon.  Every  subject  that  I  have  now  alluded  to  is 
here  treated  very  fully,  and  I  must  refer  to  it.  I  have  not  found 
•any  occasion  to  alter  what  I  had  written.  I  do  not  admire  the  Tory 
ministry  any  more  than  Mr.  Coxe  ;  but  whether  the  Whigs,  from  the 
first,  were  sufficiently  moderate  and  disposed  to  peace,  is  another 
question.  Mr.  Coxe's  work  is  in  many  places  entertaining,  and  is, 
on  the  whole,  a  valuable  accession  to  our  historical  information ;  but, 
in  the  present  state  of  the  world  and  of  literature,  I  suspect  that 
much  of  the  work  will  be  passed  over  with  a  shght  perusal  by  the 
general  reader. 


LECTUEE    XXIV 


ANNE. 


The  reign -of  Anne  is  distinguished,  even  in  the  annals  of  England, 
for  the  violence  of  its  pohtics.  Party  violence  has  been  not  uncom- 
monly a  topic  of  censure  and  lamentation  with  good  men,  and  their 
accusations  and  reproaches  have  been  urged  often  with  sincerity  and 
Bometimes  with  reason ;  but  care  must  be  taken  on  these  occasions, 
62  n 


410  LECTURE  XXIV. 

both  by  those  who  are  disposed  to  make  these  indiscriminate  indict- 
ments, and  those  who  are  disposed  to  listen  to  them.  It  is  in  itself 
rather  a  suspicious  circumstance,  when  men  who  are  at  all  conversant 
with  the  business  of  the  world  are  found  expressing  themselves  very 
strongly  or  very  often  against  the  violence  of  parties  or  the  fury  of 
factions.  In  a  mixed  and  free  government,  there  will  naturally  arise, 
as  I  must  for  ever  repeat,  two  great  and  leading  divisions,  —  those 
who  lean  to  the  side  of  authority,  and  those  who  lean  to  the  side  of . 
privilege.  Questions  unlike  in  name  and  form  will  often  involve  the 
same  general  principles,  and  men  are  not,  therefore,  always  as  incon- 
sistent as  they  seem.  Trains  of  measures  will  often  emanate  from 
one  point,  and  proceed  in  the  most  strictly  logical  succession,  and 
must  therefore  be  supported  and  resisted  always  by  the  same  men. 
It  is,  therefore,  not  possible  that  those  who  are  really  independent 
and  sincere  should  not  often,  in  free  legislative  assemblies,  vote  in  sets 
and  parties,  and  it  is  equally  impossible  that  they  should  not  become 
inflamed  by  sympathy  and  collision.  Read  the  works  of  Soame  Jenyns, 
and  of  Locke.  Would  not  both  of  these  men,  for  instance,  while  they* 
retained  their  integrity,  have  been  seen  always  on  the  opposite  sides 
of  any  question  that  could  affect  the  constitution  and  government  of 
a  free  country  ? 

The  real  and  proper  topic  for  lamentation  and  reproach  is  not,  ex- 
actly, that  men  are  often  violent  and  systematic  in  their  opposition 
to  each  other,  but  that  they  do  not  adopt  their  principles  with  suffi- 
cient care,  and  then  follow  them  up  with  sincerity  and  honor.  Mod- 
erate men,  as  they  call  themselves,  and  men  of  no  party,  as  they  pro- 
fess themselves  to  be,  will  generally  be  found  to  be  men  who  take 
little  concern  or  are  but  ill  informed  on  political  subjects  ;  and  if  they 
are  members  of  the  legislature,  they  are  pretty  uniformly  observed, 
as  they  are  of  no  party,  forsooth,  to  take  care  to  be  of  that  party 
which  is  the  strongest,  —  to  be  of  the  minister's  party,  be  he  who  he 
may,  and  to  benefit  by  their  neutrality.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  for 
men  to  be  of  no  party,  and  to  assume  the  high  station  of  real  patriots ; 
and  even  when  they  are  of  a  party,  to  remain  patriots,  by  refusing 
to  sanction  those  measures  of  the  party  which  they  disapprove.  This 
is,  perhaps,  the  highest  possible  ambition  of  an  intelligent  and  virtu- 
ous man ;  but  such  an  eminence  can  be  attained  only  on  one  hard 
condition,  that  of  never  receiving  a  favor  from  those  in  power. 

I  may  recur  to  this  subject  on  some  occasion  hereafter ;  for  the 
present,  however,  I  conclude  by  observing,  that  the  causes  of  politi- 
cal animosity  were,  in  these  times,  very  peculiarly  weighty  and  ani- 
mating. The  questions  that  often  lay  between  the  parties  were,  in 
reality,  what  family  was  to  possess  the  throne ;  whether  the  title  of 
the  crown  was  to  be  founded  on  divine  and  hereditary  right,  or  on 
the  principles  of  an  original  contract,  that  is,  whether  on  arbitrary  or 
free  principles ;  whether  the  religion  established  in  the  country  was 


ANNE.  411 

fco  be  certainly  Protestant,  or  probably  Roman  Catholic  ;  in  a  word, 
whetlier  principles  decidedly  favorable,  or  principles  clearly  hostile, 
to  the  civil  and  rehgious  liberties  of  the  country  were  to  be  maintain- 
ed and  estabhshed. 

But  in  a  sort  of  connection  with  this  subject,  I  may  mention,  that,  in 
a  mixed  government  like  this,  the  attention  of  those  who  wish  well  to 
the  popular  part  of  it  has  been  always  very  naturally  directed  to  the 
influence  which  the  executive  power  can  directly  exercise  on  the  legis- 
lative bodies,  by  means  of  posts,  places,  and  pensions,  given  to  their 
members.  Place  bills  have,  therefore,  at  different  times  been  attempt- 
ed ;  and  efforts  of  this  kind  were  also  made  in  the  reign  which  we  are 
now  considering,  and  with  some  success.  It  is  to  be  observed,  how- 
ever, that  it  sefems  not  now  to  have  been  any  longer  proposed,  that 
every  man  should  necessarily  be  shut  out  of  Parliament  by  holding  an 
official  situation.  The  bills  were  for  limiting  the  number  of  such  mem- 
bers, not  excluding  them  altogether.  The  number,  for  instance,  was 
to  have  been  fifty ;  and  to  limit  the  number  is  a  measure  of  a  very 
different  complexion  from  a  general  bill  of  exclusion.  You  will  see 
speeches  in  favor  of  and  against  the  measure  in  the  debates.  Bills 
were  brought  into  the  Commons,  and  rejected  by  the  Lords,  one  in 
1712,  only  by  a  majority  of  five. 

But  instead  of  following  the  fortunes  of  these  bills  through  the 
Houses,  I  shall  prefer  calling  your  attention  to  some  observations  on 
the  general  subject,  which  may  be  found  drawn  up  by  Paley  in  his 
chapter  on  the  British  Constitution.  Nothing  can  drop  from  the  pen 
of  such  a  writer,  so  remarkable  for  his  clearness  and  excellent  sense, 
that  can  be  without  its  importance,  particularly  where  the  subject  has 
any  immediate  connection  with  the  business  of  human  life.  This  emi- 
nent reasoner,  however,  feels  it  necessary  to  protest  against  any  in- 
fluence but  that  "  which  results  from  the  acceptance  or  expectation 
of  public  preferments,"  —  nay  more,  against  any  influence  which  re- 
quires "  any  sacrifice  of  personal  probity."  This  last  seems  a  large 
concession,  —  a  concession  which  might,  at  first  sight,  be  thought  to 
leave  no  further  difference  of  opinion  possible.  What  could  the 
most  ardent  patriot  wish  for,  but  that  the  House  should  be  so  consti- 
tuted, that  no  sacrifice  of  personal  probity  should  be  required  ? 

Dr.  Paley  must,  however,  be  again  heard.  He  contends,  that "  in 
political,  above  all  other  subjects,  the  arguments,  or  rather  the  con- 
jectures, on  each  side  of  a  question,  are  often  so  equally  poised,  that 
the  wisest  judgments  may  be  held  in  suspense."  These  he  calls 
"  subjects  of  indifference."  And  again,  "  When  the  subject  is  not 
indifferent  in  itself,  it  will  appear  such  to  a  great  part  of  those  to 
whom  it  is  proposed,  for  want  of  information,  or  reflection,  or  experi- 
ence, or  capacity  to  collect  and  weigh  the  reasons "  on  each  side. 
"  These  cases,"  he  says,  and  not  unreasonably,  "  compose  the  prov- 
ince of  influence."     But  then  he  adds,  that  "  whoever  reviews  the 


412  LECTURE  XXIV. 

operations  of  government  in  this  country  since  the  Revolution  will 
find  few,  even  of  the  most  questionable  measures  of  administration, 
about  which  the  best  instructed  judgment  might  not  have  doubted 
at  the  time,  but  of  which  he  may  affirm  with  certainty,  that  they 
were  indifferent  to  the  greatest  part  of  those  who  concurred  in 
them." 

The  whole  doctrine  of  indifference  is  evidently  very  suspicious, 
and,  if  carried  into  practice,  would,  I  fear,  be  found  but  too  soothing 
and  convenient  to  that  numerous  description  of  men  who  are  neither 
very  virtuous  nor  the  contrary,  and  who,  though  they  may  be  induced 
to  act  ill,  must  first  practise  upon  themselves  some  arts  of  apology 
and  self-delusion.  Such  doctrine  of  indifference  would  surely  be  de- 
structive of  all  that  plain,  straight-forward,  simple,  and  intelligible  in- 
tegrity'which  should  never  be  parted  with,  —  which  is  the  best  orna- 
ment of  the  character  of  every  man,  in  public  as  in  private  life,  — 
the  best  security  for  his  virtue,  and  even  for  his  wisdom. 

But  further :  were  in  reality  the  political  questions  since  the  Revo- 
lution, in  general,  such  as  Dr.  Paley  supposes,  —  such,  that  influence 
might  fairly  decide  them  ?  and  may^  therefore,  the  same  be  concluded 
of  almost  all  political  questions  ?  for  that  is  the  inference  intended,  or 
is  at  least  the  practical  inference.  Wliat  are  the  facts  ?  What  says 
the  history  ?  I  would  recommend  this  subject  to  your  attention,  as  I 
would  recommend  it  when  you  arrive  at  similar  reasonings  urged  by 
Dr.  Somerville.  Bear  it  in  mind,  while  you  read  the  annals  of  this 
country,  from  the  Revolution  to  the  present  moment. 

Not  to  decide  at  present  on  reigns  which  we  have  not  yet  consid- 
ered, can  it  be  true  of  the  reigns  before  us,  —  the  reigns  of  WilUam 
and  of  Anne  ?  Take,  for  instance,  the  latter.  Could  not  men  form  an 
opinion,  and  were  they  not  bound  to  vote  according  to  that  opinion, 
on  the  Occasional  Conformity  Bill,  and  on  the  Schism  Bill,  —  that 
is,  on  all  questions  where  the  toleration  of  religion  was  concerned  ? 
Again,  could  they  not  form  an  opinion  on  the  question  of  peace  and 
war,  at  the  opening  of  the  reign  ?  Again,  whether  the  ends  of  the 
war  had  not  been  sufficiently  attained,  about  the  middle  of  the  reign? 
Again,  at  the  close  of  the  reign,  whether  the  negotiations  wliieh  led 
to  the  peace  of  Utrecht  had  been  properly  conducted  ?  —  whether 
the  peace  was  well  made  ?  —  whether  it  should  then  have  been  made 
at  all  ?  —  whether  the  Hanover  family  should  have  been  called  to  the 
throne  ?  —  whether  the  Protestant  succession  was  in  danger  ?  — 
whether  the  union  with  Scotland  should  have  been  attempted  ?  — 
whether,  when  once  effected,  it  should  afterwards  be  broken  ?  Are 
these,  and  could  they  ever  have  been,  questions  of  indifference  ? 
What  are  the  questions,  agitated  in  the  Parliaments  of  Anne,  which 
were  not  connected  with  the  great  leading  questions  of  the  balance 
of  power  in  Europe,  and  the  success  of  the  principles  of  the  Revolu* 
tion  ?     How  were  men  of  independence  and  reflection  to  avoid  form- 


ANNE.  413 

ing  some  opinicn,  to  avoid  feeling  some  strong  sentiment,  on  the  one 
side  or  the  other  ? 

The  truth  is,  that  questions  where  suspense  of  judgment  is  allow- 
able, questions  of  indifference,  such  as  Dr.  Paley,  inaccumtely,  as  I 
suspect,  dangerously,  as  I  am  sure,  represents  the  greatest  part  of 
political  questions  to  be,  excite,  when  they  occur,  no  sensation,  — 
none  in  the  public,  none  in  the  House ;  are  the  mere  ordinary  and 
commonplace  business  of  the  kingdom  ;  what  any  minister  may,  and 
what  every  minister  does,  carry  on,  and  what  no  minister  finds  it 
necessary  to  carry  on  by  the  exertion  of  influence.  It  is  not  by 
votes  on  cases  hke  these  that  a  minister  is  obliged  by  any  member, 
and  is  expected,  consequently,  to  oblige  that  member  in  his  turn ;  it 
is  on  questions  where  the  great  system  of  his  administration  at  home 
or  abroad  is  concerned,  —  where  the  conduct  of  those  he  has  intrust- 
ed, his  officers,  civil  or  military,  is  to  be  censured  or  approved,  — 
where  public  offenders  are  to  be  screened,  —  or  where  even  his  own 
wisdom  or  integrity  is  to  be  questioned :  it  is  on  occasions  like  these 
that  influence  is  wanted  and  is  exerted ;  these  are  the  cases  that,  far 
more  than  the  cases  of  indifference,  compose  the  real  province  of  in- 
fluence. It  is  impossible*  to  say,  that  men  shall  either  decide,  or 
avoid  deciding,  on  occasions  like  these,  without  implicating  in  their 
vote,  or  in  their  absence  from  the  House,  the  character  of  their  per- 
sonal probity. 

The  more  natural  view  of  this  subject  seems  to  be,  that,  in  a  mixed 
and  free  government  like  our  own,  all  questions  that  either  occupy  or 
deserve  to  occupy  attention  have  a  reference  either  to  the  prerogar 
tive  of  the  crown  or  privileges  of  the  people,  to  religious  toleration, 
to  mild  or  harsh  government,  to  peace  and  war,  or,  finally,  to  some 
of  the  more  important  subjects  of  political  economy ;  that  suspense  in 
all  these  cases  is  impossible ;  that  honest  men,  therefore,  vote  with 
those  who  best  promote  such  systems  and  principles  as  they  approve  ; 
that  in  this  manner  are  disposed  of,  and  ranged  on  differxnt  sides, 
the  men  of  political  integrity;  and  that  the  remainder  are  those  who 
are  in  the  habit  of  thinking  all  questions  matters  of  indifference,  and 
of  joining  the  men  or  the  ministers  who  are  most  likely  to  furnish 
their  relations  or  themselves  with  emoluments  and  offices ;  but  that 
such  men  are,  and  always  have  been,  the  proper  objects  of  the  suspi- 
cion and  contempt,  not  only  of  the  public,  but  of  the  very  House  it- 
self, and  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  they  can  be  necessary  to  the 
stability  of  any  good  government,  —  certainly  not  in  any  greater 
number  than  the  infirmity  of  human  nature  will  always  produce  them, 
after  every  possible  political  expedient  and  contrivance  has  been  re- 
sorted to,  for  the  purpose  of  diminishing  their  number  and  weakening 
their  efficiency. 

I  have  now  another  topic  to  propose  in  like  manner  to  your  reflec- 
tions.    The  reign  of  Anne  is  remarkable  as  exhibiting  in  a  very 

II* 


414  LECTURE  XXIV. 

strong  point  of  view  one  of  those  peculiarities  in  the  constitution  of  a 
government  which  can  occur  only  in  a  free  and  mixed  form,  like  oui 
own.  I  allude  to  the  manner  in  which  the  executive  power  can  be 
restrained^  and  even  controlled,  by  machinery  not  avowedly  provided 
by  the  constitution  for  the  purpose,  and  yet  acting  with  far  more  cer- 
tainty and  success  than  any  that  could  be  devised  by  the  most  skilful 
contriver  of  political  systems. 

For  instance,  Queen  Anne  carried  on  the  war  against  France  when 
neither  her  wishes  nor  her  opinions  were  favorable  to  its  continuance. 
The  Whig  administration  remained  in  power  long  after  they  had  be- 
come disagreeable  to  her ;  and  Marlborough  was  her  general,  and 
even  the  arbiter  of  her  councils  at  the  conferences  for  peace,  when 
neither  he  nor  his  duchess  any  longer  possessed  her  favor.  Louis  the 
Fourteenth,  in  the  mean  time,  had  always  understood  that  it  was  the 
acknowledged  prerogative  of  the  crown  in  this  country  to  determine 
the  questions  of  peace  and  war ;  that  it  was  equally  so  to  choose  its 
own  ministers  ;  and  though  he  must  have  known  that  these  preroga- 
tives, however  acknowledged  by  the  constitution,  were,  after  all,  not 
exercised  in  the  manner  they  were  done  by  himself,  still  he  had 
learned  that  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough -oras  supplanted,  that  Har- 
ley  and  Mrs.  Masl^am  were  the  real  favorites,  —  that  the  Whigs  were 
on  the  decline,  and  the  Tories  preparing  for  their  political  triumph ; 
and  what  difficulties,  he  must  have  thought,  were  left,  and  what  was 
he  now  to  fear? 

All  this  is  made  very  apparent  by  a  few  pages  in  the  Duchess  of 
Marlborough's  Apology,  describing  the  situation  of  things  so  early  as 
in  the  winter  of  1706  and  spring  of  1707,  about  a  year  after  the  bat- 
tle of  Ramillies,  the  great  battle  which  seemed  to  decide  the  fortunes 
of  the  war.  Yet  all  through  the  year  of  1708,  the  war,  and  the  great 
supporters  of  it,  the  Whigs,  were  still  highly  popular.  At  the  end  of 
this  year,  1708,  November  25th,  a  new  Parliament  met,  in  which  the 
Whigs  had,  as  before,  a  decided  ascendency,  and  they  were  pos- 
sessed of  a  power  that  was  still  firm,  and  as  yet  not  to  be  shaken. 
The  nation  and  the  houses  of  Parliament  were  still  in  their  favor ;  and 
though  the  queen  longed  for  their  dismissal  almost  as  impatiently  a3 
did  her  secret  counsellors  and  the  rival  party  of  the  Tories,  it  re- 
quired a  certain  lapse  of  time,  and  a  continuance  of  mistake  and  in- 
fatuation on  the  part  of  the  Whigs,  to  produce  the  great  poHtical 
events  which  Louis  perhaps  expected  to  take  place  long  before,  with- 
out difficulty  or  delay.  When  the  Whig  administration  was  at  last 
fairly  swept  away,  the  queen  was  felicitated  on  her  success,  and  even 
in  express  words  congratulated  as  being  again  a  queen- 
Instances  of  this  sort  of  control  over  the  wishes  of  the  sovereign 
sometimes  occur  in  our  history,  since  the  restoration  of  Charles  the 
Second,  and  they  deserve  attention.  While  the  government  remains 
mixed  and  free,  they  will  never  cease  at  particular  periods  to  occur. 


ANNE.  415 

AlS  on  these  occasions  it  is  always  said  that  the  sovereign  had  as- 
suredly a  right  to  appoint  his  own  ministers,  and  as  this  observation 
is  generally  considered  as  decisive,  a  few  remarks  may  not  be  entire- 
ly without  their  use  to  those  who  would  study  these,  the  most  critical 
portions  of  our  annals,  and  certainly  by  far  the  most  important  peculi- 
arities of  our  constitution. 

To  consider  them  a  little.  The  great  problem  of  government  is,  to 
make  the  executive  power  sufficiently  strong  to  preserve  the  peace 
and  order  of  society,  and  yet  not  leave  it  sufficiently  strong  to  disre- 
gard the  wishes  and  happiness  of  the  community.  When  this  point 
is  attained,  every  thing  is  attained  that  the  nature  of  human  society  ad- 
mits of.  But,  referring  to  our  own  history,  we  may  say  that  this  was 
not  done  in  our  own  country  before  or  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
nor  yet  during  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First.  A  crisis  of  the  most 
melancholy  nature  ensued.  From  this  time,  however,  what  had  al- 
ways been  more  or  less  the  doctrine  became  at  last  the  practice  of 
the  English  constitution,  and  while  the  executive  power  was,  in  the 
person  of  the  king,  considered  as  incapable  of  doing  any  wrong,  the 
ministers  of  that  executive  power  were  considered  as  its  advisers,  and 
therefore  very  capable  of  doing  wrong,  and  as  the  proper  and  only 
subjects  of  national  censure  or  punishment. 

It  is  not  easy  to  discover  a  more  happy  expedient  than  this  for 
solving  the  great  political  problem  which  I  have  just  mentioned  ;  cer- 
tainly no  better  has  ever  appeared  in  any  government  that  has  hither- 
to existed  among  mankind.  The  regular  growth  and  final  maturity 
of  this  expedient,  if  I  may  so  speak,  among  all  the  changes  and 
chances  of  the  events  of  our  history,  may  assuredly  be  esteemed  one 
of  the  greatest  blessings  by  which  this  country  is  distinguished  ;  but 
the  original  difficulty  is  so  very  great,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  for 
human  beings  entirely  to  escape  it ;  and  it  is  not  escaped,  but  much 
the  contrary,  if  it  be  once  considered  as  a  political  maxim,  that  the 
sovereign  can  appoint  his  own  ministers,  and  that  no  further  debate 
is  necessary. 

I  will  now  put  two  cases :  one,  to  show,  in  the  first  place,  the  im- 
propriety of  this  political  maxim,  that  the  king  can  appoint,  and  that 
nothing  more  is  to  be  said ;  and  another,  in  the  second  place,  to  show 
the  impropriety  of  any  maxim  directly  the  contrary,  —  that  the  sov- 
ereign, for  instance,  should  always  be  controlled  in  this  point.  Last- 
ly, I  will  propose  a  conclusion  from  the  whole. 

And  first,  to  show  the  impropriety  of  the  maxim,  that  the  sovereign 
can  choose  his  own  ministers,  and  that  no  further  debate  is  possible. 
Suppose,  for  instance,  that  Queen  Anne,  during  the  administration 
of  the  Whigs,  had  satisfied  herself  that  the  war  ought  to  be  termi- 
nated, and  yet  found  her  ministers  of  a  different  opinion ;  suppose, 
in  this  case,  she  had  dismissed  them,  and  appointed  others ;  suppose 
that  the  houses  of  Parliament  were  unfavorable,  agreeing  with  her 


416  LECTURE  XXIV. 

old  ministers,  and  refusing  lier  new  ministers  tlieir  support,  —  that 
she  therefore  dissolved  the  Parliament,  and  appealed  to  the  people. 
Now,  if  on  this  occasion  her  people  had  returned  her  such  representa- 
tives as  were  favorable  to  the  new  ministers,  merely  because  the 
queen  was  vested  by  the  constitution  with  the  prerogative  of  making 
peace  and  of  choosing  her  own  ministers,  what  difference  would  there 
in  fact  have  been  between  her  and  Louis  the  Fourteenth  ?  Nc^no 
but  this,  —  that  the  sovereign  in  this  country  had  to  go  through  the 
ceremony  of  dissolving  an  existing  Parliament  and  calling  a  new  one, 
and  that  Louis  could  follow  his  own  opinion  without  any  such  delay. 
Or  to  put  a  still  stronger  case  to  the  same  purpose :  suppose  Queen 
Anne  had  resolved,  if  possible,  to  restore  her  brother  and  her  family 
to  the  throne ;  she  had  found,  wq^  will  imagine,  her  Whig  ministers 
impracticable  on  this  occasion ;  she  had  perceived  that  Bolingbroke 
and  others,  on  the  contrary,  would  try  the  experiment,  if  sure  of  her 
support ;  Bolingbroke,  therefore,  is  made  minister ;  her  intentions, 
and  those  of  her  new  adviser,  become  manifest ;  the  houses  of  ParHa- 
ment,  as  before,  thwart  her  measures,  and  the  votes  necessary  for  her 
purpose  cannot  be  carried ;  she  therefore  dissolves  the  Parliament, 
and  appeals  to  the  people.  Now,  if  in  this  case  also  the  electors  re- 
turn a  House  of  Commons  friendly  to  the  new  ministers,  merely  be- 
cause those  new  ministers  are  the  objects  of  the  queen's  choice,  and 
because  the  constitution  has  given  her  the  power  of  choice,  —  if  such 
had  been  the  reasoning  considered  as  final  on  the  occasion,  what 
would  have  been  the  result  ?  That  the  Protestant  succession  would 
not  have  taken  place  ;  that  the  Stuarts  would  have  been  recalled  ;  the 
Revolution  failed  ;  and  more  than  this,  all  these  events  would  have 
happened  contrary  to  the  real  opinion  and  wishes  of  the  community. 
That  is,  in  other  words,  this  single  maxim,  if  it  should  really  ob- 
tain and  be  acted  upon,  would  at  once  make  the  sovereign  arbitrary, 
whenever  any  personal  pique  with  his  ministers,  any  particular  views 
of  his  own  in  politics,  or  any  great  projects  with  respect  to  the  de- 
scent of  his  crown,  or  to  the  constitution  of  the  country,  inspired 
him  with  a  wish  to  become  arbitrary,  —  that  is,  to  do  what  he  thought 
best. 

We  will  now  change  entirely  the  aspect  of  the  reasoning,  to  show, 
in  the  second  place,  the  impropriety  of  any  maxim  exactly  the  con- 
trary to  that  we  have  noticed.  We  will  suppose  that  an  appeal,  on 
some  account  or  other,  had,  as  before,  been  made  by  the  sovereign 
from  the  Parliament  to  the  people,  and  that  the  maxim  in  the  mind 
of  the  electors  had  no  longer  been  such  as  we  have  hitherto  supposed, 
but  that  the  reasoning  had  been  of  a  nature  totally  diiferent :  for  in- 
stance, that  the  legislative  bodies,  more  particularly  the  House  of 
Commons,  were  the  natural  protectors  of  the  community ;  that  the 
sovereign  in  a  free  government  was  not  to  do  whatever  he  thought 
good ;  that  the  liberties  of  the  country  had  always  owed  their  exist- 


\NNE.  •     417 

ence  to  tlie  control  which  the  Houses  had  exercised  upon  the  execu- 
tive po^^er ;  that  a  free  constitution  in  reahty  meant  this,  and  meant 
little  else ;  and  that,  therefore,  the  people  should  always  support  their 
Parliaments,  who  could  not  be  expected  to  bear  up  against  the  execu- 
tive power  without  the  most  ready  sympathy  and  protection,  without 
the  most  implicit  confidence  on  the  part  of  their  constituents.  Now 
it  is  evident,  that,  if  reasonings  like  these  were  supposed  to  be  always 
decisive^  and  to  preclude,  as  in  the  first  cases,  all  further  discussion^ 
then  the  executive  power  would  be  a  mere  cipher,  would  be  always 
at  the  mercy  of  those  who,  by  whatever  means,  had  possessed  them- 
selves of  the  confidence  of  the  Houses.  I  do  not  say  that  even  this 
would  be  a  bad  species  of  government,  or,  at  least,  that  it  would  not 
be  the  best  alternative  of  the  two ;  but  I  may  safely  say  that  it  is  not 
properly  the  constitution  of  England,  and  that  therefore,  as  before, 
this  must  not  be  the  maxim,  —  namely,  that  the  Houses,  or  perhaps, 
as  the  case  may  more  probably  be,  that  the  House  of  Commons,  is  at 
all  events  to  be  supported. 

Taking,  therefore,  the  difficulties  on  each  side  of  the  question  into 
account,  I  now  proceed,  in  the  third  place,  to  propose  a  conclusion 
drawn  from  the  whole,  and  it  is  this :  that,  whenever  an  appeal  is 
made  by  the  executive  power  from  the  House  of  Commons  to  the  na- 
tion by  a  dissolution,  the  veil  of  the  constitution  is  for  a  time  drawn 
aside ;  the  personal  conduct,  the  political  wisdom,  not  only  of  each 
rej)resentative  of  the  public,  but  even  of  the  high  and  supreme  magis- 
trate of  the  realm  himself,  is  for  one  short  interval  brought  before  the 
consideration  of  the  public,  and  is  even  subjected  to  their  decision. 
The  most  important  question  that  can  possibly  be  proposed  is  then, 
in  fact,  proposed  to  every  individual  of  intelligence  or  influence  ;  for 
it  is  this  :  to  which  of  the  two  parties  (however  elevated,  in  the  view 
of  reason  and  the  constitution,  one  of  these  high  parties  may  be), — 
to  which  of  the  two  parties  he  is  to  give  his  support.  And  the  re- 
sult of  the  whole  is  this :  that  this  support  is  to  be  given,  not  in  com- 
pliance with  any  preestablished  maxims  either  of  a  monarchical  or 
democratical  nature,  but  after  the  most  careful  deliberation  on  the 
merits  of  the  precise  case  before  him ;  for  it  is  by  these  merits  he  is 
to  be  decided,  and  not  by  any  sweeping  general  preconceptions  on 
the  one  side  or  the  other,  such  as  preclude  at  once  all  further  discus- 
sion ;  he  is  to  be  determined,  on  the  contrary,  by  a  deliberation  care- 
ful, honest,  and  independent,  —  a  deliberation  which  is  the  very  vir- 
tue and  the  very  office  that  on  this  occasion  are  required  from  him ; 
he  is  to  deliberate  as  having  now  become  for  a  season  the  guardian 
and  the  arbiter  of  the  British  constitution,  of  the  happiness  of  his 
country,  of  the  rights  and  welfare  of  the  existing  generation  and  pos- 
terity. According  to  th^  issue  of  his  inquiries  and  meditations,  he 
is  bound  to  return  to  ParUament  those  who  would  be  most  likely  to 
favor  those  views  of  the  case  which  he  himself  entertains ;  and  a 
53 


418       '  LECTURE  XXIV. 

greater  fault,  I  had  almost  said  a  greater  crime,  can  scarcely  be  com- 
mitted, than  for  any  man  to  suffer  himself  to  be  swayed  on  great  oc- 
casions like  these  by  any  motives  of  base«  and  detestable  self-interest, 
by  any  hopes  of  preferment  for  himself  or  his  relatives,  or  even  by 
regard  to  his  family  connections,  his  personal  friendships,  his  obliga- 
tions of  kindness,  —  or,  in  short,  by  any  motive,  even  generous  and 
virtuous,  but  the  sole  and  proper  motive  which  can  alone  in  this  par- 
ticular instance  be  generous  and  virtuous,  his  real  view,  of  the  case, 
the  calm,  plain,  honest,  unsophisticated  decision  of  his  judgment. 

If  ever  the  constitution  of  England  is  to  be  admired,  it  is  on  occar 
sions  like  these.  In  every  crisis  of  this  nature,  when  the  supreme 
executive  power  was  in  fact  to  be  criticized  and  publicly  controlled, 
at  Rome  a  'tribune  was  to  appear  on  the  part  of  the  people  with  his 
veto,  in  Aragon  a  justiza  was  to  be  a  sort  of  representative  and  guar- 
dian of  the  community.  These  are  but  very  indifferent  expedients  ; 
such  as  have  appeared  in  Grecian  or  other  republican  forms  of  gov- 
ernment are  little  better;  in  arbitrary  governments  there  are  none. 
But  in  our  own  happy  country,  civil  wars,  violence  and  bloodshed, 
those  contests  so  disgraceful  to  humanity,  so  fatal  but  too  often  to  the 
interests  of  the  people,  are  avoided ;  they  have  now  been  so  for  a 
century  and  a  half,  and  all  this  by  the  regular  and  orderly  exercise 
of  the  different  functions  that  belong  to  the  sovereign,  the  houses  of 
legislature,  and  the  people.  In  England,  if  the  great  magistrate  of 
the  realm  is  at  issue  with  other  powers  in  the  state,  the  question  is 
for  some  time  kept  in  suspense  ;  the  public  attention  is  excited,  and 
then,  before  either  of  the  parties  is  irrecoverably  committed  or  irrecon- 
cilably inflamed,  the  Parliament  is  dissolved,  a  third  party  is  called 
in,  and  that  third  party  is  the  nation  itself:  not  acting  in  any  tumul- 
tuous or  extraordinary  manner ;  not  exerting  any  physical  force ;  not 
called  upon  to  show  any  giddy  rudeness,  any  vulgar  insolence,  any 
upstart  airs  of  authority  over  their  sovereign,  to  whom  they  owe  a 
general  obhgation  of  duty  and  obedience ;  and,  on  the  contrary,  not 
called  upon  to  show  the  slightest  disrespect  or  indifference  to  the  of- 
fice of  that  part  of  the  legislature,  their  houses  of  Parliament,  to  which 
they  owe  a  general  sentiment  of  confidence  and  affection,  but  called 
upon  gravely  and  peaceably  to  furnish  a  new  representative,  a  new 
special  reporter  of  their  opinion  to  their  sovereign,  —  one  with  whom  he 
may  again  consult,  and  to  whom  again  propose  his  own  particular  views 
of  the  nature  of  his  prerogative  or  of  the  national  interest.  If  the  sov- 
ereign should  have  lent  too  wiUing  an  ear  to  counsels  unfavorable  to 
the  constitution  or  the  welfare  of  his  people,  he  may  thus  be  warned 
of  his  mistake  in  time,  by  the  opinions  of  the  representatives  which 
the  people  have  returned  to  him,  and  be  warned  in  a  manner  the 
most  respectful,  the  most  gentle,  the  most  consistent  with  the  high 
reverence  that  is  due  to  his  exalted  station  ;  and  if,  on  the  contrary, 
the  people  themselves  mistake  or  betray  their  own  interests,  and  send 


ANNE.  419 

an  improper  representative,  they  must  suffer,  and  thej  deserve  to 
suffer  (as  men  must  always  do  in  every  concern  and  situation  of  hu- 
man life),  the  natural  consequences  of  their  own  servility,  inatten 
tion,  or  ignorance. 

When  the  sovereigns  of  this  country  have  neglected  the  known 
sentiments  of  the  people,  or  have  disregarded  the  answers  that  have 
been  made  by  the  nation  through  the  medium  of  their  new  represent- 
atives, in  consequence  of  appeals  of  this  kind,  in  each  case,  deploror 
ble  have  been  to  them  the  events  that  followed.  Of  the  Stuarts, 
one  lost  his  life,  and  one  his  crown,  and  even  Charles  the  Second 
precipitated  himself  and  the  nation  to  the  very  brink  of  confusion. 
Yet  the  people  of  England  appear  to  have  been  always,  notwithstand- 
ing their  natural  attachment  to  the  House  of  Commons  and  their  con- 
cern for  their  own  liberties,  very  indulgent  critics  to  their  sovereigns. 
Even  Charles  the  Second,  the  most  worthless  of  men,  obtained  an 
answer  from  them,  on  an  appeal  of  this  kind,  at  last,  quite  favorable 
to  his  wishes. 

There  is  considerable  difficulty,  no  doubt,  on  these  occasions ;  and 
as  the  physical  strength  is  with  the  nation,  and  only  opinion  and  the 
reverence  of  authority  w^ith  the  sovereign,  the  balance  of  the  scale  is 
not  on  light  grounds  to  be  made  to  turn  against  him. 

I  will  now  propose  a  case  to  you  for  your  own  application  of  these 
general  reasonings.  I  will  take  a  particular  point  of  time  in  the 
reign  before  us.  Of  the  various  periods  in  our  history,  when  a  sort 
of  crisis  of  this  kind,  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  was  understood  to 
exist,  I  know  of  none  in  which  a  decision  would  have  been  made  with 
more  difficulty  than  during  these  very  times  which  we  are  now  con- 
sidering. I  propose  it,  therefore,  to  your  reflections,  —  the  epoch  of 
1710  ;  you  will  find  the  case  to  be  shortly  this  :  —  The  queen  had  long 
disliked  the  Whigs  and  their  administration,  but  they  were  triumphant 
in  the  houses  of  Parliament,  and  carried  on  the  business  of  the  na- 
tion with  great  ability  and  success  ;  for  the  first  time  in  the  annals  of 
the  world,  England  had  rendered  herself,  by  her  Continental  inter- 
ference, the  leading  power  in  Europe ;  the  queen  was  therefore  obliged 
to  submit ;  she  could  consult  neither  the  wishes  of  her  secret  advisers, 
Harley  and  Mrs.  Masham,  and  get  clear  of  her  ministers,  nor  her 
own  views  and  opinions,  and  get  rid  of  the  war.  The  Whigs  had, 
however,  while  they  were  vindicating  the  great  cause  of  the  nation 
at  the  trial  of  Dr.  Sacheverell,  unfortunately  for  themselves,  excited 
in  that  nation  so  violent  a  ferment,  and  discovered  to  the  queen  so 
plainly  the  secret  of  her  own  strength,  that  she  no  longer  thought  it 
necessary  to  keep  any  terms  with  them ;  she  dismissed  them  from 
their  offices ;  ordered  a  proclamation  to  be  issued  for  dissolving  the 
Parhament ;  and,  when  «the  Chancellor  Cowper  on  this  occasion  rose 
to  speak,  declared  that  she  would  admit  of  no  debate,  "  that  such 
her  pleasure."     Here,  then,  was  an  appeal  to  the  public. 


€20  LECTURE  XXIV. 

Now  the  question  is,  What  ought  to  have  been  the  answer  returned 
by  the  nation  ?  If  a  Tory  House  of  Commons  was  returned,  a  peace 
would  probably  be  the  result,  and  one  of  the  greatest  calamities  that 
can  afflict  mankind  at  an  end.  If,  on  the  contrary,  a  majority  of  the 
Whigs  was  to  be  returned,  the  war  would  be  continued  under  the 
auspices  of  the  greatest  of  commanders,  and  France  probably  reduced 
so  low  as  never  again  to  be  in  a  condition  to  disturb  the  tranquillity 
of  Europe.  In  the  one  case,  a  sanction  would  be  given  to  the  arbi- 
trary principles  that  had  been  avowed  by  Dr.  Sacheverell  and  his  ad- 
herents, and  even  the  queen  herself  would  be  encouraged  and  assisted 
to  patronize  and  establish  them  ;  her  attachment  to  her  brother,  and 
to  her  own  house  of  Stuayt,  was  well  known.  What  might  not  be  the 
consequence  ?  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  the  Whigs  were  protected, 
the  principles  of  the  Revolution  were  protected,  the  Protestant  succes- 
sion was  protected  ;  and  the  great  cause  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
that  had  been  decided,  with  a  good  fortune  so  signal  and  unexpected, 
a  few  years  before,  in  favor  of  the  nation,  would  be  rescued  from  its 
new  and  most  pressing  danger,  and  probably  placed  on  a  secure  foot- 
ing to  the  most  distant  era.  In  the  first  case,  the  .queen  was  to  be 
gratified ;  a  queen  neither  tyrannical  nor  austere  in  her  nature  ;  ex- 
emplary in  her  conduct ;  and  though  not  of  an  understanding  the 
most  commanding,  on  that  account  the  more  to  be  trusted  with  the 
enjoyment  of  a  political  triumph.  In  the  other  case,  the  Whigs 
would  be  told,  and  all  public  men  hereafter,  that  they  might  safely 
endeavour  to  promote  the  glory  and  interests  of  the  nation,  even  at  the 
risk  of  thwarting  the  wishes  of  their  sovereign  ;  that  the  public  might 
be  depended  upon  ;  that  their  favor,  if  merited,  would  be  a  support 
as  eifectual  as  that  of  the  crown ;  that  a  minister's  self-interest  and 
political  virtue  were  not  necessarily  at  variance  with  each  other. 

Such  are  some  of  the  considerations  on  which  any  lover  of  his 
country  would  have  had  to  decide  at  the  time,  and  on  which  we  may 
also  endeavour  to  decide,  now  that  all  the  means  of  forming  a  judg- 
ment are  in  our  possession.  Considering  the  uncertainty  of  events, 
the  aspect  of  things  at  that  particular  juncture,  and  the  great  stake 
at  issue  (the  success  of  the  Revolution),  I  think  the  question  ex- 
tremely difficult.  But  the  nature  of  the  queen's  character,  her  want 
of  political  courage,  her  evident  inaptitude  to  bold  and  hazardous 
counsels,  might,  perhaps,  with  those  who  also  duly  considered  the  de- 
sirableness of  a  peace,  have  turned  the  decision  in  her  favor.  The 
decision  was  so  turned ;  but  it  is  extremely  doubtful,  if  the  queen  had 
lived  (as  Bolingbroke  would  have  been  her  minister),  what  might 
have  been  at  length  the  consequences. 

These  allusions  will  give  you  some  general  notion  of  the  political 
questions  that  occurred  during  this  period  of  our  annals. 

But  among  the  different  transactions  of  a  domestic  nature  that  took 
place  in  the  reign  of  Anne,  I  would  particularly  recommend  to  your 


ANNE.  421 

study  the  proceedings  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Sacheverell.  I  recommend 
them,  not  on  account  of  any  interest  that  can  now  belong  either  to 
the  Doctor  or  his  sermon,  —  neither  of  which  is  in  itself  deserving  of 
the  slightest  regard,  —  but  on  account  of  the  lively  picture  that  is 
here  exhibited  of  the  times,  and  above  all,  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  great  Revolution  of  1688  was  explained  and  defended  by  the  first 
statesmen  of  the  country  about  twenty  years  after  the  event.  And 
it  is  in  this  spirit,  and  for  this  purpose,  that  I  would  wish  the  student 
to  read  them,  —  not  as  a  juror  who  was  to  decide  whether  the  Doctor 
was  or  was  not  guilty  of  the  charge  preferred  against  him,  but  as  an 
inquirer  into  the  history  of  our  constitution,  as  one  who  is  to  observe 
the  political  principles  exhibited  on  this  occasion  by  the  managers  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  by  Sacheverell's  defenders,  by  the  Lords, 
and  by  the  nation.  The  trial  is  ever  memorable,  because  at  this 
trial  the  Revolution  was  avowed  to  be  a  case  of  resistance,  —  resist- 
ance justified,  indeed,  by  the  necessity  of  the  case,  but  still  resist- 
ance. 

At  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  it  may  be  remembered  that  the 
houses  of  Parliament,  or  rather  the  House  of  Commons,  in  their  cele- 
brated vote,  had  rested  their  justification  on  somewhat  various,  and 
indeed  on  very  inconsistent  grounds,  —  "That  King  James,  having 
endeavoured  to  subvert  the  constitution  by  breaking  the  original  con- 
tract, having  violated  the  fundamental  laws,  and  having  withdrawn 
himself  out  of  the  kingdom,  had  abdicated  the  government,  and  that 
the  throne  was  thereby  vacant."  That  is,  in  other  words,  the  Whigs, 
for  the  sake  of  the  Tories,  stated  the  Revolution  to  be  a  case  of  abdi- 
cation^ and  for  the  sake  of  themselves,  a  breach  of  the  original  con- 
tract, that  is,  a  case  of  resistance. 

But  on  the  present  occasion  the  preamble  to  the  articles  exhibited 
against  Dr.  Sacheverell  begins  in  this  remarkable  manner :  — 
"  Whereas  his  late  Majesty,  King  Wilham  the  Third,  then  Prince 
of  Orange,  did,  with  an  armed  force,  undertake  a  glorious  enterprise 
for  delivering  this  kingdom  from  Popery  and  arbitrary  power,  and 
divers  subjects  of  this  realm,  well  affected  to  their  country,  joined 
with  and  assisted  his  late  Majesty  in  the  said  enterprise,  and  it  hav- 
ing pleased  Almighty  God  to  crown  the  same  with  success,  the  late 
happy  Revolution  did  take  effect,  and  was  established ;  and  whereas 
the  said  glorious  enterprise  is  approved  by  several  acts  of  Parliar 
ment,"  &c.,  &c.  And  the  first  article  of  the  impeachment  was,  that 
Dr.  Sacheverell  had  maintained,  that  "  to  impute  resistance  to  the 
said  Revolution  is  to  cast  black  and  odious  colors  upon  his  late  Majesty 
and  the  said  Revolution." 

Now  the  difference  in  the  tone  and  language  of  the  Whigs  forms 
the  remarkable  part  of  these  proceedings,  and  nothing  can  be  more 
curious  than  to  observe  how  the  different  parties  comported  them- 
selves,—  the  Whigs,  the  Tories,  the  Church,  and  the  queen,  —  on 

JJ 


422  LECTURE  XXIV. 

this  great  occasion,  in  the  presence  of  the  nation,  and,  in  reality,  of 
subsequent  ages. 

The  doctrines  of  resistance  are  not  doctrines  which  can  find  their 
way  into  the  courts  of  law  of  any  country,  or  be  the  language  of  the 
public  ordinances  of  any  regular  government.  These  doctrines,  there- 
fore, could  not  be  stated  by  the  Whig  managers  of  the  impeachment, 
in  the  presence  of  all  the  constituted  dignity  and  authority  of  the 
realm,  without  the  strongest  qualifications',  —  without  distinguishing 
the  case  of  the  Revolution  from  every  other  ordinary  case,  —  without 
considering  it  as  a  case  of  the  most  overpowering  necessity,  —  by 
necessity,  and  by  that  alone,  to  be  either  explained  or  justified. 

In  our  own  times,  therefore,  on  the  breaking  out  of  the  French 
Revolution,  when  Mr.  Burke  had  to  vindicate  his  own  account  of  this 
Revolution  of  1688,  his  own  "  representation  of  the  spirit  of  that 
leading  event,  and  of  the  true  nature  and  tenure  of  the  government 
formed  in  consequence  of  it,"  he  immediately  appealed  to  the  speeches 
of  the  Whig  managers  on  this  very  occasion ;  and  it  was  easy  for  him  to 
show  that  the  Revolution  was  then  justified  "  only  upon  the  necessity 
of  the  case,  as  the'  only  means  left  for  the  recovery  of  that  ancient 
constitution  formed  by  the  original  contract  of  the  British  state,  as 
well  as  for  the  future  preservation  of  the  same  government." 

Now,  though  I  think  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  peculiar 
situation  in  which  the  managers  in  Dr.  Sacheverell's  trial  stood,  and 
the  necessity  they  were  under  to  qualify  to  the  utmost  their  doctrines 
of  resistance,  still  it  is  sufiicient  for  Mr.  Burke,  that  their  doctrines, 
unless  so  qualified,  could  not  be  produced  and  defended  before  the 
lawyers  and  statesmen  of  the  country,  —  could  not  be  produced  as 
doctrines  worthy  to  be  recognized  by,  and  to  be  a  part  of,  the  consti- 
tution of  England. 

The  next  question  that  remains  is.  What  reply  was  made  to  the 
Whig  managers  by  the  defenders  of  Sacheverell  ?  How  were  the 
doctrines  of  resistance,  thus  stated  and  hmited,  received?  Were 
they  controverted  ?  Far  from  it :  when  thus  modified,  they  were  at 
once  admitted.  And  therefore,  when  thus  modified,  they  may  be 
considered  as  the  constitutional  doctrines  of  the  realm. 

But  the  interest  of  the  trial  does  not  cease  here  ;  for  Dr.  Sachev- 
erell, having  fortified  his  own  doctrines  of  passive  obedience  by  the 
authority  of  the  Church  of  England  and  the  most  able  divines  and 
prelates  from  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  a  very  large  field  of  dis- 
quisition was  opened,  and  the  question  was  very  solemnly  considered, 
whether  passive  obedience  had  or  had  not  been  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church  of  England  and  of  its  most  able  and  learned  divines. 

The  grounds  to  be  taken  by  the  reasoners  on  the  Tory  side  were 
obvious :  quotations  were  to  be  produced  from  the  proper  authorities, 
to  show  that  the  doctrines  of  passive  obedience  had  been  laid  down, 
and  without  any  exception ;  that  such  had  been  the  ordinary  practice 


AJSNE.  42S 

of  our  divines,  and  that  the  Doctor  only  followed  their  example. 
This  was  done. 

But  the  Whig  prelates  and  lawyers  contended,  that  rules  of  duty, 
like  those  of  civil  obedience,  could  be  taught  only  by  the  Scriptures 
(and  therefore  by  the  Church  and  its  divines)  in  general  terms,  — 
and  that  exceptions  in  extreme  cases,  like  those  of  the  Revolution, 
were  necessarily  implied  from  the  very  nature  and  common  reason  of 
the  case. 

And  what  was  now  the  ground  taken  by  the  Doctor's  counsel  ? 
The  lyropriety  of  this  reasoning,  and  of  this  view  of  the  case,  was  ad- 
mitted by  .the  Doctor's  counsel.  Now,  as  this  solution  of  the  difficulty, 
however  reasonable,  and  however  acted  upon  by  the  divines  of  the 
Church  of  England  themselves,  had  never  before  been  publicly 
stated  and  admitted,  as  the  proper  theory  on  the  subject,  some  ad- 
vance must  be  considered  as  having  been  made  on  this  occasion  (and 
one  favorable  to  the  general  principles  of  civil  liberty),  and  in  a 
quarter  where  of  all  others  it  is  most  desirable  to  find  it. 

There  was  another  very  important  topic  started  on  this  memorable 
occasion.  The  Doctor  was  accused  of  maintaining,  that  the  toleration 
granted  by  law  was  unreasonable,  and  its  allowance  unwarrantable. 
This  led  to  an  assertion  of  the  doctrine  of  toleration  by  the  Whig 
managers.  The  defence  of  the  Doctor's  counsel,  the  very  able  Sir 
Simon  Harcourt  and  others,  was  such  an  admission  of  the  principle 
in  theory,  and  such  a  mere  quibbling  and  special  pleading  with  respect 
to  the  point  of  fact,  that  the  general  doctrine  of  toleration  must  be 
considered  as  having  become,  on  this  occasion,  like  the  qualified  doc- 
trine of  resistance,  the  regular  and  constitutional  doctrine  of  the  land. 

I  have  mentioned  these  particulars  from  a  hope  of  inducing  my 
hearers  to  believe  that  this  trial  will  afford  them  abundant' matter  for 
amusement  and  instruction,  even  though  the  particular  question  of 
the  Doctor's  criminality  be  or  be  not  considered.  The  circumstance, 
also,  which  I  have  just  adverted  to,  of  the  reference  made  by  the 
great  political  moralist  of  our  own  times,  Mr.  Burke,  to  this  very 
trial,  in  one  of  his  celebrated  productions,  and  that  at  the  distance  of 
a  century,  may  serve,  I  think,  to  remind  you  of  the  importance  of 
history  and  of  historical  documents,  and  the  necessity  there  is  that 
those  who  would  wish  to  be  statesmen  should  in  the  first  place  be  con- 
versant with  the  occurrences  that  have  taken  place  in  our  OAvn 
country,  the  reasonings  to  which  they  have  given  rise,  the  principles 
which  they  seem  to  have  established. 

The  speeches,  as  they  are  reported  in  the  trial,  appear  probably 
in  a  much  more  concise  and  condensed  form  than  that  in  which  they 
were  delivered,  and  though  they  have  thus  gained  something  in  man- 
liness and  strength,  they  have  no  doubt  lost  much  in  eloquence  and 
grace ;  yet  they  are,  on  the  whole,  very  creditable  to  the  talents  of 
the  speakers,  particularly  the  reply  of  Sir  Joseph  Jekyll. 


424  LECTURE  XXIV. 

I  must  make  one  observation  more,  to  recommend  these  remarka- 
ble proceedings  to  your  examination.  The  great  characteristic  dis- 
tinction of  this  period  of  our  history  is  the  Revolution,  is  the  interest 
our  ancestors  took  in  it,  the  manner  in  which  it  was  understood,  the 
chances  of  its  success  or  failure.  And  the  Revolution  is  still  the 
great  characteristic  feature  of  our  constitution  and  government.  It 
must  ever  remain  so.  And  when  the  inhabitants  of  this  country  are 
indifferent  to  the  subject,  they  will  probably  soon  arrive,  at  a  state  of 
permanent  political  degradation,  —  sooner  or  later,  at  a  total  loss  of 
those  honorable  English  feelings,  that  love  of  freedom,  and  that 
jealousy  of  power,  by  which  they  were  before  so  happily  distinguished. 
But  to  conclude  the  subject.  From  this  celebrated  impeachment 
()f  Sacheverell  two  good  effects  followed :  first,  that  there  now  exists 
upon  record  a  full  assertion  of  the  great  principles  of  civil  and  rehg- 
ious  liberty,  made  in  the  presence  of  all  the  authority,  dignity,  and 
wisdom  of  the  realm,  and,  to  every  practical  purpose,  an  admission 
and  acknowledgment ;  secondly,  that,  though  the  impeachment  in  this 
important  respect  answered  the  purposes  of  the  Whigs,  as  patriots 
and  lovers  of  the  constitution  of  their  country,  and  as  far  as  posterity 
was  concerned,  it  by  no  means  answered  their  purposes  as  leaders  of 
a  party.  The  Doctor  became  the  object  of  the  most  ridiculous  idol- 
atry, and  they  themselves  and  their  pohtics  were  precipitated  to  their 
decline  and  fall.  This  impeachment,  therefore,  became  in  this 
manner  an  example,  Avhich  never  has  nor  can  be  forgotten,  to  show 
the  risk  that  is  always  run,  of  exalting  into  importance  an  author  and 
his  writings  by  public  prosecutions,  —  of  giving  fame  and  popularity 
to  the  one,  and  circulation  and  influence  to  the  other. 

Now  this  effect  thus  produced  is  a  good  effect ;  for  the  restraint 
that  ministers  and  attorney-generals  are  thus  laid  under,  on  the  mere 
point  of  prudence  Sindpolici/,  operates  most  favorably  for  the  liberty  of 
the  press.  That  liberty  would  be  soon  destroyed,  and  entirely  at  an 
end,  if  every  writing  or  pamphlet  that  must  necessarily  appear  a  libel 
in  a  court  of  law  were  to  be  instantly  seized  upon,  and  dragged  to 
judgment,  by  those  who  are  bound  from  their  office  to  defend  the 
established  order  of  the  community.  Such  men  are  always  temjjted, 
from  their  situation,  however  amiable  they  may  individually  be,  to 
urge  the  rights  and  extend  the  limits  of  authority  too  far.  It  is  very 
happy,  that,  from  the  experience  of  this  and  other  similar  prosecu- 
tions, the  wisdom  of  leaving  ipuhlicsitionSy  if  possible,  unnoticed  has  be- 
come a  sort  of  maxim  which  is  seldom  departed  from,  but  by  petulant, 
narrow-minded  men,  —  men  who  are  mere  lawyers,  and  who,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  on  such  occasions,meanwell,  for  this  is  the  only  merit  they 
«an  plead. 

But,  in  the  next  place,  the  scenes  that  ensued  during  and  after  the 
impeachment  are  mortifying,  but  instructive  lessons,  to  show  the 
nature  of  what  is  called  a  popular  qyj  ;  more  especially  when  the  in- 


.      ANNE.  425 

terests  of  religion  can  be  made  to  form  a  part  of  it.  The  great  mass 
of  the  nation,  always  right  in  their  sentiments,  but  not  so  in  their 
opinions^  —  never,  when  the  slightest  patience  or  precision  is  neces- 
sary, —  meant,  no  doubt,  when  they  were  patronizing  Dr.  Sachever- 
ell,  to  support  the  Church  and  the  monarchy,  and  so  indeed  they 
everywhere  declared,  with  the  most  persevering  vociferations ;  and 
for  this  purpose  they  made  bonfires  and  addresses,  plundered  the  res- 
idences and  pulled  down  the  meeting-houses  of  the  Dissenters :  but, 
instead  of  supporting  all  this  time  the  Church  and  the  monarchy,  it  is 
but  too  plain  that  they  were  only  endeavouring,  however  uninten- 
tionally, to  vilify  and  destroy  those  sacred  principles  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty  without  which  the  Church  would  scarcely  deserve 
the  attribute  of  Christianity,  or  the  monarchy,  of  government. 

A  few  years  afterwards.  Dr.  Fleetwood,  the  more  enlightened  and 
civilized  Sacheverell  of  the  Whigs,  published  four  sermons,  and  pre- 
fixed a  sort  of  political  dissertation.  "  I  have  never  failed,"  said  this- 
divine,  "  on  proper  occasions,  to  recommend,  urge,  and  insist  upon 
the  loving,  honoring,  and  the  reverencing  the  prince's  person,  and 
holding  it,  according  to  the  laws,  inviolable  and  sacred,  and  paying 
all  obedience  and  submission  to  the  laws,  though  never  so  hard  and  in- 
convenient to  private  people ;  yet  did  I  never  think  myself  at  liberty, 
or  authorized,  to  tell  the  people,  that  either  Christ,  St.  Peter,  or  St. 
Paul,  or  any  other  holy  writer,  had,  by  any  doctrine  delivered  by 
them,  subverted  the  laws  and  constitutions  of  the  country  in  which 
they  lived,  or  put  them  in  a  worse  condition,  with  respect  to  their  * 
civil  liberties,  than  they  would  have  been,  had  they  not  been  Chris- 
tians." 

Of  the  different  constitutional  questions  that  arose  in  this  reign,  the 
next  that  I  shall  select,  as  fit  more  particularly  to  engage  your  atten- 
tion, is  that  of  the  Protestant  succession. 

On  this  subject  of  the  Protestant  succession,  there  is  a  very  curious 
essay  in  Hume.  You  will  see  a  reference  to  and  some  account  of  it 
in  the  Note-book  on  the  table.  Somerville  has  given  a  dissertation* 
upon  it  at  the  end  of-  his  History,  which  seems  reasonable  and  satis- 
factory. His  conclusion  is  this  :  "  That  there  was  no  plan  concerted 
or  agreed  to  by  the  Tory  ministers  collectively,  in  the  last  years  of  the 
queen,  for  defeating  the  Protestant  settlement." 

It  was,  however,  most  happy  for  the  civil  and  religious  liberties 
of  England,  that  the  opinions  of  the  majority  of  the  nation  were,  on 
the  whole,  at  the  time,  sound,  and  particularly  on  the  question  of 
Protestantism.  No  Tory  minister  could,  therefore,  depend  upon  the 
popularity  of  any  measure  in  favor  of  the  Stuarts  ;  and  could  still  less 
depend  upon  the  favor  and  assistance  of  the  queen,  who,  very  fortu- 
nately, (though  she  loved  her  brother,  and  wished  the  restoration  of 
her  house,)  had  no  taste  for  political  enterprise,  and  was  most  siij- 
cerely  attached  to  the  Protestant  faith. 

54  3i* 


426  LECTURE  XXIV. 

After  all,  the  queen  died  most  opportunely.  The  cause  of  the  Rev- 
olution was  of  such  importance  to  England,  I  had  almost  said  to 
human  nature,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  survey  these  very  critical 
times  without  something  of  anxiety,  approaching  to  a  sort  of  terror ; 
certainly  not  without  being  struck  with  that  remarkable  good  fortune 
which  has  so  often  distinguished  this  country  with  respect  to  its  civil 
and  religious  liberties. 

In  appreciating  the  danger  to  which  the  Revolution  and  the  Protes- 
tant succession  were  exposed,  we  naturally  think  of  the  intrigues  of 
the  exiled  family,  and  of  the  court  of  St.  Germain.  We  turn,  there- 
fore, to  the  second  volume  of  Macpherson's  Original  Papers ;  but 
though  they  must  be  looked  at,  and  though  they  occasionally  present 
matter  of  importance,  on  the  whole  they  disappoint  expectation. 
There  is  so  much  that  appears  difficult  to  understand,  and  so  much 
that  appears  not  worth  understanding,  that  a  reader  labors  on  with 
.  renewed  disappointment  and  continued  weariness.* 

Again,  the  proceedings  that  belong  to  the  great  case  of  Ashby  and 
White  are,  I  think,  another  subject  which  may  deserve  your  obser- 
vation. They  are  very  well  worth  reading,  particularly  the  debate 
in  the  Commons :  the  case  was  very  ably  argued,  and  the  speeches 
are  well  given.  All  the  proceedings,  and,  above  all,  the  final  repre- 
sentation and  address  of  the  Lords  to  the  queen,  should  be  perused. 
The  first  question  was,  whether  Ashby  could  bring  an  action  in  the 
courts  of  law  against  the  returning  officer,  for  refusing  his  vote  at  an 
•  election ;  the  House  of  Commons  contended  that  all  such  questions 
were  cognizable  only  by  themselves  ;  —  and  the  second,  whether  the 
House  of  Commons  could  commit  to  prison,  as  they  had  done,  those 
persons  who  violated  what  they  had  themselves  declared  to  be  the 
privileges  of  their  house.  Some  of  the  first  lawyers  and  statesmen 
that  our  country  has  produced  were  actively  engaged  in  these  trans- 
actions. The  questions  were  curious  and  important,  and  the  discus- 
sions that  took  place  lead  the  thoughts  of  the  reader  through  such  a 
%  variety  of  particulars  connected  with  the  laws  and  constitution  of  our 
country,  that  I  cannot  but  recommend  them  to  your  perusal.  The 
dispute  between  the  two  Houses  grew  so  violent  and  irremediable, 
that  the  queen,  after  intimating  that  shp  agreed  (and  very  properly) 
with  the  Lords,  thought  it  best  to  prorogue,  and  soon  after  to  dis- 
solve, the  Parliament. 

Again,  the  proceedings  on  the  Bill  for  Preventing  Occasional  Con- 
formity should  be  noted.     They  are  connected  with  the  progress  of 

*  But  we  may  now  look  at  the  Life  of  James  the  Second,  lately  published ;  and  the 
Stuart  papers,  now  at  Carlton  House,  would,  no  doubt,  exliibit  sufficient  light  on  this 
subject,  if  any  more  were  necessary.  They  consist  of  an  immense  assemblage  of  letters, 
which  Sir  J.  Macpherson  and  others  are,  or  have  been,  arranging.  With  respect  to 
this  life  and  these  letters,  every  praise  is  due  to  George  the  Fourth  for  his  activity  in 
procuring  them,  and  his  disposition  to  make  them  known  to  the  public.  They  very 
amply  show  (particularly  the  letters,  as  I  understand)  the  dangers  we  escaped. 


ANNE.  427 

our  religious  liberties,  exemplifying  completely  the  different  language 
that  Avill  be  held,  the  different  reasonings  that  will  be  adopted,  by 
those  who  are  satisfied  to  leave  mankind,  as  much  as  they  possibly 
can,  at  liberty  and  at  rest,  upon  points  of  religious  difference,  and 
those  who  are  very  improperly  desirous  to  exalt  such  discussions  into 
questions  .f  paramount  importance,  —  refreshing  and  reviving  them 
on  all  occasions,  and  keeping  the  contending  sects  apart  from  each 
other,  known  by  their  proper  badges  and  colors,  and  prevented  from 
that  gradual  conciliation  and  calmness,  on  former  subjects  of  religious 
animosity,  which  it  is  the  natural  and  most  salutary  effect  of  time  and 
of  the  business  of  human  life,  amid  the  prosperity  and  improvement 
of  society,  insensibly  to  produce.  As  such,  these  proceedings,  on 
both  occasions,  (for  the  question  was  iJwice  agitated,)  are  very  in- 
structive. The  Lords,  and  Bishop  Burnet,  that  is,  the  Whigs,  take 
what  I  presume  to  call  the  part  of  toleration  and  good  sense  ;  and  the 
Commons,  and  Sir  John  Packington,  that  is,  the  Tories,  assert  the 
cause,  as  they  supposed,  of  all  true  religion  and  all  sound  poKcy. 

In  the  next  Parliament,  which  was  a  Whig  Parliament,  and  met  in 
October,  1705,  we  find,  and  cannot  bo  surprised  to  find,  a  regular 
and  solemn  debate  in  the  Lords  on  the  subject  of  the  danger  of  the 
Church.  The  debate,  and  the  proclamation  that  followed  against  the 
authors  and  spreaders  of  any  such  seditious  and  scandalous  report  as 
the  danger  of  the  Church,  are  characteristic  of  the  age,  and,  in  some 
respects,  of  human  nature  in  every  age.  There  is  nothing  so  valuable, 
and  therefore  nothing  about  which  men  can  be  so  easily  alarmed,  as 
religion.  Fear,  from  its  very  nature,  is  deaf  to  every  argument  and 
blind  to  every  fact.  There  is  no  situation,  therefore,  in  which  good 
men  so  readily  deceive  themselves,  and  designing  men  so  easily  de- 
ceive others,  as  in  any  case  of  possible  alarm  on  the  subject  of  relig- 
ion and  the  safety  of  a  religious  establishment. 

This  imperfect  description  of  the  reign  of  Anne  may  serve,  I  hope, 
to  give  you  some  general  notion  of  this  period  of  our  history,  of  the 
subjects  of  reflection  you  are  to  meet  with,  and  the  books  you  may 
consult.  The  whole  of  the  reign,  I  confess,  appears  to  me  interesting 
and  important :  interesting,  because  it  is  connected  with  our  literature 
and  our  classical  writers.  Swift,  Addison,  and  Bolingbroke ;  because 
many  questions  occurred  intimately  connected  with  our  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberties ;  because  it  is  illustrated  with  the  victories  of  Marl- 
borough; because  it  is  animated  by  the  contentions  of  two  great 
parties,  whose  principles  and  feelings  can  still  be  comprehended  by 
ourselves,  and  are,  in  many  respects,  not  at  all  different  from  our 
own.  It  is  important,  because  the  prevalency  of  France  in  the 
politics  of  Europe  was  the  question  at  issue  abroad,  and  the  success 
of  the  Revolution  the  question  in  suspense  at  home  ;  no  greater  could 
well  occur.  We  see,  unhappily,  in  our  own  times,  what  has  been  the 
result  of  the  ascendency  of  that  military  nation ;  and  if  the  queen  had 


428  LECTURE  XXIV. 

found  means  to  restore  her  family  to  the  throne,  and  If  the  Revolu- 
tion had  failed,  the  world  had  been  deprived  of  one  salutary  example, 
almost  the  only  one,  the  example  of  a  great  national  effort,  the  Revo- 
lution of  1688,  made,  and  successfully  made,  in  resistance  to  arbi- 
trary power,  in  defence  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  —  and  been  de- 
prived, too,  of  the  no  less  salutary  example  of  a  nation  happy  and 
prosperous  for  a  whole  century,  to  a  degree  beyond  all  precedent  in 
the  history  of  mankind;  and  this,  not  on  account  of- any  particular 
indulgence  of  nature  to  its  soil  or  climate,  but  chiefly  on  account  of 
the  constitution  of  its  government,  —  chiefly  because,  while  the  ex- 
ecutive power  was  sufficiently  strong,  the  people  were  not  without 
their  due  share  in  the  legislature,  and  neither  the  monarch  nor  the 
aristocracy  was  armed  with  any  powers  inconsistent  with  the  honest 
industry  and  virtuous  independence  of  the  lower  orders. 

I  must  observe,  while  I  am  concluding,  that  it  will  require  more 
than  ordinary  attention  to  understand  the  interior  politics  of  this 
reign.  The  Whig  and  Tory  parties,  though  at  a  great  distance  from 
each  other  at  their  extreme  points,  were  almost  connected  with  each 
other  by  intermediate  trimmers  and  shufflers  of  every  description. 
Men  of  very  discordant  principles  were  often  mixed  up  in  the  same 
cabinet.  The  queen  was  a  decided  Tory,  and  was  always  anxious  to 
collect,  or  retain,  as  many  Tories  around  her  as  possible.  Marl- 
borough and  Grodolphin  were  originally  Tories,  but  were  obliged 
gradually  to  depend  more  and  more  on  the  Whigs,  from  the  nature 
of  the  contest  in  which  they  were  engaged.  Harley  and  Bolingbroke 
were  at  first  the  friends  of  Marlborough,  and  employed  by  him.  On 
one  account  or  another,  it  is  impossible  for  you  to  understand  the 
reign,  unless  you,  in  the  first  place,  note  down  the  different  Tory  and 
Whig  Parliaments,  the  different  struggles  between  the  queen  and  her 
ministers,  and  compare  them  with  the  measures  of  government  at 
home,  and  the  negotiations  for  peace  and  the  military  movements 
abroad.  You  will  not  do  this  so  readily  as  you  may  suppose,  and  till 
it  is  done,  a  great  air  of  confusion  will  hang  over  the  whole  scene. 

Since  I  wrote  this  lecture,  the  Life  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough 
has  been  published  by  Mr.  Coxe,  and  what  I  have  just  recommended 
as  a  necessary  labor  of  some  toil  and  difficulty  is  become  comparatively 
easy  and  agreeable.  The  movements  of  the  Whig  leaders  are  not 
yet,  as  I  conceive,  properly  explained ;  they  will  probably  be  made 
more  intelligible  by  the  expected  History  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh  ; 
but  in  the  mean  time,  and  indeed  at  all  times,  it  will  be  impossible  to 
appreciate  the  politics  of  the  reign  of  Anne,  ^vithout  the  study  of  this 
very  welcome,  entertaining,  and  valuable  work  of  Mr.  Coxe. 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  429 


LECTURE    XXy 


ANNE.— UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND. 

The  great  domestic  event  by  which  the  reign  of  Anne  was  distin- 
guished was  the  union  of  the  two  kingdoms  of  England  and  Scotland. 
I  am  very  desirous  to  recommend  this  subject  to  your  diligence  and 
reflection.  I  will  make  a  few  observations,  and  endeavour  to  convey 
to  you  some  general  idea  of  the  interest  which  belongs  to  it. 

England  has  been  connected  with  Scotland,  with  Ireland,  with 
America.  In  each  of  these  relations  a  sort  of  termination  and  crisis 
has  at  last  taken  place.  In  Scotland  we  adopted  the  measure  of  a 
union  under  the  immediate  apprehension  of  a  rebellion ;  in  Ireland, 
after  a  rebellion  which  had  but  too  nearly  torn  the  two  countries 
asunder ;  in  America  the  rebellion  was  successful,  and  we  lost  the 
country  for  ever.  We  have  still  another  country  with  which  we  are 
connected  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe,  the  immense  continent  of 
India. 

The  political  questions  that  arise  from  the  connection  of  nations 
with  each  other  seem  to  me  among  the  greatest  that  history  or  that 
human  affairs  can  ever  present  to  you.  Such  connections  of  different 
nations  have  often  occurred,  and  will  never  cease  to  occur,  in  the  an- 
nals of  mankind.  Spain  has  been  connected  with  Portugal ;  both 
kingdoms  with  South  America ;  France  with  America  and  the  West 
Indies ;  the  house  of  Austria  with  the  Netherlands  and  Italy.  By 
proximity  of  situation,  or  by  colonization,  kingdoms  have  been,  and 
always  will  be,  vitally  dependent  on  the  conduct  of  each  other.  The 
duties  that  hence  arise  are  often  very  difficult,  the  best  systems  of 
policy  not  obvious.  Happy  would  it  have  been  and  would  it  still  be 
for  mankind,  if  something  more  of  good  sense  and  good  feeling  either 
had  been  or  could  yet  be  introduced  into  the  cabinets  of  their  rulers, 
and  into  their  own  misguided  understandings  and  selfish  minds ! 

It  is  very  true,  that,. when  philosophy  has  exhibited  all  its  reason- 
ings and  exhausted  all  its  efforts,  it  is  very  true,  that  the  most  serious 
difficulties  will  still  remain  on  subjects  like  these,  —  that  the  interests 
of  connected  nations  cannot  be  entirely  reconciled,  nor  their  separate 
wishes  be  gratified.  Nations  must  often  be  reduced  to  compound 
with  evils,  and  at  last  to  make  such  sacrifices  as  are  necessarily  ac- 
companied with  mortification  and  regret ;  but  it  is  for  pditical  wisdom 
to  encounter  and  reconcile  men  to  these  evils,  to  proclaim  aloud,  that 
on  these  occasions  nothing  has  happened  at  variance  with  the  common 
necessities  of  our  imperfect  state. 

The  misfortune  is,  that  nations  can  never  submit  to  the  circum* 


430  LECTURE  XXT. 

stances  of  their  situation  in  time,  or  with  any  grace  or  good  hunor. 
Human  life,  however,  at  every  turn,  and  in  every  stage  of  it,  is  con- 
tinually requiring  from  us  a  wisdom  of  this  melancholy  cast.  It  is 
the  great  discipline  to  which  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  the  world  has 
subjected  us,  through  all  the  successive  changes  of  our  state,  and  all 
the  affecting  relations  of  our  domestic  feelings,  from  infancy  to  the 
grave.  On  all  such  occasions,  on  the  small  scale  of  our  social  con- 
nections, and  in  what  relates  to  ourselves,  we  submit  to  necessity ; 
we  compound,  we  balance,  we  understand  what  is  our  best  wisdom, 
and  we  endeavour  to  practise  it ;  the  father  expects  not  that  his  son 
shall  for  ever  remain  dependent  on  his  kindness  and  moulded  by  his 
directions ;  men  with  their  inferiors,  neighbours  with  each  other,  act 
always  on  a  system  of  mutual  sacrifices,  reciprocal  duties,  and  inter- 
changed offices  of  sympathy  and  good-will. 

But  on  the  larger  scale  of  the  intercourse  of  nations,  particularly 
of  connected  nations,  the  same  moral  truths,  though  equally  existing, 
are  not  so  obvious,  and,  when  apparent,  not  so  impressive.  We  are, 
therefore,  fretful,  ill-humored,  outrageous ;  we  contend  against  rea- 
son, philosophy,  and  nature  itself ;  forget  the  great  rule  of  doing  to 
others  as  we  would  they  should  do  unto  us ;  and  after  wasting  our 
blood  and  treasure  to  no  purpose,  we  at  last  sit  down  faint  and  ex- 
hausted, abandon  our  vain  projects  only  because  it  is  impossible  to 
pursue  them,  and  then  leave  it  to  the  reasoners  of  a  succeeding 
age  to  show  how  egregious  has  been  our  folly,  and  how  blind  our 
fury.       .  ^ 

The  leading  principles  that  belong  to  subjects  of  this  nature  have 
been  introduced  to  the  notice  and  to  the  assent  of  the  more  intelligent 
part  of  mankind  in  two  different  modes,  —  by  experience,  and  by  the 
reasonings  of  philosophers. 

When  nations  are  connected  with  each  other,  they  can  find  causes 
of  offence  and  hostility  in  three  different  points,  —  in  their  religion, 
their  laws  and  customs,  their  trade  and  manufactures. 

Now  experience  has  tolerably  well  taught  mankind,  however  slowly, 
that,  with  respect  to  the  two  former,  toleration  is  the  best  and  only 
policy  ;  that  it  is  best  to  suffer  colonies  or  inferior  nations  to  retain 
their  own  particular  creeds  and  rites  and  ceremonies  in  religion,  and 
their  own  particular  modes  of  administering  justice  in  civil  or  crimi- 
nal matters  ;  that  improvements  may  be  proposed  to  them,  but  not 
enforced  ;  that,  till  they  can  be  properly  enUghtened,  they  must  be 
left  to  indulge  their  own  particular  notions. 

But  on  the  last  question,  of  trade  and  manufactures,  the  world  is 
indebted  entirely  to  the  labors  of  the  French  writers  on  political 
economy,  and  to  the  works  of  Hume  and  Adam  Smith.  It  is  from 
these  last  two  distinguished  masters  of  political  science,  that  this  coun- 
try, more  particularly,  has  acquired  any  enlarged  views  which  it  pos- 
sesses on  such  extensive  and  difficult  subjects ;  and  an  acquaintance 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  431 

with  their  doctrines  is  indispensably  necessary,  before  we  can  ap- 
proach any  such  questions  as  the  union  of  kingdoms  or  the  manage- 
ment of  colonies. 

To  illustrate  this  part  of  my  subject :  a  reader  of  history  will  see 
all  the  statesmen  of  Europe,  from  the  first  period  of  the  existence  of 
statesmen,  proceed  upon  the  supposition  that  nations  could  be  enriched 
only  by  what  is  called  the  balance  of  trade  ;  that  is,  if  England  has 
sent  to  Portugal  a  greater  value  of  manufactures  than  she  received  of 
wane,  that  Portugal  must  pay  the  difference  in  bullion,  and  that  this 
bullion  was  the  measure  of  the  advantage  which  England  derived 
from  this  trade.  Mr.  Hume  has  an  essay  on  the  Balance  of  Trade, 
and  another  on  the  Jealousy  of  Trade  ;  and  after  successfully  combat- 
ing the  natural  reasonings  of  mankind  on  these  subjects,  he  concludes 
thus  :  —  "I  shall,  therefore,  venture  to  acknowledge,  that,  not  only 
as  a  man,  but  as  a  British  subject,  I  pray  for  the  flourishing  commerce 
of  Germany,  Spain,  Italy,  and  even  France  itself.  I  am  at  least  cer- 
tain that  Great  Britain  and  all  those  nations  would  flourish  more,  did 
their  sovereigns  and  ministers  adopt  such  enlarged  and  benevolent 
sentiments  towards  each  other." 

Now  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  no  reasoner  would  at  this  time  of 
day  think  it  necessary  to  say  that  he  would  "  venture  to  acknowledge  " 
the  labors  of  Hume  and  Smith  have  been  so  far  successful ;  and  he 
would  not  "  venture  to  acknowledge,"  but  he  would  affirm  without 
hesitation.  It  is  now  admitted  that  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  balance 
of  trade  is  a  mistake,  and  that  nations  are  necessarily  benefited  by 
any  commercial  intercourse,  of  whatever  kind,  provided  it  is  not  arti- 
ficially produced  by  the  mere  operation  of  laws  or  any  species  of  ex- 
traneous necessity  and  force. 

We  have  now,  then,  an  adjustment  of  the  whole  of  the  case. 
What  difficulty,  it  might  be  said,  can  remain  ?  If  nations  are  to  be 
connected  together,  let  the  one  allow  to  the  other  its  own  religion,  its 
own  laws,  and  the  most  free  and  unrestrained  imports  and  exports ; 
what  cause  of  contention  can  remain  ?  Let  the  supreme  legislature 
be  the  same  ;  and  the  countries  being  thus  in  every  respect  identified, 
the  interests  of  both  will  be  entirely  served  and  secured,  and  every 
thing  that  philosophy  can  prescribe,  or  human  affairs  admit  of,  be  at 
once  accomphshed. 

But  the  conduct  and  even  the  reasonings  of  mankind  have  on  all 
such  occasions  been  widely  different,  and  the  result  has  been  at  all 
times  fatal  to  their  happiness. 

We  will  take  the  simplest  case,  that  of  a  mother  country  and  her 
colonies.  The  religion  has  been  here  generally  the  same,  and  laws 
and  customs  similar ;  in  these  points  there  was  little  room  for  mis- 
takes. But  in  questions  of  trade  and  commerce  greater  oppor- 
tunity for  errors  was  afforded,  and  the  mistakes  committed  have 
in  fact  been  very  numerous  and  important*     The  most  narrow  jeal- 


432  LECTURE  XXV. 

ousy,  the  most  bllgliting  systems  of  superintendence  and  control,  have 
been  continually  exercised ;  no  market  allowed  to  the  colonies  till  the 
supposed  interests  of  the  mother  country  were  first  secured  ;  no  manu- 
factures to  be  imported,  or  even  to  be  used,  but  those  that  came  from 
the  land  and  labor  of  the  parent-  state  ;  and  if  ill-humor  in  the  colonics 
was  the  consequence,  troops  were  to  be  sent,  and  a  policy,  ultimately 
injurious  to  both  countries,  was  to  be  supported  by  force. 

In  other  cases  that  have  occurred,  cases  of  connected  nations,  as 
the  real  difficulties  have  been  greater,  the  mistakes  have  been  still 
more  multiplied  and  fatal.  For  instance,  two  nations  may  be  com- 
pletely connected  together  by  proximity  of  situation,  and  yet  be,  by 
fortune,  placed  under  different  governments,  —  England  and  Scot- 
land, for  instance ;  each  kingdom  possessing  an  independent  sov- 
ereignty, and  therefore  each  strongly  affected  by  all  those  associa- 
tions of  national  dignity  and  ancient  renown  which  are  so  immediate- 
ly derived  from  the  noblest  and  best  feelings  of  our  nature.  This  is. 
the  most  difficult  case  of  all.  Nations  thus  situated  are  of  all  others 
the  most  unfortunately  situated,  particularly  the  inferior  nation ;  and 
what  a  reasoner  would  even  now,  at  the  present  day,  propose  would, 
in  a  case  like  this,  be  accompanied  with  the  most  intolerable  diffi 
culties,  —  difficulties  such  as  the  worst  passions  and  the  best  pas- 
sions of  our  nature  would  equally  conspire  to  render  almost  insur- 
mountable. 

In  the  first  place,  nations  so  situated  will  be  in  a  state  of  eternal 
hostility  with  each  other,  —  not  only  of  hostility,  but  of  petty  warfare  ; 
and  not  only  will  they  have  their  own  quarrels  to  adjust,  but  the  in- 
ferior state  will  attach  itself  to  some  third  state  for  the  benefit  of  its 
assistance,  and  thus  become  the  tool  of  the  one  and  the  victim  of  the 
other. 

For  evils  like  these  the  first  remedy  that  might  be  attempted 
would  be  a  federal  union ;  that  is,  each  country  to  retain  its  own 
legislature,  but  both  to  have  the  same  king  or  executive  power. 
This  sort  of  federal  union  took  place  by  the  union  of  the  two  crowns 
of  England  and  Scotland  under  our  James  the  First.  The  same 
was  in  later  years  understood  to  be  the  situation  of  England  and 
Ireland,  but  admitted  by  our  government  only  at  a  very  late  period. 

Now  this  alteration,  this  federal  union,  will  be  on  the  whole  bene- 
ficial, but  not  a  remedy.  In  the  first  place,  the  two  legislatures  may 
disagree,  and  it  will  always  be,  therefore,  the  labor  of  the  superior  or 
more  powerful  country  to  influence  by  l3ribes  the  legislature  of  the 
inferior,  to  render  all  such  disagreement  impossible  ;  and  this  will  be 
the  source  of  eternal  indignation  to  all  the  intelligent  and  independ- 
ent men  of  the  state  that  is  thus  corrupted  and  ruled.  Again,  the 
inferior  country  (meaning  by  superior  and  inferior  the  more  or  less 
powerful)  will  appear  to  itself  of  less  consequence  than  it  was  before. 
It  will  &?e  its  nobles  and  its  aristocracy  move  away  to  the  seat  of 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  433 

government,  its  rents  follow  them ;  its  agriculture  and  manufactures 
will  seem  deprived  of  their  natural  encouragement  and  protection ; 
dissatisfaction,  jealousy,  hatred,  will  be  deeply  felt ;  and  as  the  in- 
ferior country  will  always  compare  itself  with  its  more  fortunate 
neighbour,  such  unhappy  effects  can  never  cease.  In  the  mean  time 
the  superior  country  will  exercise  no  arts  of  conciliation,  and  adopt  no 
measures  of  general  policy.  It  will  draw  a  fence  around  its  own 
trade  and  manufactures ;  admit  the  inferior  state  to  no  markets,  no 
colonies,  no  sources  of  affluence,  which  are  within  its  own  influence ; 
neglect  the  laws  of  the  inferior  state,  corrupt  its  statesmen,  perhaps 
interfere  with  its  religion,  and,  in  short,  exhibit  an  abuse  of  power  in 
every  possible  mode  and  direction. 

Of  this  situation  of  things  the  natural  crisis  is  either  a  sort  of  civil 
war  and  a  total  rupture,  or  the  application  of  a  new  remedy,  the 
measure  of  an  incorporating  union.  This  last  would  have  been 
always  the  best  expedient,  but  it  would  not  have  appeared  so  to 
those  concerned.  The  superior  state  would  have  conceived  that  it 
was  thus  called  upon  to  give  away  its  affluence,  and  injure  the  sources 
of  its  own  prosperity  ;  the  inferior,  that  it  was  to  lose  its  sovereignty, 
independence,  and  dignity,  —  see  its  nobles  and  aristocracy  resort  to 
the  capital,  —  and  feel  most  of  the  evils  which  have  been  already 
mentioned,  as  inseparable  from  a  federal  union,  without  any  adequate 
return.  A  century  would  probably  elapse  before  time  had  produced 
its  happy  effects  on  both  kingdoms,  and,  depriving  the  one  of  its  inso- 
lence, and  the  other  of  its  unreasonableness,  put  each  into  possession 
of  all  the  benefits  which  nature,  from  their  different  soil  and  chmate, 
evidently  intended  for  both. 

Of  principles  like  these,  and  of  situations  like  these,  we  see  a  full 
exemphfication,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  in  the  relative  history 
of  Scotland  and  England.  Nothing  can  be  more  afflicting  than  the 
evils  of  the  first  situation,  that  of  entire  independence  of  each  other. 
Tyranny,  injustice,  lawless  ambition  in  the  superior  state,  as  in  the 
instance  of  our  Edward  the  First,  on  a  large  scale ;  on  a  smaller, 
devastations,  cruelties,  unceasing  alarm,  malignity,  and  revenge,  as 
in  the  instances  of  the  border  laws  and  the  border  wars.  Nothing 
can  be  more  dreadful  than  both  these  consequences,  particularly  the 
latter,  the  border  wars.  Never,  sure,  was  the  art  by  which  poetry  is 
distinguished,  the  art  of  withdrawing  the  repulsive  and  presenting  the 
attractive  parts  of  a  picture,  displayed  in  a  manner  so  striking  as  in 
reconciling  to  our  imagination,  as  the  great  minstrel  of  the  North 
has  done,  the  marauders  and  moss-troopers,  the  inroads  and  outrages 
of  these  unhappy  times.  ^ 

These  evils  of  eternal  warfare  and  ferocious  depredation  could  not 

but  be  deplored,  even  by  our  fierce  ancestors,  at  the  time ;  and 

through  the  whole  history  of  England  and  Scotland  there  seems  to 

have  beer,  a  series  of  negotiations,  with  an  intent,  if  possible,  to  ter- 

55  .  KK 


434  LECTURE  XXV. 

minate  such  calamities  by  a  union  of  the  two  crowns.  The  marriage 
of  the  two  royal  families  was  frequently  proposed  ;  sometimes  the 
union  of  the  two  kingdoms.  But,  after  all,  the  union  of  the  crowns 
took  place  not  till  the  reign  of  our  James  the  First,  a  late  period ; 
and  the  union  of  the  kingdoms  not  till  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  It 
was  then  accomplished  only  by  force  and  fraud ;  so  incurable  are  the 
bad  passions,  so  impracticable  are  sometimes  the  good  passions,  of  our 
nature  ;  so  perverse  are  the  selfish  interests  and  temporary  reasonings 
of  mankind. 

Having  proposed  these  general  principles  to  your  consideration,  I 
must  now  endeavour  to  draw  your  attention  to  the  more  particular 
circumstances  that  attended  the  Union. 

There  was  a  book  published  by  De  Foe  ;  it  has  been  lately  repub- 
lished, and  a  life  of  the  author  prefixed.  The  name  of  De  Foe  is 
already  familiar  and  even  dear  to  us,  though  not  on  account  of  his 
book  on  the  Union,  but  of  a  work  that  to  the  writer  himself  might, 
perhaps,  have  appeared  at  the  time  of  far  less  splendor  and  impor- 
tance, the  romance  of  Robinson  Crusoe.  We  turn,  therefore,  in  the 
first  place,  to  the  Life  of  De  Foe,  prefixed  to  his  work,  with  no  little 
impatience  and  curiosity ;  not,  indeed,  thinking  of  the  Union  so  much 
as  of  our  early  acquaintances,  the  shipwrecked  mariner  and  his  man 
Friday.  But  we  must  be  content  to  hear  of  the  politics  and  pamphlets 
in  which  De  Foe  was  engaged,  and  to  learn  nothing  of  what  is  far  more 
interesting  to  us,  nothing  of  the  original  materials  and  composition  of 
that  attractive  production  which  has  given  to  its  author  immortality, 
and  to  the  hours  of  our  childhood  those  sensations  of  eager  interest 
and  innocent  delight  which  may  even  now  be  remembered  with  envy 
and  regret.  In  the  book  of  De  Foe,  the  life  given  of  him  should, 
however,  be  read  ;  and  there  is  a  preface,  which  should  also  be  looked 
over.  There  is  a  general  history,  too,  of  the  unions  that  were  at  dif- 
ferent times  attempted  prior  to  the  reign  of  Anne ;  and  this  part  of 
the  work  is  very  illustrative  of  the  remarks  that  have  been  made. 

The  point  more  particularly  to  be  adverted  to  is  the  union  that  was 
attempted,  in  1604,  by  our  James  the  First ;  a  monarch  whom,  it 
must  be  confessed,  we  are  not  much  in  the  habit  of  respecting,  but 
who,  on  this  occasion,  almost  realized  his  own  amusing  pretensions, 
und  displayed  a  decisive  superiority  over  his  Parliament  and  his 
people  in  the  mysteries  of  his  state-craft,  as  he  called  it,  or  in  a 
knowledge  of  their  best  political  interests  and  ultimate  happiness. 

But  this  part  of  the  subject  (and  for  the  general  purposes  of  in- 
struction it  is  an  important  one)  is  executed  in  far  the  most  complete 
manner  by  Mr.  Bruce,  who,  when  the  question  of  a  union  with 
Ireland  came  under  the  consideration  of  his  Majesty's  ministers,  was 
employed  by  the  late  Duke  of  Portland  to  make  a  report  on  the 
union  of  England  and  Scotland.  In  this  work,  which  is  worth  read- 
ing, there  is  not  only  a  review  of  the  leading  facts  in  the  histories  of 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  435 

to  two  €ountries  whicli  led  to  the  union  of  the  two  crowns,  but  a  re- 
view of  the  union  that  was  really  proposed  by  James  the  First,  with 
the  reasonings  in  England  and  Scotland  on  the  subject,  and  the  causes 
of  the  failure  of  the  measure.  We  have  a  speech  of  the  great  Bacon 
on  the  subject,  and  another  by  James,  which  are  in  the  second 
volume,  —  the  volume  containing  those  documents  on  which  the  first 
is  founded. 

I  must  also  refer  you  back  to  the  debates  which  are  given  in  the 
first  volume  of  Cobbett.  You  have  here  not  only  Bacon's  speech, 
but  an  account  of  the  objections  insisted  upon  by  some  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Commons ;  and  there  are  here  given  three  speeches  by 
the  king,  —  one  to  introduce  the  union,  another  to  hasten  it,  a  third 
to  explain  the  former,  —  all  of  which  are  perfectly  worth  reading, 
and  will  appear  (to  those  who  make  due  allowances)  highly  credit- 
able, not  only  to  the  disposition  of  the  king,  but  to  his  powers  of 
mind.  The  speeches  alluded  to,  particularly  Lord  Bacon's,  are  de- 
serving of  attention,  not  only  on  account  of  their  subject,  but  as 
illustrative  of  the  state  of  the  human  mind  and  of  the  reasonings  of 
the  orators  and  statesmen  of  this  period, — their  distinctness,  gravity, 
and  classical  learning,  — •  their  heavy  manner,  strange  and  pedantic 
perplexities,  and  weighty  matter. 

But  the  nations  concerned  in  these  discussions  were  at  a  wide  dis 
tance;  the  English,  more  particularly,  were  jealous,  illiberal,  and 
unreasonable,  and  it  is  to  them,  rather  than  to  the  Scotch,  that  the 
failure  of  the  project  is  to  be  imputed. 

Cromwell  and  his  officers,  more  accustomed  to  dispose  of  difficulties, 
soon  despatched  the  business  of  a  union  by  a  few  words  in  an  ordi- 
nance, giving  thirty  members  to  Scotland,  as  its  part  of  the  general 
representation,  enacting  a  free  intercourse  of  goods,  and  abolishing 
all  vassalage  and  superiorities.  This  ordinance,  short  and  expeditious 
as  it  may  be,  is  very  creditable  to  its  authors,  for  the  important  points 
are  seized  upon,  and  the  last  regulation  respecting  vassalage  and  su- 
periorities might  have  been  copied  with  great  advantage  in  the  time  of 
Anne,  while,  on  the  contrary,  these  national  evils  were  confirmed. 

But  this  sort  of  union  of  the  two  kingdoms  was,  of  course,  dissolved 
when  the  dynasty  of  Cromwell  was  swept  away.  A  very  laudable 
attempt  was  made  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second,  but  the  circum- 
stances of  the  times  were  very  unfavorable,  and  neither  the  English 
were  sufficiently  disposed  to  share  their  trade,  nor  the  Scots  to  obht- 
erate  a  part  of  their  Parliament.  The  measure  was  repeatedly  rec- 
ommended to  the  Houses  by  Charles,  and  commissioners  were 
appointed,  conferences  held,  proposals  interchanged  and  discussed, 
but  nothing  effectual  could  be  accomplished. 

William  was  well  disposed,  both  from  the  elevation  of  his  temperar 
ment  and  the  sagacity  of  his  understanding,  to  make  every  effort  to 
heal  the  divisions  and  consolidate  the  strength  of  the  island.     De  Foe 


436  LECTURE  XXV. 

relates,  that  his  Majesty  told  him,  "  he  had  done  all  he  could  in  that 
affair,  but  that  he  did  not  see  a  temper  in  either  nation  that  looked 
like  if;  and  then  added,  after  some  discourse,  "that  it  might  be 
done,  but  not  yet." 

William  was  continually  engrossed  by  the  political  situation  of 
Europe,  which  required  his  time  and  presence,  not  only  in  the 
cabinet,  but  the  field ;  and  when  any  abatement  is  to  be  made  from 
the  character  of  this  illustrious  prince,  it  is  in  the  government  of 
Scotland  that  the  exceptionable  part  of  his  conduct  is  to  be  found. 
WilHam  was  guilty,  on  some  account  or  other,  of  the  common  fault  of 
those  who  have  to  manage  a  connected  country,  —  the  fault  of  con- 
fiding in  statesmen  who  know,  as  it  is  thought,  the  nature  of  the 
country,  and  how  to  transact  its  business,  but  who  know  not  a  far 
more  important  mystery,  —  the  art  and  the  value  of  mild  government. 
WilUam  himself  was,  unfortunately,  too  much  occupied  to  teach  it  to 
them,  or  rather  to  find  ministers  of  another  school.  The  result  was, 
that  the  differences  between  the  two  countries,  under  his  reign,  were 
rather  increased  than  diminished. 

There  is  a  chapter  in  De  Foe  descriptive  of  the  state  of  public  af- 
fairs in  both  kingdoms,  and  explanatory  of  the  circumstances  that  at 
length  made  a  union  not  only  desirable,  but  necessary ;  it  is  not  long, 
and  should  be  read.  In  Mr.  Bruce's  work  there  is  an  account  of 
the  revival  of  the  plan  of  union  during  the  reign  of  William,  and 
again  in  the  first  years  of  Anne,  with  the  events  and  circumstances 
that  prevented  its  adoption  for  some  time  ;  this  part  of  the  work  is 
very  deserving  of  attention.  But  neither  of  these  works  will  give 
the  reader  a  sufficient  idea  of  the  crisis  that  had  at  length  taken 
place.  This  crisis  had  been  occasioned  partly  by  harsh,  bad  govern- 
ment on  the  part  of  England,  and  partly  by  the  difficulties  and  evils 
which  were  inseparable  from  the  very  situation  of  the  two  countries. 
As  this  is  one  of  the  most  instructive  parts  of  the  whole  subject,  1 
must  call  your  attention  to  it  very  particularly. 

A  good  general  idea  may  be  formed  of  this  crisis  from  the  History 
of  Belsham,  but  Laing  must  also  be  looked  at,  so  also  must  the  ap- 
pendix to  Cobbett's  Debates ;  for  Fletcher  of  Saltoun  is  a  most  im- 
portant character  at  this  particular  period,  and  his  speeches  and 
motions  in  the  Scotch  Parliament  may  be  seen  in  this  appendix  to 
Cobbett  more  readily  than  in  his  works,  or  in  the  authorities  from 
which  the  appendix  is  taken,  books  that  may  not  always  be  met  with. 

I  have  hitherto  forborne  to  mention  the  History  of  Somerville  only 
that  I  might  at  last  mention  it  as  a  regular  and  full  statement  of  the 
whole  subject,  which  must  be  read,  and  that  more  than  once,  as  quite 
necessary  to  the  full  comprehension  of  it. 

The  books  I  have  mentioned,  De  Foe,  Bruce,  Belsham,  Laing,  the 
appendix  to  Cobbett,  and  Somerville,  will  be  sufficient,  taken  to- 
gether, but  none  of  them  singly ;   each  writer,  as  is  often  the  case- 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  437 

doing  more  justice  to  some  parts  of  the  subject  than  is  done  by  his 
fellow-laborers,  and  no  part  of  the  subject  being  without  its  curiosity 
and  instruction. 

The  crisis  I  have  just  alluded  to  wa^  this ;  you  must  observe  it :  — 
The  crown  of  England,  on  the  demise  of  Anne,  was  to  be  transferred 
from  the  Stuart  to  the  Protestant  line  ;  but  as  Scotland  was  not  ex- 
actly obliged  to  adopt  the  views  of  England,  and  was  competent  to 
dispose  of  her  own  crown  in  whatever  manner  she  thought  best,  the 
present  was  the  moment,  in  the  apprehensions  of  Fletcher  and  the 
Scotch  patriots,  for  some  decisive  effort  to  be  made  in  favor  of  their 
country,  —  the  moment  when  an  opportunity  was  offered  to  assert 
their  rights,  and  either  to  be  independent,  and  have  a  king  of  their 
own,  or  to  make  such  provisions  for  its  commercial  interests,  and  such 
alterations  in  its  constitution,  that,  even  if  the  king  were  the  same, 
its  counsels  should  no  longer  be  guided  by  the  English  ministry,  and 
Scotland  be  no  longer  neglected,  as  they  thought,  insulted,  and  sac- 
rificed on  every  occasion  to  her  more  powerful  neighbour. 

It  is  the  struggles  of  men  acting  with  views  like  these,  and  in  times 
like  these,  that  form  the  most  interesting  and  instructive  portion  of 
this  subject  of  the  Union.  "  These,  however,  are  not  to  be  found  in 
De  Foe,  nor  in  the  work  of  Mr.  Bruce,  nor  sufficiently  in  Belsham, 
nor  even  in  Laing ;  but  they  may  be  seen  in  the  appendix  to  Cobbett's 
Debates,  where  the  speeches  and  motions  of  Fletcher  of  Saltoun 
may  be  easily  found. 

It  is  quite  necessary  that  you  should  form  some  notion  of  Fletcher 
of  Saltoun,  the  complexion  of  his  mind,  the  nature  of  his  views,  the 
description  of  his  eloquence.  Men  like  Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  the  same 
in  kind,  though  different  in  degree,  are  always  existing  in  society ; 
they  are  always  to  be  found  armed  with  more  or  less  ability  and  in- 
fluence in  every  inferior  country ;  criticizing  the  conduct  of  the 
superior  country  ;  explaining,  discussing,  and  aggravating  its  op- 
pressions ;  brooding  over  the  wrongs  and  insults  of  their  native  land, 
and  warmed  and  exasperated  to  madness  by  a  comparison  of  the  ad- 
vantages and  disadvantages  of  the  two  kingdoms,  —  the  wretchedness 
and  poverty  of  the  country  they  love,  and  the  affluence  and  happiness 
of  the  country  they  hate  ;  ready,  therefore,  to  propose  or  adopt  any 
system  of  policy  or  line  of  conduct,  if  it  seem,  however  slightly,  to  re- 
move from  their  eyes  that  odious  dependency  which  they  consider  as 
the  obvious  cause  of  all  the  evils  they  deplore.  Men  of  this  character 
should  be  studied  by  statesmen ;  but  statesmen  and  men  in  authority 
are  very  apt  entirely  to  neglect  and  even  despise  them  ind  their 
efforts,  and  very  often  to  confound  them  with  others,  darmg  and  bad 
men,  who  have  all  their  faults,  but  who  have  not  their  virtues,  — 
others  with  whom  they  are  frequently  associated,  and  into  whose 
company  and  even  friendship  they  are  but  too  easily  hurried  by  their 
awn  enthusiasm,  and  still  more  often  driven  by  the  violent  measures 

KK* 


438  LECTURE   XXV 

and  insulting  menaces  of  the  rulers  of  the  superior  country.  Tlie 
nature  of  every  thing  human  is  so  mixed  and  blended,  the  good  with 
the  evU,  that  we  are  not  to  be  surprised,  if  we  should  find,  that  it  is 
to  men  of  this  description,  to  men  of  these  ardent  and  irregular  minds, 
that  society  has  been  indebted,  imperfect  as  are  their  characters, 
and  doubtful  and  dangerous  and  calamitous  as  are  very  often  their 
projects,  for  many  of  its  favorable  changes.  There  is  a  certain  im- 
practicableness  in  their  temperaments,  and  superficial  dogmatism  in 
their  understandings,  with  a  certain  fearlessness  as  well  as  generosity 
in  their  dispositions,  by  which  they  may  be  known ;  but,  with  all  their 
faults,  they  would  not  be,  perhaps,  ill  described  by  the  expressions  of 
the  poet,  while  giving,  not  only  a  character,  but,  as  he  conceived,  a 
most  honorable  character,  of  the  English  nation :  — 

"  Stem  o'er  each  bosom  Reason  holds  her  state, 
With  daring  aims  iiTegularly  great ; 
Pride  in  their  port,  defiance  in  their  eye,  , 

I  see  the  lords  of  human  kind  pass  by, 
Intent  on  high  designs,  a  thoughtful  band, 
By  forms  unfashioned,  fresh  from  Nature's  hand, 
Fierce  in  their  native  hardiness  of  soul, 
True  to  imagined  right,  above  control." 

Such  was  the  celebrated  Fletcher  of  Saltoun.  And  as  his  country 
was  the  inferior  country,  as  England  had  conducted  herself  with  the 
usual  harshness,  ignorance,  and  ilUberality  of  the  superior  country, 
and  as  the  times  in  which  he  lived  happened  to  be  of  a  critical  nature, 
his  powers  were  called  forth,  his  heart  was  animated,  and  his  genius 
was  kindled.  He  became  the  hope,  the  pride,  and  the  director  of  a 
small,  but  popular  party  ;  and  regarding  neither  England  nor  France, 
nor  the  Protestant  succession  nor  the  succession  of  the  house  of 
Stuart,  but  in  relation  to  the  interests  of  Scotland,  it  was  to  that  Scot- 
land, his  poor,  oppressed,  unfortunate  native  country  to  its  prosperity, 
happiness,  and  glory,  that  he  dedicated  every  passion  of  his  soul  and 
every  faculty  of  his  being. 

Among  the  patriots  must  be  mentioned  Lord  Belhaven,  whose 
speeches  contain  much  more  of  what  is  properly  denominated  elo- 
quence than  those  of  Fletcher,  and  who  would,  in  the  eyes  of  pos- 
terity, have  eclipsed  even  Fletcher  himself,  if  his  patriotism  had  been 
as  pure  and  unsuspected.  This  was,  however,  not  the  case.  He 
was  understood  at  the  time  to  have  been  piqued  by  the  court  of  Eng- 
land, and  was  believed  to  have  held  correspondence  with  the  exiled 
family  of  the  Stuarts. 

Fletcher  and  the  patriots  had  no  sooner  perceived  that  the  court 
of  England  had  an  object  which  must  at  all  events  be  accomplished, 
—  the  proper  adjustment  of  the  succession  to  the  crown,  that  the 
king  of  the  two  countries  might  be  the  same,  —  than  they  instantly 
set  about  forming  provisions  for  the  interests  of  Scotland,  and  they 
proposed  what  they  called  an  Act  of  Security.     From  the  clauses, 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  439 

Nos.  •!,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9,  12,  (I  will  read  them  immediately,)  which 
you  will  find  in  Cobbett's  appendix,  vol.  vi.,  it  will  be  readily  seen 
that  this  intended  act  was  of  no  ordinary  nature.  It  is  sufficiently 
descriptive  of  the  crisis  I  have  spoken  of.  It  was  meant,  and 
it  was,  indeed,  avowed  by  Fletcher  in  his  speeches  to  be  meant,  to 
effect  the  following  consequences  (see  col.  xxviii..  Appendix  to 
Cobbett)  :  — "  They  are  not  limitations,"  said  Fletcher,  "  upon  any 
prince  who  shall  only  be  king  of  Scotland,  nor  do  any  way  tend  to 
separate  us  from  England ;  but  calculated  merely  to  this  end,  that,  so 
•long  as  we  continue  to  be  under  the  same  prince  with  our  neighbour 
nation,  we  may  be  free  from  the  influence  of  EngUsh  Councils  and 
ministers  ;  that  the  nation  may  not  be  impoverished  by  an  expensive 
attendance  at  court;  and  that  the  force  and  exercise  of  our  govern- 
ment maybe,  as  far  as  is  possible,  within  ourselves  *  by  which  means, 
trade,  manufactures,  and  husbandry  will  flourish,  and  the  affairs  of  the 
nation  be  no  longer  neglected,  as  they  have  been  hitherto.  These  are 
the  ends  to  which  all  the  limitations  are  directed,  that  EngUsh  Councils 
may  not  hinder  the  acts  of  our  Parliaments  from  receiving  the  royal 
assent ;  that  we  may  not  be  engaged  without  our  consent  in  the 
quarrels  they  may  have  with  other  nations ;  that  they  may  not  ob- 
struct the  meeting  of  our  Parliaments,  nor  interrupt  their  sitting ;  that 
we  may  not  stand  in  need  of  posting  to  London  for  places  and  pen- 
sions, by  which,  whatever  particular  men  may  get,  the  nation  must 
always  be  a  loser,  nor  apply  for  the  remedies  of  our  grievances  to  a 
court  where,  for  the  most  part,  none  are  to  be  had.  On  the  contrary, 
if  these  conditions  of  government  be  enacted,  our  constitution  will  be 
amended,  and  our  grievances  be  easily  redressed  by  a  due  execution 
of  our  own  laws,  which  to  this  day  we  have  never  been  able  to 
obtain." 

The  clauses  that  I  have  mentioned,  Nos.  1,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9,  12,  ran 
thus,  after  a  prefatory  enactment  with  respect  to  the  Parliament,  a 
convention  of  estates  for  the  purpose 'of  securing  the  execution  of  the 
clauses. 

The  first  was  this  :  —  "1.  That  elections  shall  be  made  at  every 
Michaelmas  head  court  for  a  new  Parliament  every  year  ;  to  sit  the 
first  of  November  next  following,  and  adjourn  themselves  from  time 
to  time,  till  next  Michaelmas  ;  that  they  choose  their  own  president ; 
and  that  every  thing  shall  be  determined  by  balloting,  in  place  of 
voting." 

The  fifth  was,  —  "  5.  That  a  committee  of  one-and-thirty  mem- 
bers, of  which  nine  to  be  a  quorum,  chosen  out  of  their  own  number 
by  every  Parliament,  shall,  during  the  intervals  of  Parliament,  under 
the  king,  have  the  administration  of  the  government,  be  his  Council, 
and  accountable  to  the  next  Parliament ;  with  power,  in  extraordinary- 
occasions,  to  call  the  Parliament  together ;  and  that  in  the  said  Council 
all  things  be  determined  by  balloting,  in  place  of  voting." 


440  LECTURE  XXV. 

"  6.  That  the  king,  without  consent  of  Parliament,  shall  not  have 
the  power  of  making  peace  and  war,  or  that  of  concluding  anj  treaty 
with  any  other  state  or  potentate." 

^'  7.  That  all  places  and  offices,  both  civil  and  military,  and  al) 
pensions  formerly  conferred  by  our  kings,  shall  ever  after  be  given 
by  Parhament." 

"8.  That  no  regiment  or  company  of  horse,  foot,  or  dragoons  be 
kept  on  foot  in  peace  or  war,  but  by  consent  of  Parliament." 

"  9.  That  all  the  fencible  men  of  the  nation,  betwixt  sixty  and  six- 
teen, be,  with  all  diligence  possible,  armed  with  bayonets,  and  fire- 
locks all  of  a  calibre,  and  continue  always  provided  in  such  arms, 
with  ammunition  suitable." 

"  12.  That,  if  any  king  break  in  upon  any  of  these  conditions  of 
government,  he  shall,  by  the  estates,  be  declared  to  have  forfeited  the 
crown." 

It  is  true  that  the  act  thus  proposed  by  Fletcher  never  passed  the 
Scotch  Parliament  exactly  in  these  terms.  But  it  is,  notwithstand- 
ing, a  very  sufficient  exemplification  of  the  species  of  reasoning  that 
was  then  prevalent,  and  of  the  temper  of  the  times.  The  same  may 
be  said  of  different  limitations  proposed  by  the  same  patriot,  which 
were  overruled  by  only  eleven  voices. 

But  it  is  now  necessary  for  me  to  add,  that  an  Act  of  Security  was 
really  carried  by  Fletcher  and  the  patriots,  in  the  more  important 
particulars  not  different ;  it  was  carried  by  the  assistance  of  the 
Jacobites  and  other  opponents  to  government.  This  act,  though 
short,  has  with  great  stupidity  been  omitted  by  De  Foe,  because, 
says  he,  it  may  be  found  in  the  Scotch  statute-book ;  nor  is  it,  as  it 
ought  to  be,  in  Cobbett's  appendix,  —  at  least,  not  given  in  its  ex- 
press words,  and  as  it  was  left  at  last  to  stand.  The  substance  of 
it  is  given  by  Laing.  The  act  itself  may  be  found  in  one  of  the  pam- 
phlets of  the.  day,  entitled  ''An  Account  of  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Parliament  of  Scotland,"  in  the  Trinity  Library.  The  clauses  were 
debated,  each  as  if  it  had  been  a  separate  act,  and  some  of  them  may 
be  seen  in  this  detached  state  in  Cobbett.  Indeed,  the  greatest  part 
of  the  book  I  have  just  mentioned,  in  the  Trinity  Library,  is  copied 
out  into  the  appendix  of  Cobbett ;  and  though  the  Act  of  Security, 
which  was  at  last  voted  by  fifty-nine  voices,  is  not  there  given  in  ex- 
press words,  as  it  should  have  been,  still  the  student  may  see  in 
Cobbett  the  clauses  that  were  proposed  and  debated,  one  by  one,  and 
will  be  tolerably  well  apprised  (though  not  so  readily  or  easily  as  he 
might  have  been)  of  the  particular  provisions  and  meaning  of  the  act. 

You  will  easily  see  that  it  is  such  an  act  as  could  not  be  agreeable 
to  the  government  or  people  of  England ;  such  an  act  as  made  the 
connection  between  the  two  countries  frail  and  slight ;  such  an  act  as 
tended  to  rob  the  superior  country  of  most  of  the  advantages  that 
were  supposed  to  result  from  the  connection  between  them. 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  441 

After  first  mentioning,  that,  on  the  death  of  the  sovereign,  the 
sitting  Parliament,  or  the  last  Parliament,  were  to  assemble  and  offer 
the  crown  on  the  conditions  of  the  Claim  of  Right,  a  claim  analogous 
to  our  Bill  of  Rights,  the  act  goes  on  to  say,  that  the  monarch  is  not 
to  be  the  "  successor  to  the  crown  of  England,  unless  that  in  this 
present  session  of  Parliament,  and  any  other  session  of  this  or  any 
ensuing  Parliament  during  her  .Majesty's  reign,  there  be  such  con- 
ditions of  government  settled  and  enacted  as  may  secure  the  honor 
and  sovereignty  of  this  crown  and  kingdom,  the  freedom,  frequency, 
and  power  of  Parhaments,  the  religion,  liberty,  and  trade  of  the 
nation,  from  Erighsh  or  any  foreign  influence,  with  power  to  the  said 
meeting  of  estates  to  add  such  further  conditions  of  government  as 
they  shall  think  necessary,  the  same  being  consistent  with  and  no 
ways  derogatory  from  those  which  shall  be  enacted  in  this  and  any 
other  sessioA  of  Parliament  during  her  Majesty's  reign ;  *  and  further, 
but  prejudice  of  the .  generality  foresaid,  it  is  hereby  specially 
statute,  enacted,  and  declared,  that  it  shall  not  be  in  the  power  of 
the  said  meeting  of-  estates  to  name  the  successor  of  the  crown  of 
England  to  be  successor  to  the  imperial  crown  of  this  realm,  nor  shall 
the  same  person  be  capable,  in  any  event,  to  be  king  or  queen  of  both 
realms,"  — that  is,  Scotland  was  to  have  a  new  king,  not  the  EngUsh 
king,  —  "  unless  a  free  communication  of  trade,  the  freedom  of  navi- 
gation, and  the  liberty  of  the  plantations  be  fully  agreed  to  and  es- 
tablished, by  the  Parliament  and  kingdom  of  England,  to  the  kingdom 
and  subjects  of  Scotland,"  &c. 

And  again,  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  all  English  influence 
during  the  interregnum,  it  was  ordained  that  all  commissions 
granted  to  the  officers  of  state,  lords  of  treasury,  &c.,  should,  by 
the  decease  of  the  king  or  queen  reigning,  become  null  and  void.  It 
was  enacted  also,  "  that  the  whole  Protestant  heritors,  and  all  the 
burghs,  shall  forthwith  provide  themselves  with  firearms  for  all  the 
fencible  men,"  &c. ;  "  and  the  said  heritors  and  burghs  are  hereby 
empowered  and  ordained  to  discipline  and  exercise  their  said  fencible 
men,"  &c.,  &c. 

After  this  formidable  act,  another  was  passed  to  declare  that  the 
prerogative  of  declaring  war  and  peace  should  be  exerted  by  the 
sovereign  with  the  consent  of  the  estates.  This  was  for  the  purpose 
of  leaving  Scotland  at  liberty  to  engage,  or  not,  as  she  thought  best, 
in  the  Continental  wars  of  England. 

*The  clause  which  follows  is  wanting  in  the  act  as  finally  approved  by  the  queen; 
yet  the  Parliamentary  journals  shoAV  that  it  Avas  regularly  incorporated  into  the  original 
bill,  and  they  afford  no  evidence  of  its  having  been  subsequently  reconsidered  and  struck 
out  by  the  legislature.  See  Acts  of  the  Parliaments  of  Scotland  (printed  by  command  of 
George  IV.,  1824),  Vol.  xi.  op.  137,  70,  and  App.  24.  — Laing,  on  the  authority  of  Sir  J. 
Clerk  (Memoirs  and  Histoy  of  the  Union,  MS.),  states  that  it  "was  read  and  voted, 
but  by  some  artifice  omitted  in  the  act."  History  of  "Scotland,  by  Malcolm  Laing^ 
Esq.,  (London,  1800,)  Vol.  ii.  p.  283, note.—  N. 

56 


442  LECTURE  XXV. 

The  English  ministry  had,  therefore,  now  to  determine  whether 
thej  should  advise  the  queen  to  assent  to  this  act,  and  make  it  law, 
or  refuse  her  assent,  risk  a  total  breach  with  the  Parhament  of  Scot- 
land, receive  no  more  supplies,  and  have  the  act  returned  upon  her 
in  diiferent  shapes,  if  the  Parhament  was  sitting,  —  perhaps  have  the 
country  in  a  state  of  rebellion  on  the  very  first  opportunity,  if  the 
Parliament  was  dissolved.  Such  was  the  crisis  I  have  been  speak- 
ing of. 

We  here  see,  distinctly  shown,  what  is  sometimes  the  effect  and 
what  is  always  the  tendency  of  harsh  government,  cooperating  with 
the  real  difficulties  which  the  case  of  connected  countries  necessarily 
involves. 

Now  the  next  question  I  would  ask  is  this,  —  whether  any  pro- 
vision short  of  those  in  the  act  that  passed,  or  even  short  of  the 
limitations  first  proposed  by  Fletcher,  and  which  I  first  read,  would 
be  sufficient  properly  to  secure  the  ends  proposed.  It  is  very  true 
that  these  limitations  first  proposed  would  have  gone  nigh  to  convert 
the  monarchy  of  Scotland  into  a  sort  of  republic.with  a  stadtholder  or 
president  at  its  head ;  at  all  events,  they  would  have  formed  a  sort  of 
experiment,  to  show  with  how  little  power  in  the  monarch  a  mixed 
government  might  be  carried  on. 

But  what  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  ?  Surely  this,  —  the  care, 
circumspection,  and  kindness  with  which  the  ministry  of  a  superior 
nation  should  carry  on  the  government  of  any  inferior  and  connected 
nation.  We  may  here  see  plainly  what  men  of  intelligence  and 
strong  feelings  are  constantly  thinking,  while  a  cabinet  is  despising 
their  country,  its  interests  and  its  opinions.  The  truth,  and  the 
whole  truth,  is  here  fully  displayed. 

One  word  more  in  the  way  of  narrative,  and  for  the  same  purpose 
of  attracting  your  notice  to  the  whole.  The  English  minister,  Godol- 
phin,  in  the  absence,  as  he  thought,  of  every  other  alternative,  at  last 
advised  the  queen  to  give  the  royal  assent  to  this  Act  of  Security, 
and  it  was  accordingly  passed.  Wharton,  his  political  opponent,  now 
triumphed ;  ''  I  have  now,  then,''  said  he,  to  quote  his  own  expression, 
*'  I  have  now  the  treasurer's  head  in  a  bag."  Godolphin  was  prob- 
ably much  of  the  same  opinion ;  and  even  the  English  nation  —  un- 
feeling as  they  had  been  to  the  interests  and  happiness  of  Scotland, 
and  selfish  and  stupid  as  they  were,  and  always  will  be,  to  the  claims 
and  merits  of  every  other  nation,  when  their  own  trade  to  their  colo- 
nies, and  their  own  manufactures,  are  concerned  —  could  at  length, 
and  for  once,  in  this  critical  emergence,  perceive  that  sacrifices  must 
be  made,  and,  at  all  events,  that  such  questions  as  had  lately  been  agi- 
tated in  Scotland,  nearly  amounting  to  a  revolution  and  a  civil  war, 
must  be  avoided.  There  seemed  no  other  way  of  attempting  to  avoid 
them  but  by  a  union  of  the  two  kingdoms,  complete  and  entire  ;  and 
in  this  manner  the  English  nation,  as  well  as  the  English  ministry, 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  443 

were  at  last  rendered  no  longer  the  coy  and  supercilious  parties  with 
whom  Scotland  had  before  to  treat,  but  the  ardent  proposers  and 
claimants  of  a  measure,  without  which,  as  they  represented,  and 
truly  represented,  all  chance  for  the  tranquilUty  and  prosperity  of 
both  countries  was  at  an  end. 

I  stop  to  observe,  that,  when  the  Act  of  Security  was  known  in 
England,  a  retaliating  act  was  passed  by  the  Enghsh  Parliament; 
that  is,  a  proper  spirit,  as  it  was  called,  was  shown,  and  the  breach,  in 
fact,  made  wider,  and  the  crisis  more  dangerous.  This  sort  of  spirit, 
or  rather  of  folly,  on  such  occasions  is  always  shown.  What  was  the 
result  ?  Before  the  Scotch  Parliament  could  be  brought  to  treat  of 
the  Union  at  all,  the  English  Parliament  were  obliged  to  repeal  their 
act. 

The  point  of  interest  that  next  presents  itself  is,  how  the  Union 
was  carried.  This  is  a  part  of  the  subject  which  cannot  be  contem- 
plated without  pain.  It  was  carried  by  force  and  fraud.  The  victo- 
ries of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  left  England  with  a  strong  mihtary 
force  at  her  disposal ;  and  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  proved  at  last  a 
traitor  to  his  country ;  so  did  others.  This  foul  name  must  belong  to 
him,  and  must  always  more  or  less  belong  to  all  men  who  on  great 
public  occasions  pursue  even  the  right  measure  onl^/  because  they  are 
corrupted,  who  act  upon  any  motives  but  those  of  the  good  of  their 
country.  Men  may  mistake  the  interests  of  their  country ;  this  is 
very  pardonable  ;  they  cannot  engage  to  be  wise,  but  they  may  to  be 
honest.  It  is  of  no  consequence  in  what  manner  the  bribe  that 
makes  them  otherwise  is  administered,  —  a  place  to  their  friends,  a 
purse  thrown  to  themselves,  or  a  coronet  to  their  descendants,  — the 
business  is  the  same ;  and  this  deflection  from  virtue,  this  sacrifice  of 
principle,  is  in  no  way  to  be  distinguished  from  the  acts  of  dishonesty, 
from  the  mere  picking  and  steahng,  of  the  vulgar,  but  that  there  is 
no  personal  risk  incurred  by  the  great,  and  that  the  consequences  are 
far  more  important  to  society. 

This  part  of  the  subject  is  painful  on  another  account.  The  Union 
was  a  measure  clearly  conducive  to  the  happiness  of  both  kingdoms. 
The  English  ministry  and  nation  had  been  thoroughly  frightened,  and 
they  therefore  made  the  terms  of  the  Union  as  reasonable  and  as  ad- 
vantageous as  they  could,  the  better  to  preclude  opposition.  It  is, 
therefore,  very  melancholy  to  observe,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  great 
nation  like  England  could  never  adopt  a  proper  system  of  policy 
before,  and  never  behave  with  proper  hberahty  and  prudence,  till 
both  were  extorted  from  her  by  the  ungenerous  motives  of  selfishness 
and  fear. 

It  is,  again,  very  mortifying  to  observe  how  little  the  affairs  of 
nations  are  affected  by  the  influence  of  any  calm  and  deliberating 
wisdom.  The  real  merits  of  the  measure  seem  to  have  had  but  Httle 
effect  with  the  generality  of  those  concerned ;  a  sort  of  opposition  re- 


444  LECTURE  XXT. 

sounded  from  every  quarter.  The  meanness,  ignorance,  and  coward- 
ice of  it  afe  instructive. 

We  shall  have  our  religion,  said  the  Presbytery  of  Scotland,  de- 
stroyed by  the  bishops  in  the  EngHsh  house.  How  can  our  sixteen 
peers  oppose  them  ?  —  The  Church,  said  the  English  bishops,  on  the 
contrary,  the  Church  of  England  will  be  swept  away,  as  it  has  before 
been,  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  First,  by  this  new  influx  of  Presby- 
terians. 

Our  manufactures  will  move  away  to  the  poor  country  where  labor 
is  cheap,  said  the  English  artists.  —  We  shall  be  ruined,  said  the 
Scotch,  by  the  superior  articles  of  the  English ;  if  they  are  allowed 
to  bring  them  into  our  markets,  how  can  we  contend  with  their  advan- 
tages of  skill  and  capital  ? 

What  security  for  our  country  or  our  constitution,  said  the  Scotch 
politicians,  when  the  union  has  been  once  made  ?  We  have  only 
forty-five  members  in  the  one  house,  and  sixteen  in  the  other  ;  how 
can  these  oppose  the  whole  EngUsh  legislature  ?  We  are  destroyed, 
and  that  for  ever.  —  What  will  become  of  us,  said  the  English,  when 
this  new  northern  hive  is  allowed  to  swarm  and  settle  upon  our 
country  and  upon  our  houses  of  legislature  ?  These  are  invaders 
that  are  hungry,  inteUigent,  and  servile ;  neither  post  nor  place  will 
be  left  for  any  of  us. 

"  The  prostrate  South  to  the  destroyer  yields 
Its  purple  harvests  and  its  golden  fields." 

Such  are  always,  on  great  occasions  like  these,  on  subjects  of  great 
national  concern,  —  unions  of  kingdoms,  for  instance,  treaties  of  com- 
merce, treaties  of  peace,  abolitions  of  slavery,  —  such  are  always  the 
contiracted,  wretched  arguments  and  pretences  which  men  make  use 
of  when  they  affect  to  debate,  and  are  in  fact  not  debating,  but  think- 
ing only  of  themselves  and  their  own  supposed  interests. 

On  this  subject  of  the  Union,  the  speeches  of  Lord  Belhaven  have 
been  always  adverted  to.  They  are  highly  deserving  of  your  peru- 
sal. They  are  rich  with  the  proper  beauties  of  eloquence,  and  very 
creditable  to  his  age  and  nation.  His  celebrated  speech  you  will  of 
course  examine.  It  has  great  merits,  but  appears  to  me  (if  for  a  mo- 
ment I  may  digress,  merely  to  allude  to  a  point  of  taste)  objectionable 
in  its  original  conception.  It  endeavours  to  accomplish  two  ends : 
first,  the  entire  rejection  of  the  Union,  be  the  terms  what  they  may ; 
secondly,  its  rejection  on  account  of  the  terms.  These  objects  arc  too 
much  intermixed  and  united ;  eloquence,  more  especially  eloquence 
of  the  character  of  Lord  Belhaven' s,  should  attempt  some  one  great 
object,  and  entirely  carry  it,  or  entirely  fail ;  it  should  throw  all  its 
force  on  the  enemy,  and  carry  every  thing  by  storm,  or  instantly  re- 
tire ;  not  descend  to  all  the  manoeuvres  and  forms  of  a  regular  engage- 
ment.    The  speech,  too,  begins  with  images  and  ends  with  reasonings. 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  445 

It  conies  full  and  majestic  down  its  course,  and  then  squanders  itself 
into  many  channels,  and  seems  to  disappear  as  it  proceeds  to  i6  ter- 
mination.    There  can  be  no  greater  fault  than  this. 

But  I  haste  to  call  your  attention  to  the  speech  of  Mr.  Seton,  as 
well  as  that  of  Lord  Belhaven.  Seton  spoke  in  favor  of  the  Union. 
The  speeches  are  very  dijQferent  in  their  character  as  well  as  their 
import. 

And  now  I  must  digress  for  another  moment,  to  observe  that  elo- 
quence and  wisdom  are  by  no  means  the  same  thing.  They  are 
sometimes  united,  but  not  necessarily,  —  perhaps  never,  when  elo- 
quence is  the  mere  gift  of  nature  rather  than  the  slow  result  of  nature 
and  art  conjoined.  A  ready  supply  of  glittering  language,  and  an 
ardent  conception,  —  that  is,  a  fertile  imagination,  and  quick  feelings, 
united  to  a  retentive  memory,  —  these  are  together  quite  sufficient 
to  make  an  orator,  but  by  no  means  to  make  a  wise  man ;  to  make  a 
speaker  or  even  a  leader  in  a  popular  assembly,  but  not  necessarily  a 
statesman.  Amplification,  for  instance,  is  the  great  business  of  elo- 
quence ;  while  the  first  occupation  of  wisdom  is  to  reduce  every  thing, 
if  possible,  to  its  original  elements.  The  one  distinguishes  not,  ex- 
amines not,  hesitates  not,  reflects  not ;  the  other  is  cautious,  scrupu- 
lous, precise,  patient,  and  deliberative.  Enthusiasm  is  the  soul  of  the 
one,  calmness  the  essence  of  the  other. 

I  would  recommend  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Seton  and  Lord  Belhaven, 
not  only  as  very  remarkable  speeches  on  a  very  great  occasion,  and 
therefore  as  subjects  of  history,  but  as  very  finished  specimens  of  the 
difference  which  I  conceive  to  exist  between  wisdom  and  eloquence, 
and  therefore  fitted,  if  this  distinction  be  just,  to  illustrate  a  truth 
of  very  ordinary  application,  and  therefore  of  some  value  in  human 
life. 

I  have  omitted,  when  speaking  of  Fletcher,  to  mention  that  those 
who  meet  with  his  works  should  look  at  his  Account  of  a  Conversa- 
tion concerning  a  Right  Regulation  of  Governments  for  the  Common 
Good  of  Mankind.  It  is  in  the  repulsive  form  of  dialogue,  but  it  is 
the  best  exhibition  of  his  political  views,  and  on  the  whole  the  best  of 
his  works. 

After  all,  Fletcher  had  the  fault  which  so  often  belongs  to  men  of 
strong  feelings  and  earnest  thought,  when  they  meditate  on  the  im- 
provement *of  the  affairs  of  the  world,  —  he  was  not  sufficiently  practi- 
cal. He  had  brooded  over  the  contests  and  ambition  of  the  nations 
of  Europe,  ever  the  vices  and  follies  of  a  great  metropolis ;  he  had 
satisfied  himself,  that  Scotland,  "  in  a  state  of  separation  from  Eng- 
land, would  be  perpetually  involved  in  bloody  and  destructive  wars ; 
and,  if  united,*  must  of  necessity  fall  under  the  miserable  and  lan- 

*=  There  is  an  important  omission  in  this  place,  giving  an  air  of  paradox  to  the  reason- 
ing, which  disappears  on  a  view  of  the  entire  passage  in  its  proper  connection.  The  sen- 
tence here  quoted  is  taken  from  the  work  noticed  above,  —  "  Account  of  a  Conversa- 

LL 


446  LECTURP    XXV. 

guishlng  condition  "  (such  are  his  expressions)  "  of  all  places  that 
depend  on  a  remote  seat  of  government." 

His  plan  for  the  remedy  of  these  evils  was,  to  divide  Europe  into 
different  portions,  each  adequate  to  its  own  defence,  and  accom- 
modated hy  forts  and  capitals  for  the  purpose,  but  not  fitted  for 
schemes  of  offence  and  aggrandizement.  In  England  and  Scotland 
were  to  be  formed,  in  the  mean  time,  about  a  dozen  capital  cities,  in- 
stead of  one  overgrown  capital  like  London ;  by  which  means  all  the 
benefits,  as  he  conceived,  of  our  present  metropolis  would  be  secured, 
and  its  serious  evils  avoided.  But  without  mentioning  the  very  indis- 
pensable advantages  that  result  from  the  concentration  of  so  much 
of  the  affluence,  genius,  and  intelligence  of  the  people  into  one  point, 
advantages  which  seem  never  to  have  occurred  to  him,  it  seems  suffi- 
cient to  observe,  in  a  few,  short,  melancholy  words,  that  the  great 
difficulty,  on  all  occasions  of  projected  improvement,  is,  to  form  a  plan 
that  is  practical ;  and  that  he  who  proposes  what  cannot  possibly  be 
expected  to  take  place  does  nothing,  —  does  worse  than  nothing,  for 
he  makes  the  very  cause  of  improvement  ridiculous. 

The  particular  temperament  of  Fletcher's  mind,  his  disposition  to 
attempt  what  he  thought  just  rather  than  gain  the  good  which  was 
possible,  the  common  mistake  of  virtuous  reformers,  operated,  as  it  will 
always  do,  most  unfortunately  for  himself  and  all  those  whose  interests 
he  could  have  wished  to  promote.  If  he  and  the  patriots  had  made 
their  bargain,  and  consented  to  support  the  measure  of  the  Union  in 
case  certain  conditions  were  complied  with,  —  if  they  had  submitted 
to  turn  to  the  best  account  this  experiment  for  the  improvement  of 
the  situation  of  both  countries,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  twenti- 
eth article,  respecting  heritable  offices,  superiorities,  &c.,  &c.,  might 
have  been  materially  modified,  or  perhaps,  as  in  Cromwell's  wiser 
ordinance,  made  directly  the  reverse  of  what  it  was  left  to  stand ; 
that  the  twenty-first  article,  also,  might*  have  been  modified  ;  and  by 
these  means  the  system  of  vassalage  and  the  representation  of  Scot- 
land might  not  have  been  left  in  a  state  fitted  only,  in  succeeding 
times,  to  disgrace  the  legislature  and  injure  the  best  interests  of  both 
kingdoms. 

tian  concerninoj  a  Right  Regulation  of  Governments,"  &c^ —  "  *  I  perceive  now,'  said 
Sir  Edward, '  the  tendency  of  all  this  discourse.  On  my  conscience,  he  lias  contrived 
the  whole  scheme  to  no  other  end  than  to  set  his  own  country  07i  an  equal  foot  with 
England  and  the  rest  of  the  world.*  '  To  tell  you  the  truth,'  said  I, '  the  insuperable 
difficulty  I  found  of  making  my  country  happy  by  any  other  way  led  me  insensibly  to 
the  discovery  of  these  things ;  which,  if  I  mistake  not,  have  no  other  tendency  than  to 
render,  not  only  my  o\vn  country,  but  all  mankind,  as  happy  as  the  imperfections  of 
human  nature  will  admit.  For  I  considered,  that,  in  a  state  of  separation  from  Eng- 
land, my  country  would  be  perpetually  involved  in  bloody  and  destructive  wars.  And 
if  we  should  be  united  to  that  kingdom  in  any  other  manner  [that  is,  in  any  other  man- 
ner than  on  an  equal  foot],  we  must  of  necessity  fall  under  the  miserable  and  languish- 
ing condition  of  all  places  that  depend  upon  a  remote  seat  of  government.' "  The 
Volitical  Works  of  Andrew  Fletcher,  Esq.,  of  Saltoun,  (Glasgow,  1749,)  pp.  317, 
318.  —  N. 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  447" 

Wliat  in  the  mean  time  he  attempted  failed.  The  very  Act  of 
Security,  which  he  carried,  became,  as  he  might  have  foreseen,  the 
very  reason  why  the  English  were  determined  at  all  events  to  carry 
the  Union.  The  Union  became  a  direct  consequence  of  the  dilemma 
to  which  the  two  kingdoms  were  thus  reduced,  and  we  can  conceive 
no  sensations  more  keen  and  intolerable  than  were  those  of  Fletcher 
and  the  patriots,  who  were  now  to  find  every  labor  of  their  under- 
standings defeated,  and  every  passion  of  their  hearts  disappointed. 

Before  I  conclude  this  subject,  I  must  mention,  that  the  remainder 
of  the  book  of  De  Foe,  that  is,  the  greater  part  of  it,  is  a  formal  ac- 
count of  the  articles  of  the  treaty  of  Union,  and  the  discussions  which 
took  place.  But  these  discussions  can  now  interest  or  instruct  only  as 
specimens  of  the  details  and  reasonings  of  men  of  business,  when  the 
commercial  and  ordinary  concerns  of  nations  are  to  be  settled  by 
treaties  and  mutual  concessions.  They  give  us,  also,  some  insight 
into  the  relative  state  of  the  commerce,  laws,  and  manufactures  of 
the  two  countries  at  the  time.  But  the  pages  of  De  Foe  are,  on  the 
whole,  formal  and  dull,  and  there  is  not  even  as  good  an  account  of 
the  tumults  at  Edinburgh  as  might  have  been  expected,  though  what 
is  given  forms  one  of  the  most  interesting  parts  of  the  work.  There 
is  the  same  sort  of  formal,  official  representation  of  the  Union,  and 
its  attendant  circumstances  and  debates,  in  Mr.  Bruce.  But  with 
respect  to  both  publications,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  from  those  who 
are  employed  by  cabinet  ministers  to  forward  a  great  measure,  like 
De  Foe,  or  to  report  a  great  measure,  like  Mr.  Bruce,  it  is  only  in- 
formation of  a  particular  complexion  than  can  be  expected. 

With  respect  to  the  consequences  of  the  Union,  a  considerable  time 
elapsed,  as  will  always  be  the  case  in  such  circumstances,  before  those 
happy  effects  took  place  which  the  measure  was  so  fitted  to  produce. 
For  this  part  of  the  subject  I  must  refer  you  to  Laing,  who  is,  in- 
deed, too  concise  and  too  general  in  this  very  interesting  part  of  his 
work,  but  who  is  an  intelligent  writer,  and  who  at  least  gives  more 
information  on  the  point  than  others. 

The  history  of  Scotland  becomes,  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution, 
interesting  to  mankind,  for  it  becomes  connected  with  the  Revolution 
in  England,  an  event  in  which  the  best  interests  of  human  nature 
were  deeply  concerned.  If  Scotland  had  not  sufficiently  sympathized 
with  England,  if  WilUam  had  not  been  acknowledged,  and  if  after- 
wards the  Protestant  line  of  succession  had  not  been  established  in 
both  parts  of  the  island,  —  if  a  civil  war  had  ensued,  and  if  the 
hardy  and  enthusiastic  Jacobites  of  the  North  had  been  joined  by 
their  affluent  and  powerful  neighbours,  the  Jacobites  of  the  South, 
the  exiled  family  might  at  last  have  been  restored,  the  Revolution 
might  have  failed,  and  been  a  standing  example  for  the  generous  and 
brave  in  every  age  and  country,  of  the  difficulties  which  attend  all 
enterprises  for  the  liberty  of  the  people,  —  enterprises  alike  accom- 


448  LECTURfe  XXV. 

panied,  it  would  have  been  said,  with  disappointment  and  ruin,  wheth 
er  attempted  by  Hampden  and  the  patriots  in  the  time  of  Charles,  or 
by  Lord  Somers  and  King  WiUiam  in  the  reign  of  James.  Happily, 
an  issue  so  deplorable  was  escaped ;  but  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
escaped  gives  an  importance  to  this  period  of  the  history  of  Scotland 
which  I  think  may  well  claim  your  attention,  and  which  might,  I 
must  also  think,  have  deserved  the  labors  of  Dr.  Robertson.  The 
subject,  however,  devolved  upon  Mr.  Laing,  and  his  very  respectable 
History,  particularly  the  second  volume,  I  cannot  but  request  you  to 
peruse. 

I  am  hastening  to  my  conclusion,  but  I  must  take  this  my  only 
opportunity  to  say,  in  a  few  words,  what  I  have  to  offer  with  respect 
to  this  interesting  country  of  Scotland.  Its  history  will  of  course  be 
read  in  Dr.  Robertson,  and  as  his  work  is  one  of  the  most  early  books 
that  are  put  into  our  hands,  it  must  be  read  anew,  for  it  is  read  before 
it  can  be  understood.  The  history,  indeed,  presents  a  turbid  and  re- 
pulsive scene,  which  would  have  been  little  known  to  the  inhabitants 
of  this  country,  and  still  less  to  the  readers  of  the  Continent,  if  the 
picture  of  it  had  not  been  drawn  by  so  masterly  a  hand,  and  if  a  ray 
of  softer  and  more  attractive  light  had  not  been  shot  athwart  the 
gloom  by  the  beauty  and  sufferings  of  the  unfortunate,  but  not  fault- 
less, Mary. 

Those  difficulties  with  which  Dr.  Robertson  had  to  struggle,  aris- 
ing from  the  rude  nature  of  the  documents  from  which  his  History 
was  to  be  drawn  up,  and  which  necessarily  constitute  so  much  of  the 
merit  of  the  work,  cannot  well  be  known  by  an  English  reader,  but 
they  may  be  distantly  comprehended  from  the  account  of  his  life 
by  Dugald  Stewart,  which  should  on  t^is  and  many  other  accounts 
be  read.  Much  of  this  sort  of  merit  belongs  also  to  Mr.  Laing. 
By  the  labors  of  the  two  the  public  are  put  into  possession  of  the 
whole  of  the  history  of  Scotland  that  is  important  to  us,  and  are  fur- 
nished with  what  is  valuable  in  those  original  materials  which  no  phi- 
losophic diligence  or  taste  for  historical  inquiry  would  ever  have 
induced  readers  on  this  side  the  Tweed  to  estimate  or  examine  for 
themselves. 

The  first  part  of  the  history  of  Scotland  is  discussed  only  in  a  rapid 
and  general  manner  by  Dr.  Robertson.  The  real  subjects  of  his 
work  are,  very  properly,  the  Reformation,  EHzabeth,  and  Mary.  At 
the  close  of  the  whole  there  are  a  few  pages,  by  way  of  conclusion, 
that  are  highly  worthy  of  your  meditation ;  but  to  these  must  be 
added  the  first  one  hundred  pages  of  the  third  volume  of  Millar's  Ac- 
count of  the  English  Government,  for  these  supply  what  cannot  be  so 
well  found  elsewhere,  philosophic  remarks  and  information  on  the  con- 
stitution and  government  of  Scotland, 

The  student  cannot  fail  to  keep  in  mind  the  history  of  the  le^sla- 
ture  and  Parliaments  of  his  own  country  while  he  is  reading  of  those 


UNION  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.  449 

of  Scotland.  The  fortunate  manner  in  which  our  own  Parliament  fell 
into  two  houses,  and  remained,  not,  as  in  Scotland,  united  in  one 
house,  again  presents  itself  to  our  observation,  and  its  consequences 
to  our  reflection.  The  peculiarity  in  the  Scotch  Parliament,  of  the 
Lords  of  Articles,  is  also  remarkable,  and  in  its  history  full  of  instruc- 
tion. 

On  the  whole,  Scotland,  as  a  country,  has  not  been  fortunate. 
May  her  subsequent  prosperity  reward,  however  late,  the  intelligence 
and  courage  by  which  her  sons  are  distinguished  1  She  was  placed, 
from  the  first,  in  proximity  with  a  powerful  state  ;  a  situation  most 
unfavorable.  For  a  long  series  of  years  she  had  her  monarchy  and 
her  aristocracy ;  but  though  they  were  directly  opposed,  and  each 
abated  the  tyranny  of  the  other,  unhappily,  no  other  power  in  the 
state  ever  seemed  to  exist.  The  people  were  nothing.  Even  the 
union  of  the  two  crowns  in  the  person  of  our  James  the  First  was  un- 
favorable to  her  liberties ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  Revolution  in  1688 
that  the  interests  of  the  people  began  to  be  considered,  — ■  a  late 
period,  this,  in  the  history  of  Europe.  In  the  general  struggle  and 
contests  that  accompanied  the  Reformation,  that  Christian  church, 
the  Presbyterian,  which,  after  the  greatest  calamities  and  the  exer- 
cise of  the  most  elevated  virtues,  she  at  last  acquired  for  herself,  as 
what  she  thought  best,  though  pot  without  its  own  very  important 
merits,  had  been  long  distinguished  for  harshness,  fanaticism,  and  in- 
tolerance. The  union  of  the  two  kingdoms  in  the  reign  of  Anne  im- 
proved her  condition  in  all  these  respects,  but  improved  it  slowly. 
Her  system  of  law  ever  was,  and  has  still  remained,  tedious,  incon- 
venient, and  expensive  ;  her  system  of  representation  wretched.  The 
consequences  of  such  a  system  have  been  but  too  inevitable.  While 
her  moral  and  political  writers  are  of  the  most  enlightened,  bold,  and 
generous  cast,  and  are  accused  only  of  pushing  the  principles  of 
speculation  and  inquiry  too  far,  her  practical  statesmen  and  politicians 
have  been  in  general  remarkable  chiefly  for  their  selfishness  and  ser- 
vility ;  and  the  same  union  of  the  two  countries,  which  has  added 
strength  and  range  to  our  philosophy,  fervor  to  our  poetry,  and  spirit 
to  our  arms,  has  certainly  not  been  favorable  to  the  political  morality, 
and  therefore  not  favorable  to  the  civil  libertieSp  of  England. 


67 


450  LECTURE  XXVI. 


LECTURE    XXYI. 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE. 

Having  delivered  to  you  what  I  had  to  offer  on  the  subject  of  the 
union  of  Scotland,  we  must  now  return  to  the  history  of  England, 
which  we  left  on  the  accession  of  George  the  First,  The  first  object 
that  claims  our  attention  is  the  violence  of  the  Whigs  on  their  restora- 
tion to  power.  Of  this  violence,  among  the  most  durable  monuments 
must  be  mentioned  the  articles  of  impeachment  against  Oxford,  Boling- 
broke,  and  Ormond,  and  the  report  of  a  committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  commissioned  to  collect  and  examine  such  documents  as 
were  connected  with  the  peace  of  Utrecht.  This  report  and  these 
articles  become  interesting,  from  the  great  events  to  which  they  relate, 
and  the  distinguished  characters  whose  private  integrity  and  poHtical 
reputation  are  concerned,  —  Prior,  BoHngbroke,  Oxford  ;  and  lastly, 
their  accusers,  the  great  leaders  of  the  Whig  party,  Walpole  and 
others. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  these  documents  are  much  degraded  by 
the  foul  insinuations  and  expressions  of  virulence  which  they  contain. 
But  suppose  these  terms  of  virulence,  these  serious  accusations  made 
by  the  Whigs,  undeserved,  there  will  still  remain  a  very  heavy 
weight  of  blame  to  be  endured  by  the  Tory  leaders.  They  might  not 
merit  the  title,  which  they  sometimes  received,  of  "  the  Frenchified 
ministry  " ;  they  might  not  have  been  guilty  (I  use  the  language  of 
their  Whig  opponents)  "  of  forming,  without  regard  to  the  honor  or 
safety  of  her  late  Majesty,  maliciously  and  wickedly,  a  most  treach- 
erous and  pernicious  contrivance  and  confederacy  to  set  on  foot  a 
dishonorable  and  destructive  negotiation,"  &c.,  &c. ;  but  they  were 
too  much  disposed  to  secure  themselves  in  power,  and  to  make  a 
peace  at  all  events,  as  a  means  to  accomplish  that  end ;  they  were 
too  ready  to  make  a  peace  with  or  without  their  allies ;  and  their  con- 
duct was  thus  rendered  not  always  wise,  and  sometimes  even  dis- 
honorable. 

In  the  writings  of  Mr.  Coxe  you  will  see  the  opinion  of  a  very 
regular  and  respectable  historian,  and  it  is  entirely  against  the  Tory 
ministry.  He  is  even  more  decided,  and  more  disposed  to  reprobate 
their  conduct,  in  his  late  work  on  the  Kings  of  Spain  of  the  House 
of  Bourbon,  than  before  ;  that  is,  the  more  he  has  read  and  examined, 
the  more  unfavorably  he  thinks  of  them.  The  War  of  the  Succes- 
sion and  the  peace  of  Utrecht  cannot,  indeed,  be  properly  estimated 
without  a  reference  to  his  works,  particularly  his  last  work,  on  Spain. 
I  conclude,  from  the  general  tenor  of  his  expressions  and  manner,  that 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE.  451 

he  is  prepared  to  Siay  that  Europe  is  at  this  moment  suffering,  and 
has  never  ceased  to  suffer,  from  the  unpardonable  faults  and  mistakes 
of  the  Tory  ministry  of  Queen  Anne. 

We  thus  arrive  at  that  particular  period  of  our  history  which  may 
be  described  under  the  general  term  of  the  era  of  the  administration, 
or  at  least  of  the  influence  and  administration,  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole. 
It  is  important,  because  the  Brunswick  family  were  establishing  them- 
selves, during  this  interval,  upon  the  throne  of  these  kingdoms,  and 
because  in  their  success  were  involved  the  concluding  fortunes  of  the 
Revolution.  This  great  and  happy  renovation  or  assertion  of  the 
free  principles  of  our  mixed  government  had  been  with  difficulty  ac- 
complished by  the  illustrious  William.  The  splendid  victories  of 
Marlborough  threw  a  glory  around  the  Whigs,  the  party  which  he  at 
last  espoused,  and  for  some  time  seemed  to  set  at  a  distance  all  hopes 
of  a  counter-revolution  in  favor  of  the  Stuarts  ;  but  these  hopes  had 
80  revived  about  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Anne,  and  it  was  an  experi- 
ment so  novel  and  unpromising  to  bring  a  new  race  of  princes  from 
Germany  to  rule  the  kingdom,  ignorant  of  its  constitution,  and  even  of 
its  language,  that  a  very  considerable  interest  belongs  to  this  part  of 
our  history  from  the  uncertainty  that  on  this  account  still  hung  over 
the  issue  of  the  great  struggle  that  had  been  made  for  our  liberties. 

The  merit  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  has  been  always  understood  to  be 
the  transcendent  merit  of  having  most  materially  contributed  to  es- 
tablish the  present  family  on  the  throne,  or,  in  other  words,  of  having 
rendered  at  last  triumphant  the  great  cause  of  the  Revolution  of 
1688.  This  is  the  first  and  great  interest  that  belongs  to  these  times, 
and  to  the  character  of  this  minister.  There  are,  however,  other  sub- 
jects of  curiosity  connected  with  this  era.  It  was  still  the  classic  age 
of  England.  The  events  and  characters  belonging  to  it  are  still  illus- 
trated, in  the  immortal  writings  of  Pope,  of  Addison,  of  Bolingbroke, 
and  Swift.  The  Parliamentary  leaders  were  men  of  distinguished 
ability,  —  Walpole,  Pulteney,  Shippen,  Sir  William  Wyndham,  Lord 
Hardwicke,  Lord  Carteret,  Lord  Chesterfield;  and  it  was  towards 
the  close  of  the  same  era  that  first  arose  the  great  orator  of  England, 
the  first  Mr.  Pitt,  who  was  afterwards  destined  to  realize,  on  many 
occasions,  even  the  splendid  visions  which  have  been  given  of  the 
eloquence  of  Demosthenes  by  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  Longinus 

Of  the  different  topics  that  occur  in  the  perusal  of  this  part  of  our 
history,  several  are  very  striking,  and  there  are  some  that  can  never 
lose  their  importance :  the  Septennial  Bill,  —  the  South-Sea  Scheme, 
—  the  Peerage  Bill,  —  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  sinking  fund,  — 
the  national  debt,  —  the  secret  and  open  efforts  that  were  made  to 
restore  the  Pretender,  —  the  long  peace  that  was  maintained  between 
England  and  France,  —  the  struggles  of  the  great  Tory,  Whig,  and 
Jacobite  parties,  —  the  views  and  language  of  each,  —  the  concerns 
of  Ripperda,  Atterbury,  Bolingbroke ;    and  considerable  entertain- 


452  LECTURE  XXVI. 

ment,  and  very  rational  entertainment,  may  be  derived  from  such 
particulars  as  have  come  down  to  us  of  the  character  and  manners  of 
the  first  two  monarchs  of  the  house  of  Brunswick,  and  more  particu- 
larly of  Queen  Caroline,  not  to  mention  such  anecdotes  as  remain  of 
the  German  favorites  and  mistresses  by  which  these  reigns  were  so 
unfortunately  disgraced. 

Such  is  a  slight  and  general  view  of  the  attractions  that  this  era  of 
ocir  history  presents  to  those  who  would  wish  reasonably  to  amuse 
their  leisure  or  usefully  to  employ  their  diligence  in  historical  pur- 
suits. It  happens,  too,  that  the  whole  is  put  immediately  within  the 
reach  of  every  reader  by  the  labors  of  Mr.  Coxe.  His  Memoirs  of 
Sir  Robert  Walpole,  in  the  first  volume,  give  an  authentic  account 
of  the  views  and  situation  of  that  minister  from  time  to  time,  and  of 
the  measures  that  were  the  result.  The  two  succeeding  volumes 
contain  the  documents  on  which  most  of  the  representations  contained 
in  the  first  are  founded.  In  the  preface  is  given  a  reference  to  other 
great  works  connected  with  this  subject,  —  Boyer's  Political  State, 
and  others.  These  works  are  voluminous,  and  seldom  to  be  met  with 
but  in  particular  libraries  in  London,  —  in  the  British  Museum,  tov 
instance.  In  addition  to  the  work  of  Coxe,  we  have  also  accounts  of 
the  public  debates  in  the  Lords  and  Commons,  and  we  have  TindaFs 
History. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  would  recommend  to  my  hearers  to  take 
the  modern  publication  of  Belsham,  and  to  read  it  iti  conjunction  with 
Coxe  ;  then  to  refer  occasionally  to  the  two  volumes  of  the  correspond- 
ence of  Coxe  ;  and  to  refer  continually  to  the  Parliamentary  debates, 
which  may  be  read  in  Cobbett. 

Tindal's  History  is  valuable,  and  should  be  looked  at  when  the 
subject  is  important.  Smollett's  work  is  a  rapid  performance,  but 
not  worthy  of  its  author.  Smollett  was  a  man  not  only  possessed  of 
a  strong  vein  of  coarse  humor,  but  one  of  laborious  activity  and  of  a 
powerful  mind,  fitted  therefore  to  succeed  in  a  literary  enterprise. 
On  this  occasion,  however,  it  is  understood  that  he  was  desirous  only, 
and  employed  only,  to  draw  up  a  narrative  on  the  Tory  side  of  the 
question.  It  was  his  fate,  as  it  has  been  but  too  often  the  unhappy 
fate  of  men  of  genius,  to  be  obliged  to  convert  Hterature  into  a  means 
of  subsistence. 

On  the  whole,  Coxe's  book  and  Belsham's,  with  a  reference  to 
some  of  the  principal  debates,  will  be  sufficient  for  the  general 
reader.  The  preface  to  Coxe's  work,  and  the  notes,  will  give  suf- 
ficient information  to  those  who  think  it  necessary  to  investigate  to 
the  utmost  the  whole,  or  any  particular  part,  of  this  period  of  our 
annals. 

It  will  be  found  often  entertainirg  and  instructive  to  turn  over  the 
leaves  of  the  London  Magazine  and  the  Gentleman's  Magazine. 
Publications  like  these,  when  they  can  be  had,  give  the  manners  and 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE.  453 

opinions  living  as  they  rise,  and  seem  to  have  been  the  precursors  of 
the  more  ample  and  regular  annual  registers,  which  will  hereafter  af- 
ford so  endless  a  field  of  amusement  and  inquiry  to  the  philosophic 
readers  of  history. 

I  have  hitherto  said  nothing  of  the  Continental  politics  of  these 
times.  They  may  be  studied  in  Coxe,  —  not  only  in  his  Life  of  Sir 
Robert  Walpole,  but  in  his  second  work,  the  Life  of-  Sir  Robert's 
brother,  Horace  Lord  Walpole.  Were  Europe  now  what  it  once 
was,  I  should  recommend  them  to  be  so  studied  very  attentively,  but 
I  know  not  that  such  attentive  study  can  now  be  thought  very  neces- 
sary. The  intrigues  and  negotiations  connected  with  them  were 
compUcated  and  tedious.  They  were  the  subjects  of  great  contro- 
versy ;  Pulteney  and  the  opposition  contending  that  the  interest  of 
Britain  was  sacrificed  to  Hanover,  —  Walpole  and  his  brother  insist- 
ing that  the  interest  of  Britain  was  steadily  pursued.  The  volumes 
of  Coxe  afford  ampl-e  opportunity  to  those  who  wish  to  study  this  part 
of  the  general  subject,  and  two  or  three  of  the  pamphlets  he  alludes 
to  will  be  found  in  all  collections  of  pamphlets  relating  to  these  times, 
and  may  be  looked  at. 

The  chief  reason  why  I  should  wish  the  Continental  politics  and  the 
documents  connected  with  them  to  be  considered  is,  that  they  are  a 
good  study  to  a  statesman,  because  courts,  and  cabinets,  and  minis- 
ters, and  ambassadors  are  much  the  same  at  all  times,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  any  such  extraordinary  crisis  as  has  occurred  during  the 
opening  and  progress  of  the  French  Revolution ;  consequently,  they 
who  wish  to  know  how  they  are  to  comport  themselves,  the  chicanery 
they  are  to  meet  with,  the  acuteness  and  fine  talents  which  they 
ought  to  possess  (a  point  which  our  young  men  of  family  do  not 
always  consider,  when  they  propose  themselves  for  diplomatic  situa- 
tions), they  who  wish  to  know  the  caution  with  which  they  must  pro- 
ceed, when  they  act  as  ministers  of  state  or  ambassadors;  may  here 
find  their  lesson,  and  better  given,  perhaps,  than  in  any  other  his- 
torical records  that  can  be  mentioned,  because  the  documents  fur- 
nished by  Coxe  are  authentic,  and  many  of  them  of  a  confidential 
nature.  In  this  way,  then,  and  for  this  purpose,  they  may  be  studied 
to  advantage. 

The  great  subjects  that  are  before  the  student  are,  as  usual,  ihe 
state  and  progress  of  the  civil  liberties  of  the  country,  of  the  i^eligious 
liberties,  and,  now  more  than  ever,  its  commercial  prosperity,  under 
which  head  must  be  included  the  new  system  of  a  regular  national 
debt,  with  all  its  consequences. 

And  first,  with  respect  to  the  state  and  progress  of  the  civil  fiber- 
ties  of  the  country. 

The  great  point,  and  that  which  I  have  mentioned  as  giving  a  pre- 
dominant interest  to  the  whole,  as  forming  the  more  peculiar  merit 
of  Walpole,  is,  that  he  secured  the  house  of  Hanover  on  the  throne. 


154  LECTURE  XXVI. 

In  this  every  thing  that  concerned  the  civil  atid  religious  liberties  of 
the  country  may  be  considered  as  involved,  for,  if  this  had  not  been 
effected,  the  experiment  of  the  Revolution  had  failed,  and  with  it  ttie 
great  cause  of  both. 

But  in  other  respects,  the  civil  liberties  of  the  country  were  partly 
progressive,  and  partly  not.  Thus,  for  instance,  they  were  progres- 
sive, because  the  speeches  from  the  throne  always  proceeded  upon 
principles  favorable  to  the  liberties  of  the  subject,  some  of  them  re- 
markably so :  you  will  see  specimens  of  them  in  the  Note-book  on  the 
table.  No  harsh  measures  were  insisted  upon ;  the  excise  scheme 
was  given  up,  entirely  upon  the  ground  of  the  expediency  of  mild 
government ;  Sir  Robert  Walpole  declaring,  and  to  his  immortal 
honor  declaring,  that,  though  his  opinion  remained  the  same,  he 
would  not  be  the  minister  who  should  carry  on  any  measure  of  this 
sort  by  force.  Not  only  in  England,  but  in  Scotland  and  in  Ireland, 
proper  attention  was  shown  to  public  opinion  by  this  wise,  and,  in 
this  respect,  very  virtuous  minister.  Publications  of  great  spirit, 
abihty,  and  virulence  continually  issued  from  the  press  in  opposition 
to  his  administration ;  yet  the  liberty  of  the  press  was,  by  the  minis- 
ter, not  violated.  It  even  appears  that  Sir  Robert  had  his  own  writ- 
ers in  regular  pay,  who,  as  well  as  Lord  Hervey  and  his  brother,  ad- 
dressed the  public  in  his  defence,  and  that  a  continual  appeal  was 
thus  made  to  the  community  in  a  way  very  well  fitted,  notwithstand- 
ing all  that  may  be  said  of  faction  and  party,  to  advance  their  im- 
provement and  political  happiness. 

Particulars  of  this  nature  are  very  favorable  specimens  of  this 
minister,  and  of  the  progress  of  the  civil  liberties  of  the  country. 
There  are  others  not  so.  The  Septennial  Bill  had  been  carried, 
and  yet  place  bills  during  the  era  of  his  power  were  always  rejected. 
Again,  when  each  new  Parliament  met,  the  decisions  on  controverted 
elections  were  made,  not  so  much  upon  the  merits  of  the  case,  as 
upon  the  party  principles  of  the  candidate  ;  and  because  Sir  Robert 
was  the  minister,  and  could  therefore  carry  all  such  questions  hi  favor 
of  his  own  friends,  no  effort  was  made  to  remedy  so  c  bvious  and  so 
fatal  a  defect  in  the  constitution. 

But  it  is  impossible  for  the  student  to  form  any  proper  estimate  of 
the  progress  and  state  of  the  civil  liberties  of  the  country,  during 
this  period,  without  adverting  to  the  debates  that  took  place  in  the 
houses  of  Pariiament,  and  to  these,  therefore,  I  must  direct  your  at- 
tention. 

I  must  observe,  however,  once  for  all,  that  the  exact  point  of  the 
propriety  or  impropriety  of  the  reasonings  of  our  ancestors  is  not  so 
much  the  question  itself,  as  what  was  the  spirit,  and  what  the  notions, 
which  were  then  thought  constitutional  and  worthy  the  adoption  of 
Englishmen.  These  may  be  right,  though  their  appHcation  may  be 
wrong.     What  the  inhabitants  of  a  free  country  should  endeavour  to 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE.  455 

attain  is,  to  preserve  in  purity  and  vigor  those  feelings  .and  those 
principles  which  did  their  ancestors  honor,  and  then  afterwards  shape 
and  direct  them  to  the  accomplishment  of  proper  objects,  as  circum- 
stances require. 

What  I  would  therefore  propose  to  the  student  is,  to  take  the  de- 
bates, and  observe  those  subjects  which  are  more  evidently  of  a  gen- 
eral and  constitutional  nature.  Let  him  consider  what  was,  on  such 
occasions,  the  language  of  our  patriots  and  statesmen,  and  he  will 
then  derive  a  general  impression  from  the  whole  which  cannot  possibly 
be  conveyed  to  him  by  any  other  means. 

Let  him  take,  for  instance,  the  question  of  the  Mutiny  Act.  The 
speeches  in  the  House  of  Commons  are,  it  is  true,  not  given,  but  he 
will  see  that  the  question  of  death  (that  is,  death  to  be  inflicted  by 
the  miUtary,  not  the  civil  power)  was  carried  only  by  two  hundred 
and  forty-seven  to  two  hundred  and  twenty-nine ;  and  when  he  fol- 
lows the  bill,  as  he  must  in  all  cases  do,  to  the  House  of  Lords,  he 
will  there  see  a  debate,  and  he  must  in  this  case,  as  in  all  others, 
mark  well  the  protest.  The  articles  of  war  may  be  found  in  Tindal's 
History,  and  should  be  read. 

Again,  let  him  observe,  by  all  means,  the  debates  that  took  place, 
when  the  nu'mber  of  the  forces  for  each  year  came  to  be  voted.  This 
subject  should  be  pursued  from  volume  to  volume.  The  debates  were 
always  interesting,  characteristic  of  the  times,  of  the  constitutional 
notions  of  our  ancestors,  and  of  the  leading  speakers  of  the  Houses. 
In  the  course  of  one  of  these  debates,  Shippen,  the  famous  Tory,  or 
rather  Jacobite  member,  was  sent  to  the  Tower.  In  one  of  these 
discussions  there  is  a  very  good  speech  from  Mr.  Jefferies.  In  the 
Lords,  too,  you  will  find  the  debates  on  this  subject  (the  subject,  in 
fact,  of  a  standing  army)  well  worthy  that  great  assembly,  and  the 
protests  sometimes  very  good. 

Again,  in  these  debates  of  the  two  Houses,  during  the  era  before 
us,  the  subject  of  pensions  and  places  often  occurred,  and  the  pro- 
ceedings that  took  place  should  always  be  noted.  A  great  jealousy 
on  this  subject  was  considered,  in  these  days,  as  patriotic ;  I  say 
patriotic,  because  these  bills  were  contended  for  by  the  opposition ; 
and  an  opposition,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  their  real  .-opinions  and 
views,  must  at  least  endeavour  to  distinguish  themselves  by  an  ap- 
parent attachment  to  such  measures  as  awaken  the  honest  approbar' 
tion  of  the  community.  Of  this  character,  therefore,  must  have  been 
thought  their  efforts  to  diminish  the  influence  of  the  crown.  These 
efforts  were  made  in  motions  to  address  his  Majesty  to  retrench  un- 
necessary pensions,  and  in  bills  to  limit  the  number  of  placemen  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  What  the  court  thought  of  such  eflbrts  may 
be  collected  from  the  expression  of  George  the  Second,  a  patriotic 
monarch,  but  irritable  man,  with  narrow  views,  and  who  therefore 
honored  one  of  these  with  the  appellation  of  "  that  villanous  bill." 


456  LECTURE  XXVI. 

Bills  of  this  sort  sometimes  succeeded  in  the  Commons,  but  always 
failed  in  the  Lords,  Sir  Robert  thinking  it  his  best  policy  to  stifle 
them  there.  The  debates  must  be  read  in  the  different  volumes. 
The  first  speakers  interfered,  and  their  speeches  continually  illustrate 
the  nature  of  our  constitution.* 

In  the  Lords,  the  debates  on  these  occasions  were,  in  general,  very 
good ;  the  protests  sometimes  remarkable.  In  one  of  these  debates, 
Dr.  Sherlock,  then  Bishop  of  Bangor,  expressed  himself  in  terms  that 
seem  to  have  produced  a  very  great  sensation  at  the  time  :  —  "  That 
an  independent  House  of  Commons  was  as  inconsistent  with  our  con- 
stitution as  an  independent,  that  is,  absolute,  king.''  It  may  be  re- 
membered, that  Dr.  Paley,  in  his  chapter  on  the  British  Constitution, 
conducts  his  reasonings  pretty  nearly  to  the  same  conclusion.  I  would 
more  particularly  refer  you  to  the  debate  that  took  place  in  the  Lords, 
in  March,  1739  * :  all  the  great  speakers  interfered.  I  am  not  aware 
that  I  could  produce,  from  any  of  these  volumes,  a  specimen  of  calm 
and  perspicuous  reasoning  so  beautiful  as  the  speech  delivered  on  this 
occasion  by  Lord  Carlisle. 

It  is  to  be  observed  in  debates  like  these,  that  arguments  are  often 
brought  against  the  provisions  of  a  bill  by  those  who  are  unfavorable 
to  the  very  principle,  and  who  would  equally  argue  against  all  pro- 
visions to  the  same  effect,  be  they  what  they  might.  The  first  point, 
therefore,  to  be  considered  in  reading  such  debates  is,  whether  the 
principle  is  made  out  to  be  just  and  constitutional.  The  next,  and 
to  us  an  inferior,  though  still  an  important  consideration,  is,  whether 
our  ancestors  contrived  the  provisions  of  these  bills  with  legislative 
skill ;  and  though  this  may  or  may  not  have  been  the  case,  the  origi- 
nal principle  and  intention  of  the  bill  may  still  be  right,  and  worthy 
of  the  attention  of  posterity. 

One  great  question  that  gives  interest  to  these  times,  and  to  the 
debates  of  these  times,  is  the  Septennial  Bill.  Originally,  the  Par- 
liament had  no  precise  limit  of  duration;  one  sat  in  Charles  the 
Second's  time  for  seventeen  or  eighteen  years.  William  the  Third, 
however,  was  induced  at  last  to  consent  to  the  Triennial  Bill,  which 
limited  the  duration  to  three  years.  To  enact,  therefore,  the  Sep- 
tennial Bill  was  to  diminish  the  extent  of  the  victory  which  the  popu- 
lar part  of  the  constitution  had  obtained,  and  the  measure  has  there- 
fore been  always  made  a  matter  of  reproach  to  the  Whig  party.  In 
this  reproach,  when  I  first  gave  lectures,  more  than  twenty  years  ago, 
I  concurred,  —  unwillingly,  indeed  ;  for  to  the  Whigs  of  the  last  cen- 
tury I  then  believed,  and  I  shall  always  believe,  we  owe  all  the  con- 
stitutional blessings  we  enjoy ;  but  I  have  since  satisfied  myself,  from 
what  I  understand  of  the  nature  of  the  Stuart  Papers,  and  what  I 
have  learned  from  other  sources,  that  the  measure  of  the  Septennial 

*  Old  Style.  The  debate  is  given  in  Cobbett  under  the  year  1740.  Paxliamentary 
History,  xi.  510-578.  — N. 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE.  457 

Bill  was  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  the  Brunswick  family  on  the 
throne,  and  that  a  general  election  at  the  time  cculd  not  have  been 
ventured  upon.  It  is  to  be  observed,  also,  that  the  Triennial  Bill  had 
been  enacted  but  twenty  years  before,  and  was  a  fair  subject  of  revis- 
ion. The  speeches,  however,  of  Shippen  and  others  are  worthy  of 
attention ;  and  particularly  the  speech  of  Sir  Robert,  in  the  year  1734, 
when  the  repeal  of  the  bill  was  brought  forward,  and  when  he  placed 
his  argument  on  the  fair  and  right  ground,  that  the  Septennial  Bill 
had  improved  the  constitution,  and  prevented  it  from  being  too  demo- 
cratic* 

One  of  the  most  striking  circumstances  in  the  administration  of  Sir 
Robert  Walpole  was  the  conduct  of  the  nation  on  the  subject  of  the 
Excise  Scheme.  It  was  a  very  striking  exemplification  of  the  constitu- 
tional jealousy  which  animated  our  ancestors  at  this  particular  period. 
The  minister  found  himself  at  last  obliged  to  abandon  his  measure, 
and  the  opposition  to  the  bill  owed  its  success  entirely  to  the  sensation 
that  was  excited  in  the  community  on  that  general  ground  of  consti- 
tutional jealousy.  "  Liberty,  property,  and  no  excise,"  was  every- 
where the  cry,  and  the  cry  that  triumphed.  The  sentiment,  whether 
in  this  instance  judiciously  applied  or  not,  did  the  community  honor. 
It  was  a  sentiment  received  from  earlier  times,  and  was,  then,  even  in 
its  application  on  this  occasion,  neither  so  unreasonable  nor  so  un- 
necessary as  by  some  may  have  been  pretended.  Summary  convic- 
tions before  commissioners  or  justices  of  the  peace,  without  the  inter- 
vention of  juries,  were  very  properly  considered  by  Englishmen  at 
all  times  as  a  subject  of  alarm  and  aversion.  Equally  so,  and  with 
equal  justice,  the  entry  of  a  king's  officer  into  the  dwelling  of  a  private 
man  by  day  or  by  night  at  his  pleasure.  That  every  Englishman's 
house  is  his  castle  has  been  always  a  favorite  maxim  in  this  happy 
island ;  "  and  when  I  speak  of  a  castle,"  said  once  the  great  orator 
of  England,  Lord  Chatham,  he  who  loved  to  produce  and  cherish 
these  honorable  feelings  of  his  country,  "  I  speak  not  of  a  mansion, 
the  abode  of  some  potentate  or  baron,  surrounded  with  fortifications 
and  towers,  and  garrisoned  with  soldiers,  but  I  speak  of  a  tattered  and 
wretched  hovel,  the  dwelling  of  some  laborer  or  peasant,  which  the 
wind  and  the  rain  can  enter,  but  the  king  cannot  enter." 

We  may  ourselves  be  obliged  to  submit  to  the  necessities  of  our 
situation,  and  be  satisfied  to  obtain  revenue  in  the  best  manner  we 
can,  but  the  notions  of  our  ancestors  shguld  never  be  forgotten ;  still 

*  On  this  subject,  when  I  first  delivered  these  lectures,  I  dwelt  at  some  length,  sum- 
ming up  first  in  favor  of  triennial,  afterwai-ds  of  quinquennial  Parlijiments ;  but  this 
was  in  the  reign  of  George  the  Third.  The  question  has  been  fundamentally  altered 
by  the  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill.  The  difficulty  now  is,  not  to  keep  tlie  representa- 
tive attentive  to  the  wishes  of  his  constituents,  but  to  keep  him  from  being  a  delegate. 
Again,  the  only  means  by  which  the  king  can  maintain  his  consequence  in  the  system 
©f  the  constitution  is  his  power  of  dissolving  the  Parliament,  a  power  which  would  be 
materially,  and  now  dangerouslv,  interfered  with  by  short  Parliaments. 

68  *  MM 


458  LECTURE  XXVI. 

less  should  it  be  forgotten,  that,  among  many  other  unhappy  effects 
that  accompany  a  system  of  taxation,  one,  and  not  the  least  melan* 
choly,  is  the  tendency  that  every  such  system  has  to  destroy,  more  or 
less,  as  it  is  more  or  less  urged,  the  free  spirit,  the  free  laws,  and  the 
free  men  of  every  regular  and  civilized  community. 

We  are  not,  therefore,  in  my  opinion,  to  read  with  indifference  such 
sentiments  as  w^ere  then  delivered  by  several  members  of  the  House ; 
and  we  are  to  pardon  men,  even  if  they  forget  themselves  a  Httle, 
when  their  feelings  are  honorable,  and  the  free  constitution  of  a  great 
nation  excites  their  anxiety  and  alarm.  I  must  refer  you  to  these 
debates :  I  had  made  extracts  for  the  purpose  of  reading  them  to  you, 
but  I  am  obliged,  for  want  of  time,  to  omit  them. 

It  will,  however,  be  an  eternal  honor  to  the  memory  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole,  that,  when  his  friends  wished  him  to  persevere,  to  despise 
what  they,  no  doubt,  called  popular  clamor,  and  show  that  govern- 
ment \^as  not  to  be  awed,  this  reasonable  minister  thought  it  more  be- 
coming to  give  way,  to  pay  respect  to  public  opinion,  as  he  forfeited 
no  moral  duty  by  doing  so,  and  not  to  suppose  that  government  has 
no  other  and  no  better  attributes  under  which  to  be  presented  to  the 
community  than  those  of  force  and  terror. 

I  would  now  wish  to  draw  your  attention  to  another  subject,  one 
connected  with  the  character  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  with  the  history 
of  these  times,  and  with  the  history  of  our  constitution ;  I  mean  the 
manner,  or  rather  the  means,  by  which  Sir  Robert  Walpole  so  long 
conducted  the  administration  of  government  in  this  country.  These 
means,  it  was  always  objected  to  him  by  his  opponents,  were  bribery 
and  corruption,  the  power  of  the  purse  :  such  is  the  phrase  continually 
occurring  in  the  writings  of  BoHngbroke.  This  representation  is  con- 
sidered by  Burke  as  unjust ;  he  considers  Sir  Robert  as  having  ruled 
by  party  and  family  connections.  On  the  whole,  the  student  may 
fairly  suppose  this  celebrated  minister  to  have  ruled  by  the  powers  of 
his  own  sound  and  clear  understanding,  the  effect  of  his  amiable  and 
social  qualities  ;  and,  in  conjunction  with  these,  by  what  is  called  the 
influence  of  government,  no  longer  appearing,  as  formerly,  in  the  pal- 
pable and  offensive  forms  of  the  prerogative,  but  in  the  natural  ana 
peaceful  agency  of  all  the  posts  and  employments  under  the  disposal 
of  the  crown,  in  a  highly  prosperous  and  civilized  state  of  society. 
This  influence,  it  is  to  be  observed,  is  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  the 
agency  of  the  party  and  family  connections  mentioned  by  Mr.  Burke. 
Sir  Robert  Walpole  availed  himself  of  both  ;  so  have  other  ministers. 
The  one  is,  indeed,  to  a  certain  extent,  connected  with  the  other;  for 
it  is  by  this  influence  of  posts  and  places  that  a  minister  can  be  as- 
sisted in  attaching  to  himself  party  and  family  connections,  and  they 
their  dependants. 

The  first  inquiry,  therefore,  to  be  made  by  the  student,  as  a  reader 
of  history,  is,  how  far  this  influence  was  or  was  not  favorable  to  the 


SIR  ROBERT   WALPOLE.  459 

country  during  the  times  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  On  the  one  side, — 
that  is,  the  objectionable  nature  of  this  influence,  —  he  will  consider 
how  fruitless  were  the  efforts  of  the  opposition  to  advance  the  in- 
terests of  the  popular  part  of  the  constitution ;  that  the  place  bills 
were  all  lost,  and  so  of  every  other  attempt  to  the  same  end.  But 
on  the  other  side  he  must  consider  how  steadily  was  maintained  the 
influence  of  the  Hanover  family  on  the  throne,  —  that  is,  the  cause 
of  the  Revolution,  —  which,  as  I  cannot  too  often  repeat,  was  the 
real  and  great  question,  exceeding  every  other  in  importance,  not 
only  to  the  constitution,  but  even  more  especially  to  this  popular  part 
of  it.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  very  critical  nature  of  this  period,  the 
preposterous  wishes  of  the  Jacobites,  the  unfortunate  opinions  of  the 
Tories,  and  the  disadvantages  under  which  the  first  two  monarchs  la- 
bored, resulting  partly  from  their  situation  and  partly  from  their  own 
faults,  that  it  is  for  the  student  to  consider  very  carefully,  whether  it 
was  at  all  desirable  that  the  influence  of  the  government  should  have 
been  less  than  it  was  during  this  particular  era,  and  whether  Sir 
Robert's  talents,  qualities,  opinions,  and  the  means  of  influence  which, 
as  minister  of  the  crown,  he  possessed,  did  not  conspire  most  happily 
at  this  particular  juncture  for  the  preservation  of  the  liberties  and  in- 
terests of  these  kingdoms.  This  is  the  question  which  it  is  for  him  to 
consider,  not  for  me  to  determine  ;  and  this  is  what  I  beg  leave  to  re- 
mind him  is  the  sort  of  contemplative  and  critical  manner  in  which 
he  is  to  read  the  history  of  this,  and,  as  much  as  possible,  the  history 
of  every  other  country. 

But  when  this  question  has  been  detemuned,  and  it  must  be  deteiv 
mined,  I  think,  in  favor  of  Sir  Robert,  another  yet  remains,  —  how 
far  this  influence  has  been  subsequently  too  great,  —  that  is,  not 
merely  during  the  administration  of  Sir  Robert,  which  is  the  first 
question,  but  through  the  periods  that  ha.ve  succeeded,  which  is  en- 
tirely another. 

And  in  the  first  place,  this  question,  too,  is  one  partly  of  historical 
fact,  and  must  be  borne  in  mind  by  the  student  as  he  descends 
through  the  remainder  of  our  history.  In  the  mean  time,  however, 
and  the  better  to  furnish  the  student  with  the  principles  which  he  is 
to  apply  to  the  characters  and  events  of  our  history,  it  is  at  this  point 
of  his  progress  that  I  would  propose  to  him  the  perusal  of  some  of  the 
writings  of  Lord  BoHngbroke.  Lord  Bolingbroke  is  one  of  the  classics 
of  our  literature  :  but  he  was  also  one  of  the  great  political  characters 
of  this  period,  the  opponent  and  inveterate  enemy  of  Walpole ;  and 
his  personal  qualities  and  his  writings  (his  political  writings,  which 
are  all  I  am  now  concerned  with)  may  be  said  to  be  in  reality  sub- 
jects of  history.  His  Dissertation  on  Parties  (and,  out  of  deference 
to  the  opinions  of  others  who  admire  it,  I  must  also  mention  his  Patriot 
King)  will,  I  conceive,  be  quite  sufficient  for  your  perusal. 

From  Lord  Bolingbroke's  Dissertation  on  Parties,  I  would  next 


460  LECTURE  XXVI. 

recommend  jou  to  turn  to  the  work  of  Mr.  Burke,  —  to  his  Thoughts 
on  the  Cause  of  the  Present  Discontents,  particularly  the  latter 
part.  These  compositions  of  Lord  Bolingbroke  and  Mr.  Burke  seem 
to  me  connected  together.  For  instance,  we  have, said  that  Sir 
Robert  governed  this  country  by  his  personal  quahties,  and  by  party 
and  family  connections,  in  conjunction  with  the  influence  of  the 
crown.  To  this  system  of  government  Lord  Bolingbroke  objects. 
But  it  is  explained  and  commented  upon  and  defended  by  Mr.  Burke. 
Again,  Lord  Bolingbroke  conceives  the  proper  effect  of  the  Revo- 
lution to  be  defeated  by  the  powers  of  corruption  which  every  minister 
has  since  enjoyed,  and  which  he  derives  from  the  crown.  Mr.  Burke 
thinks,  with  Lord  Bolingbroke,  that  this  influence  of  the  cro-vvn  is,  and 
may  be,  too  great,  but  he  views  the  subject  in  a  new  and  different 
light,  and,  in  fact,  conceives  that  this  influence  of  the  crown  can  now 
be  opposed  in  practice  only  by  those  very  party  connections  which  it 
is  the  object  of  Lord  Bolingbroke's  Dissertation  to  discountenance 
and  destroy.  This  is  a  very  curious  question,  and  one  which  can 
never  be  without  its  interest  while  our  free  and  mixed  constitution 
survives. 

There  is  an  air  of  freedom  and  purity  of  principle  about  such  sen- 
timents as  are  uttered  by  Lord  Bolingbroke  (not,  indeed,  the  most  ex- 
emplary of  characters  himself)  well  fitted  to  captivate  the  minds  of 
men  of  virtue  and  public  spirit.  Corruption  is  the  great  topic  of  his 
lamentations  and  invectives.  His  great  hope  is  a  House  of  Com- 
mons that  in  some  way  or  other  shall  be  elevated  above  all  sinister 
views ;  the  members  of  which,  unlike  the  members  of  any  other  body 
that  ever  appeared  in  society,  are  to  be  influenced  by  no  consideration 
but  the  mere  merits  of  the  question  before  them.  Views  of  this  kind 
are  always  very  animating  and  attractive  to  those  who,  like  Lord 
Bolingbroke,  can  write  or  speak  beautiful  sentences,  or  think  they 
can,  and  to  many  a  youthful  patriot,  whose  heart  is  sufficiently  good, 
and  understanding  sufficiently  somnolent,  to  dream  over  the  visions  of 
superficial  or  designing  men.  Statesmen  of  any  sense  or  experience 
look  not  for  such  prodigies  ;  they  know,  as  Mr.  Burke  has  observed, 
what  stuff"  all  supernatural  virtue  is  made  of;  and  when  the  corruption 
of  Parliament  is  represented  as  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end  of  all 
our  grievances  and  calamities,  they  only  see  in  a  talker  of  this  kind 
an  artist  who  knows  not  the  nature  of  his  materials,  oi  a  future 
courtier  at  present  in  disguise  ;  they  know  that  men  are,  in  pubhc, 
as  in  private  life,  some  good,  some  bad,  and  that  to  depend 'on  the 
unmixed  personal  virtue  of  men,  in  the  formation  of  a  government,  as 
a  principle,  and  a  foundation  on  which  to  rest  the  public  weal,  is 
puerile  and  ridiculous  in  the  extreme  ;  that  in  a  constitution,  as  in  a 
machine,  the  question  always  is.  Does  it  work  well  ?  and  finally,  that 
there  is  no  hope  that  it  should  do  so,  unless  the  great  leading  in- 
terests, and  selfish  passions,  and  ordinary  virtues  of  our  nature  are  so 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE.  i61 

mingled,  and  opposed,  and  directed,  as  in  the  result  to  operate  pretty 
steadily  to  the  advancement  and  security  of  the  public  prosperity; 
that,  unless  this  is  done,  nothing  is  done,  and  that  this  is  done  in  a  most 
remarkable  manner,  notwithstanding  all  its  anomalies,  in  the  British 
constitution.  Something  is,  indeed,  said,  when  useless  places  at  the 
disposal  of  the  crown  are  pointed  out,  and  it  is  proposed  to  abolish 
them  ;  remove  temptations  from  men,  and  you  will  contribute  to  make 
them  more  virtuous ;  but  nothing  can  be  a  more  miserable  waste  of 
public  talents  in  the  speaker  or  writer,  or  of  public  virtue  in  the 
patient  hearer  or  reader,  than  these  vague  and  flowing  harangues  on 
the  subject  of  corruption.  There  are  seasons,  indeed,  when  they  may 
fall  innocent  on  the  ear,  but  there  are  other  seasons  when  writings 
or  speeches  of  this  kind  are  clearly  of  the  nature  of  sedition,  and 
become  perfect  treason  to  the  practical  liberties  and  prosperity  of  the 
realm ;  they  may  be  at  one  time  the  mere  mewlings  and  wailings  of 
the  cradle  (such  they  appear  to  me),  —  they  may  be  at  another  the 
thunders  and  lightnings  that  issue  from  the  tribune. 

These  observations  will,  I  hope,  not  be  found  unreasonable  by  those 
who  read  the  works  of  Lord  Bolingbroke,  and  at  the  same  time  ob- 
serve the  world  around  them.  They  were  made  by  me  many  years 
ago,  and  succeeding  years  have  but  confirmed  them.  His  Dissertation 
on  Parties  is,  on  the  whole,  too  long ;  it  will  often  feel  tedious.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  all  his  political  works,  with  the  exception  of  his 
Letter  to  Sir  William  Wyndham,  which  is  a  perfect  model  of  writing 
or  speaking  to  any  statesman  or  man  of  the  world.* 

With  respect  to  the  religious  liberties  of  the  country,  they  must  be 
considered  as  materially  advanced  during  the  reign  of  George  the 
First.  They  had  much  declined  during  the  latter  part  of  the  reign 
of  Anne.  The  Occasional  Conformity  and  Schism  Bills,  which  were 
then  passed,  had  shown  the  connection  that  exists  between  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  by  showing  that  the  same  Tory  ministers  whose 
opinions  were  unfavorable  to  the  one  would  be  equally  unfavorable  to 
the  other.  But  it  is  the  glory  of  the  reign  of  George  the  First  and 
his  Whig  advisers,  it  is  an  eternal  honor  to  the  memory  of  the  king, 
that  his  first  minister,  Lord  Stanhope,  came  forward  and  proposed  all 
the  relief  and  kindness  to  those  who  differed  from  the  Establishment 
which  the  temper  of  the  community  could  then  be  brought  to  bear, 
and  that  they  would  have  done  more,  if  ^o  do  more  had  been  in  their 
power.  The  Occasional  Conformity  and  Schism  Acts  were  repealed, 
and  though  the  clauses  in  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts  for  exclud- 
ing Dissenters  from  civil  employments  were  suffered  to  remain,  it  had 

*  I  mnst  observe,  as  I  leave  this  subject,  that  positive  bribery  was  practised  by  Sir 
Robert,  and  by  other  ministers,  both  before  and  after  his  time ;  by  Lord  Bute,  I  believe, 
the  last.  Lord  North  used  to  job  the  loans.  Mr.  Pitt  put  an  end  to  this  disgraceful 
practice.  V^hatever  may  be  said  to  the  disparagement  of  our  patriots  and  statesmen, 
the  standard  of  public  virtue  is  materially  elevated  in  modern  times. 

MM* 


462  LECTURE  XXVI. 

been  the  original  intention  of  the  king  and  his  ministers  tc  repeal 
these  restrictions  also.  The  question  of  the  Test  was  agitated  during 
Sir  Robert's  administration ;  but  Sir  Robert,  though  favorable  to  its 
repeal,  could  not  venture  to  make  it  a  measure  of  government.  The 
debates  are  worth  your  perusal,  and  the  proceedings  of  the  legisla- 
ture with  regard  to  the  Quakers  were  very  creditable  to  Sir  Robert 
and  the  country. 

The  circumstance  that  occurred  most  favorable  to  the  religious 
liberties  of  the  country  was,  that  about  this  period  of  our  history  we 
ceased  to  hear  of  the  Convocation,  —  the  ecclesiastical  parliament. 
Men  of  the  ecclesiastical  profession,  however  respectable  or  venerable 
in  their  individual  capacities,  have  never  met  in  bodies  but  they  have 
become  examples  of  any  thing  but  toleration ;  and  this  must  neces- 
sarily be  the  case,  without  any  particular  fault  of  theirs,  from  the 
mere  operation  of  the  most  established  principles  of  our  common  nar 
ture.  But  it  is  on  this  very  account  that  any  change,  which  has  a 
tendency  to  remove  public  concerns  of  this  nature  from  their  particu- 
lar management  to  the  interference  and  therefore  more  equal  manage- 
ment of  statesmen,  must  be  esteemed  materially  conducive  to  the  in- 
terests of  religious  liberty.  I  must  not  now  be  mistaken ;  I  speak 
not  with  the  slightest  disrespect  of  men  like  these,  nor  do  I  speak  of 
them  in  the  regular  exercise  of  their  clerical  duties.  I  speak  of  them 
when  meeting  in  an  ecclesiastical  parliament,  or  in  large  bodies,  — 
"  interpretando  accendunt." 

Proceeding  on  in  the  general  survey  of  our  present  subject,  we 
may  remark  that  Sir  Robert  Walpole  was  a  man  of  good  temper  and 
good  sense,  and  therefore  not  disposed,  while  minister,  to  countenance 
any  harsh  or  offensive  measures  towards  those  who  differed  from  the 
national  church.  But  he  can  scarcely  be  considered  to  have  advanc- 
ed the  cause  of  religious  liberty  otherwise  than  by  having  kept  the 
language,  and  as  much  as  he  could  the  practice,  of  the  government 
at  all  times  tolerant  and  mild. 

The  commercial  prosperity  of  the  country  must  be  considered  as 
having  greatly  advanced  during  this  period,  from  the  accession  of 
George  the  First  to  the  Rebellion  of  1745.  The  merits  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  have  in  this  respect  been  rated  very  high ;  they  are  stated 
to  be  very  great  by  Mr.  Coxe.  The  subject  is  treated  at  pages 
163,  164  ;  and  an  unpublished  treatise  by  Dean  Tucker  is  quoted  in 
Sir  Robert's  favor.  Tucker  is  very  good  authority ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  the  claim  of  the  minister  to  our  praises  must  be  admitted. 

But  distinctions  must  be  made,  such  as  I  apprehend  will  be  found 
reasonable,  whether  we  are  speaking  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  in  Eng 
land,  or  of  Colbert  in  France,  or  of  any  other  minister,  or  prince,  or 
government,  who  are  endeavouring  to  assist  the  prosperity  of  those 
committed  to  their  care. 

In  the  first  place,  the  merit  of  every  man,  and  of  every  body  of 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE.  4S3 

men,  must  be  estimated  with  a  reference  to  the  times  in  which  they 
lived.  Since  the  administration  of  Sir  Robert,  a  new  system  of 
political  economy  has  been  regularly  presented,  and  successfully  pre- 
sented, by  Adam  Smith,  to  the  consideration  of  the  rulers  of  man- 
kind ;  and  we  have  a  right  to  blame  those  ministers  of  our  own  age 
who  seem  ignorant  of  its  principles,  though  not  on  this  account  the 
ministers  of  former  times. 

The  good  sense  of  Sir  Robert,  on  particular  occasions,  enabled  him 
to  discover  the  science  of  human  prosperity ;  but  no  enlarged  views 
on  the  East  India  question,  for  instance,  on  the  question  of  Ireland, 
or  on  any  other  of  this  nature,  appear  to  have  made  a  part  of  his  ordi- 
nary habits  of  reflection. 

"  Without  being,"  says  Burke,  in  his  masterly  character  of  him, 
"  a  genius  of  the  first  class,  he  was  an  intelligent,  prudent,  and  safe 
minister."  This  praise,  and  this  abatement  of  it,  we  shall  find  just, 
even  when  surveying  him  as  a  minister  sincerely  interested  in  the 
commercial  advancement  of  his  country.  This  intelligence,  this  pru- 
dence, still  enabled  him,  without  the  assistance  of  the  more  divine  in- 
fluence of  genius,  to  see  and  to  provide  for  the  interests  of  a  com- 
mercial nation ;  without  anticipating  the  system  of  Adam  Smith,  he 
could,  by  the  operation  of  his  own  excellent  understanding,  perceive 
that  he  should  assist  the  prosperity  of  his  country  efiectually  by 
clearing  away,  as  much  as  possible,  the  duties  and  impositions  by 
which  he  found  our  commerce  encumbered  and  impoverished.  It  is 
said  that  he  found  our  b(¥)k  of  rates  the  worst,  and  left  it  the  best,  in 
Europe,  —  a  most  important  eulogium.  We  have  here  merit,  and 
of  a  most  solid  nature  ;  a  man  in  a  high  station  going  through  minute 
details  and  tedious,  disgusting  examinations,  and  exerting  his  patience, 
his  industry,  and  his  talents  in  a  sort  of  silent  and  obscure  drudgery, 
where,  though  they  were  exerted  highly  to  the  benefit  of  the  com- 
munity, they  could  not  be  exerted  with  that  iclat  to  which  they  most 
assuredly  were  entitled. 

But  his  panegyric  must  not  stop  here.  He  not  only  did  every 
thing  in  his  power,  and  according  to  the  lights  which  he  then  pos- 
sessed, for  the  emancipation  of  our  commerce  from  vexatious  inter- 
ruptions and  impolitic  charges,  but,  above  all,  he  was  the  anxious 
friend,  not  only  of  order  and  mild  government  at  home,  but  of  peace 
abroad.  This  is  his  commercial  panegyric,  the  highest  and  the  best 
that  any  minister  can  aspire  to.  Men  will  better  their  condition, 
that  is,  the  prosperity  of  their  country  will  advance,  without  the  as- 
sistance of  the  state,  if  their  exertions  are  only  not  interrupted,  and 
their  labors  not  destroyed,  by  the  interference  of  laws  at  home  and 
the  calamities  of  war  abroad.  Political  economists  require  no  more 
from  princes,  or  ministers,  or  cabinets,  or  houses  of  assembly,  than 
that  praise,  which  they  so  seldom  deserve,  the  praise  of  being  very 
cautious  how  they  suffer  themselves  to  be  involved  in  war,  of  being 


464  LECTURE  XXVI. 

vefry  cautious  how  they  destroy,  in  a  few  years  or  months,  what  no 
efforts  of  theirs  will  repair  in  ages. 

With  this  part  of  our  subject  is  connected  the  consideration  of  the 
finances  of  England  during  this  period,  the  measures  of  Sir  Robert  to 
improve  them,  and  the  claim  which  he  has  on  this  account  to  the  ap- 
probation of  posterity.  You  will  find  materials  on  which  to  exercise 
your  judgment  in  Coxe  and  the  debates. 

His  great  merit  as  a  minister  of  finance  has,  in  fact,  been  already 
stated ;  for  he  best  assists  the  finances  of  a  country  who  best  assists 
its  prosperity,  the  source  from  which  revenue  is  to  be  derived.  But 
in  the  official  part  of  his  duty,  his  talents  as  a  man  of  business  seem 
to  have  been  acknowledged,  and  may  now  by  posterity  be  taken  for 
granted.  The  good  sense  which  he  displayed  through  the  whole 
progress  of  the  affair  of  the  South-Sea  Scheme,  from  its  first  origin  to 
its  final  settlement,  is  alone  sufficient  to  immortalize  him.  Great 
credit  has  always  been  given  him  for  the  measure  of  the  sinking 
fund.  He  has  incurred  much  censure  for  his  opposition  to  the 
scheme  of  Sir  John  Barnard.  You  will,  I  hope,  be  induced  to  con- 
sider these  and  other  particulars  of  the  same  kind.  They  occupy  a 
part  of  the  debates  of  the  two  Houses,  of  the  pages  of  Mr.  Coxe,  of 
Sir  John  Sinclair's  work  on  the  Revenue  ;  and  to  all  of  these  I  must 
refer. 

It  is  from  materials  such  as  I  have  mentioned  in  the  course  of  this 
lecture  that  I  think  an  estimate  may  be  formed  of  the  period  we  are 
now  considering,  and  of  the  merits  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  The 
Reminiscences  of  his  son,  the  late  Lord  Orford,  should  also  be  looked 
at.     They  are  short  and  entertaining. 

The  London  Magazine,  and  the  Gentleman's,  must  be  consulted, 
when  any  particular  point  in  the  history  of  this  period  is  to  be  dis- 
cussed. They  may  even  be  looked  at  in  conjunction  with  more  regu- 
lar histories.  The  times  are  very  faithfully  reflected  in  these  passing 
mirrors.  Specimens  are  here  to  be  found  of  the  most  noted  publica- 
tions of  the  day ;  essays  occur,  and  often  of  great  merit,  on  constitu- 
tional subjects,  and  some  even  on  the  subjects  of  poHtical  economy. 
The  poetry  of  Swift  and  Pope  may  be  seen  in  extracts  adorning  these 
pages,  like  the  verses  of  the  meanest  of  their  contemporaries.  Here 
may  be  noticed  the  first  efforts  of  the  strength  of  Johnson.  We  have 
the  deaths,  the  marriages,  the  literary  productions,  of  many  whom  we 
have  heard  of,  and  of  many  whom  we  do  not  hear  of,  and  who  little 
thought  to  be  so  soon  forgotten  ;  and  if  a  walk  iA  Westminster  Abbey 
could  occupy  the  mind  of  Addison,  I  see  not  why  the  student  may 
not  resort,  for  similar  purposes  of  amusement  and  improvement,  to 
these  brief  chronicles,  these  fleeting  sketches  of  life  and  its  concerns, 
these  striking  images  of  the  transitory  nature  of  every  thing  human. 
Other  considerations  will  occur  to  him :  comparing  these  periodical 
journals  with  our  own,  it  will  appear  to  him,  as  I  conceive,  that  so- 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE.  ,    465 

ciety  was  less  advanced,  but  that  politics  were  then,  as  they  ought  al- 
ways to  be,  a  subject  of  great  interest  to  the  inhabitants  of  these 
kingdoms ;  and  that,  although  the  manners  were  less  refined,  and 
even  less  decent,  (as  evidently  appears  from  the  complexion  of  hu- 
morous pieces,  particularly  those  in  verse,)  still  that  the  great  quali-' 
ties  of  the  English  character  were  such  as  they  have  been  always 
supposed,  and  were  on  the  whole  creditable  to  our  coilntry. 

Notices  of  these  times,  and  of  the  great  characters  by  which  they 
were  distinguished,  may  be  obtained  from  the  works  of  Lord  Chester- 
field. A  character  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  is  very  properly  extracted 
by  Mr.  Coxe  from  the  writings  of  Mr.  Burke,  sketched  with  great 
accuracy  of  outline  and  strength  of  representation. 

The  accusations  against  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  such  as  they  were 
urged  by  his  opponents  in  and  out  of  Parliament,  in  speeches  and 
pamphlets,  were  these :  —  his  fruitless  negotiations,  his  destructive 
treaties,  his  subsidies  with  a  view  only  to  his  Majesty's  foreign  do- 
minions, his  votes  of  credit,  his  misapplication  of  the  sinking  fund, 
his  discountenance  of  all  proper  measures  for  paying  ofi"  the  national 
debt,  his  disinclination  to  prosecute  the  Spanish  war  in  the  West 
Indies  with  the  necessary  vigor,  —  and,  in  a  word,  his  putting  a 
country,  taxed,  burdened,  and  almost  exhausted,  to  all  the  annual 
charges  of  war,  whilst  he  deprived  it  of  the  possibility  of  reaping  any 
of  its  advantages  by  remaining  in  all  the  inaction  of  peace ;  finally, 
that  it  was  during  his  administration,  and  from  the  influence  of  his 
politics,  that  France  became  powerful  and  Austria  declined. 

Such  were  the  accusations  urged  against  Sir  Robert,  and  enforced 
and  adorned  by  the  splendid  talents  of  men  like  Bolingbroke,  Pulte- 
ney,  Shippen,  and  Sir  William  Wyndham.  These  accusations  may 
become  very  properly  subjects  of  your  reflection.  They  are  obviously 
open  to  much  explanation  and  discussion ;  several  of  them  such  as 
a  system  like  Sir  Robert's  was  necessarily  exposed  to,  —  a  system  of 
preventive  and  defensive  politics. 

Lord  Orford  claims  for  his  father,  what  cannot,  I  think,  be  denied 
him,  the  praise  of  sound  judgment,  strong  abihties,  fortitude,  calm- 
ness, patience,  humanity,  an  easy  pleasantry,  sound  patriotism,  and  a 
steady  attachment  to  the  family  on  the  throne.  These  are  very 
great,  or  very  useful,  or  very  agreeable  qualities.  I  see  not  how 
they  are  to  be  refused  to  the  character  of  Sir  Robert.  When  these 
ai^e  considered  in  conjunction  with  the  reasons  that  are  mentioned  by 
Burke  for  the  praise  which  he  so  deliberately  weighs  out  to  him,  the 
observation  of  Mr.  Belsham  may,  I  think,  be  acceded  to :  that  "  a 
man,  upon  the  whole,  better  adapted  to  the  station  which  he  occupied, 
.  or  better  qualified  to  discharge  the  various  and  complicated  duties  of 
it,  could  nowhere  be  found."  — Li  the  Note-book  on  the  table  you 
will  see  a  character  of  Sir  Robert  by  Hume,  which  appears  in  one  of 
the  early  and  now  scarce  editions  of  his  Essays. 


466  LECTURE  XXVI. 

I  have  now  laid  before  you  all  I  have  to  offer  on  those  general  sub- 
jects which  are  connected  with  the  administration  of  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole.  But  there  is  one  to  which  I  have  not  jet  adverted,  and  which 
you  will  find  fully  detailed  in  the  Note-book  on  the  table,  —  the  origin 
and  progress  of  the  dispute  with  Spain.  I  cannot  here  go  into  the 
merits  of  this  question ;  but  nothing  could  be  more  humane  and  rea^ 
sonable  than  the  views  and  feelings  of  Sir  Robert.  I  certainly  wish 
to  attract  your  attention  to  it,  because,  among  the  great  lessons  of 
history,  one  of  the  most  important  is  the  policy,  the  justice,  the  duty, 
of  the  love  of  peace. 

But  what  truth  so  obvious  as  the  desirableness  of  peace  ?  Why 
insist  upon  an  obligation  which  has  only  to  be  understood,  and  admit- 
ted, —  and  which  is  understood  as  soon  as  it  is  proposed  ?  The  fact 
is,  that  the  duty  is  assented  to,  but  not  acted  upon.  It  is  with  the 
doctrines  of  peace  as  with  the  doctrines  of  toleration,  —  men  honor 
them  in  their  words,  not  in  their  conduct ;  and,  with  loud  protes- 
tations of  the  respect  they  bear  them,  are  never  easy  unless  they  are 
violating  them,  never  easy  unless  they  are  gratifying  their  irritable 
passions,  and  subjecting  every  one  around  them,  in  the  one  case,  to 
the  superiority  of  their  theological  knowledge,  and,  in  the  other,  to 
the  terror  of  their  arms. 

This  subject,  therefore,  of  the  dispute  with  Spain,  you  will  do  well 
to  study.  You  may  do  it  with  convenience  in  Coxe  ;  look  also  at  the 
debates.  You  may  in  this  manner  see,  if  you  please,  what  your  an- 
cestors were  on  this  occasion,  and  what  you  yourselves  will  probably 
be  on  all  similar  occasions.  None  of  you  can  think  ever  to  possess 
understandings  more  brilhant  or  more  improved  than  were  those  of 
Pulteney,  Sir  WilUam  Wyndham,  Lord  Chesterfield,  Lord  Carteret ; 
and  it  can  be  only  by  taking  warning  from  their  mistakes  that  you 
can  hope  to  be  more  wise.  I  must  again  repeat  that  I  could  wish  to 
attract  your  attention  to  these  proceedings.  I  could  wish  to  induce 
you  to  draw  general  conclusions  in  favor  of  moderate  counsels,  pacific 
sentiments,  calm  reasonings,  and  dignified  forbearance,  on  all  oc- 
casions of  our  differences  with  foreign  powers,  on  all  occasions 
when  any  such  momentous  interest  as  the  shedding  of  the  blood 
of  man  can  be  at  issue.  I  must  entreat  you  to  observe  how  im- 
possible it  was  for  the  minister.  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  to  state  the 
truth,  and  the  whole  truth,  without  rendering  his  hearers  and  the 
nation  quite  clamorous  and  outrageous,  —  how  impossible  to  state  the 
case  of  Spain.  I  must  entreat  you  to  consider  whether  it  is  not 
always  thus,  —  I  do  not  mean  in  our  own  nation  exclusively,  but  cer- 
tainly in  our  own  very  particularly.  I  must  entreat  you  to  observe 
the  popularity  that  then  belonged  to  all  warlike  sentiments,  —  the 
violent  and  offensive  terms  in  which  the  Spaniards  were  spoken  of  on 
every  occasion ;  and  you  will  then  consider  the  free  nature  of  our 
government,  the  ease  with  which  popular  sentiments  are  circulated, 


SIR   ROBERT  WALPOLE.  467 

and  how  readily,  in  the  progress  of  a  quarrel,  either  of  the  parties, 
though  right  in  the  origin  of  the  dispute,  may  become  wrong  and  at 
last  the  real  aggressor,  from  the  very  insulting  and  overbearing 
manner  in  which  redress  may  be  claimed. 

Certainly,  important  lessons  may  be  drawn  from  these  proceedings 
by  the  inhabitants  of  this  country ;  and  I  must  now  finally  observe,  as 
I  have  before  mentioned,  that  such  lessons,  in  every  free  country  like 
this^  may  be  very  safely  drawn,  for  in  any  such  country  there  is  no 
chance  of  any  improper  tameness  or  pusillanimity.  In  any  such 
country  personal  courage  will  always  be  the  indispensable  requisite 
of  every  man,  and  the  counsels  of  such  a  country  will  always  be  of  a 
warlike,  violent,  and  unjust,  rather  than  of  a  reasonable,  pacific,  and 
equitable  nature.  The  danger  is  always  on  that  side  ;  and  not  only 
the  philanthropist,  but  the  statesman,  in  such  a  country  as  ours,  can 
seldom  be  better  employed  than  in  countenancing  and  propagating, 
by  every  means  in  his  power,  a  love  of  peace,  habits  of  caution, 
patience,  and  good  temper,  habits  of  real  magnanimity;  for  what, 
after  all,  is  magnanimity  but  the  union  of  such  qualities  with  the  fear- 
lessness of  danger  ? 

Having  thus  endeavoured  to  direct  your  thoughts  to  these  transac- 
tions, and  to  wnat  I  conceive  the  proper  inferences  to  be  deduced  from 
them,  I  must  make  one  observation  more.  I  have  hitherto  mentioned 
the  conduct  of  Sir  Robert,  during  the  progress  of  this  dispute  with 
Spain,  only  to  praise  it ;  a  more  painful  task  remains.  I  must  dismiss 
it  with  endeavours  to  hold  it  out  to  you  as  a  proper  subject,  in  one 
respect,  of  your  censure. 

In  the  course  of  these  discussions.  Sir  Robert  had  not  done  the 
Spanish  cause  justice ;  he  had  not  told  his  own  country  the  whole 
truth.  This  I  have  already  observed.  His  excuse  might  be,  and  it 
may  be  admitted,  that  this  was  not  the  way  to  procure  peace,  —  that 
there  was  no  chance  for  peace  but  his  own  continuance  in  power. 
Yet  his  patience,  his  good  temper,  his  reasonableness,  his  exertions, 
great  and  meritorious  as  they  were,  in  the  cabinet  and  in  the  senate, 
were  all  unavailing.  He  found  them  to  be  so.  In  defiance  of  every 
effort  he  could  make,  his  eloquence,  his  influence,  his  management, 
his  sacrifices  of  every  kind,  the  event  turned  out  to  be,  that  the  two 
nations  were  hurried  into  a  war,  and  that  he  had  no  comfort  left  but 
that  of  having  strenuously  labored  to  prevent  so  fatal  a  termination  of 
their  differences. 

There  is  even  more  than  this  to  be  considered.  It  appears  that 
the  king  was  eager  for  the  war ;  that  Sir  Robert  was  countei  acted  by 
the  cabinet,  blamed  by  many  of  his  personal  friends,  reviled  by  the 
nation.  The  question,  therefore,  which  is  asked  by  Coxe  should  be 
asked  by  every  reader,  —  Why  did  he  not  resign  ?  Why  did  he  not 
endeavour  to  make  some  impression  upon  his  countrymen  by  throw- 
ing up  his  emoluments  and  his  honors  ?     This  argument,  at  least, 


468  LECTURE  XXVI. 

the  J  could  not  but  have  felt.  Why  were  not  his  own  honest  fame  as 
a  statesman,  and  his  character  with  posterity,  as  dear  to  him  as  they 
ought  to  have  b(|;n  ?  Why  did  he  not  refuse  his  sanction  to  a  system 
of  conduct  which  he  thought  precipitate,  violent,  and  unreasonable  ? 

It  cannot  be  necessary,  it  cannot  be  proper,  that  a  minister  should 
have  recourse  to  so  strong  a  measure  as  the  resignation  of  his  office 
on  light  grounds  and  at  every  turn.  Others  are  to  have  their  opin- 
ions as  well  as  himself ;  mutual  concessions  and  sacrifices  may  be 
made  by  honorable  men  faithfully  cooperating  in  the  administratit)n 
of  a  government.  But  when  points  of  principle  in  themselves  sacred, 
when  questions  of  importance,  like  the  alternatives  of  peace  and  war, 
are  at  issue,  then,  indeed,  it  is  not  possible  for  a  man  of  intelHgence  or 
spirit  to  proceed  longer  in  his  doubtful  path  amid  the  blended  confines 
cf  right  and  wrong ;  he  must  no  longer  assent  to  what  he  does  not 
approve.  He  can  discharge  no  more  necessary  duty  to  his  country 
than  to  avow  his  opinion  and  act  upon  it.  It  may  be  that  his  opinion 
is  right,  and  a  salutary  effect  may  be  produced.  But,  on  every  sup- 
position, one  good,  at  least,  will  be  attained,  —  he  will  give  an  ex- 
ample of  public  virtue. 

The  path  of  honor  is  always  the  path  of  wisdom ;  and  they  who 
survey  the  situation  of  Sir  Robert  from  the  moment  that  he  suffered 
himself  to  be  persuaded  by  the  king  to  continue  in  office  (for  he  had 
the  merit  of  proffering  his  resignation)  will  see  no  reason  to  call  in 
question  this  great  and  universal  maxim  of  human  conduct.  Sir 
Robert  retained  his  place  but  two  years,  —  his  place  rather  than  his 
power,  —  without  comfort  to  himself  or  advantage  to  his  reputation. 
Life  itself  he  retained  but  a  few  years  longer.  What,  then,  were  his 
gains  in  return  for  the  mortifications  he  endured  ? 

It  is  difficult,  indeed,  for  men  properly  to  engage  in  the  affairs  of 
mankind  without  being  deeply  interested  in  them.  It  is  still  more 
difficult  to  be  thus  interested,  and  at  the  same  time  to  view  them 
from  that  commanding  height,  and  with  those  sentiments  of  philo- 
sophic criticism  with  which  they  will  come  at  length  to  be  surveyed  by 
posterity.  Yet  such  is  the  magnanimity,  such  the  comprehensiveness 
of  judgment,  which  are,  and  which  ought  to  be,  expected  from  the 
rulers  of  mankind  ;  and  it  is,  therefore,  with  no  pleasure  that  we  ob- 
serve the  character  of  Sir -Robert  so  strongly  marked  by  the  great 
fault  of  all  statesmen,  an  inordinate  love  of  power,  —  that  we  observe 
him  clinging  to  office  till  he  was  torn  and  driven  from  it,  and  even  in 
his  fall  casting  on  it  that  longing,  lingering  look  which  was  unbecom- 
ing him  as  a  man  of  spirit,  and  unworthy  of  him  as  a  man  of  virtue. 

It  is  with  no  pleasure  that  we  afterwards  see  him  depressed  and 
uncomfortable,  because,  when  he  was  no  longer  the  minister  of  the 
crown,  no  longer  the  centre  round  which  the  business  of  the  empire 
revolved,  he  necessarily  became  an  individual,  visited,  like  other 
individuals,  only  by  those  who  cherished  him  for  his  amiable  and  social 


SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE.  469 

* 

qualities,  or  who  respected  him  for  his  talents  and  his  virtues.  Every 
attention  appears  to  have  been  paid  to  him  by  those  whose  good 
opinion  he  had  been  accustomed  to  regard ;  and  what,  then,  are  we 
to  think  of  the  account  that  is  given  of  this  celebrated  statesman  in 
the  decHne  and  fall  of  his  power  and  of  his  life  ?  or  rather,  what  in- 
struction can  we  hence  derive  for  ourselves  ? 

If,  indeed,  as  appears  to  have  been  the  case,  his  residence  seemed 
to  him  a  solitude,  — if,  indeed,  he  had  little  taste  for  literary  occupa- 
tions, and  expressed  himself  to  this  effect  to  a  brother  statesman  who 
was  reading  in  his  library,  —  if  he  wished  for  a  resource  that  would 
have  alleviated,  as  he  said,  many  tedious  hours  of  his  retirement,  — 
if,  indeed,  it  was  found  (as  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Coxe)  that  to  him 
who  had  directed  the  helm  of  government  in  England  all  speculative 
opinions  appeared  dull,  —  if  to  him  who  had  drawn  all  his  knowledge 
from  practice  all  theory  appeared  trifling,  —  if  to  him  who  had  long 
been  the  dispenser  of  wealth  and  honors  a  wide  difference  ap- 
peared between  the  expressions  of  those  who  approached  him  from 
motives  of  personal  kindness  and  the  homage  which  had  formerly 
been  paid  him  by  those  who  had  courted  him  from  motives  of  self-in- 
terest, —  if  this  difference  mortified  and  stung  him,  —  if  every  thing, 
as  it  is  said,  seemed  uninteresting  to  a  man  who,  from  the  twenty- 
third  year  of  his  age,  had  been  uniformly  engaged  in  scenes  of  politi- 
cal exertion,  —  if  such  be  indeed  the  portrait  of  the  fallen  statesman, 
as  presented  by  his  biographer,  well  may  it  become  those  of  you  who 
hear  me,  those  who  are  gifted  with  faculties  according  to  the  ordinary 
measure,  and  those  of  you  who  are  intrusted  with  the  yet  higher  priv- 
ileges of  superior  talents,  alike  to  consider  how  inestimable  are  those 
habits  of  literary  occupation  and  of  rational  curiosity  which  are  not 
only  competent,  under  every  change  of  fortune,  to  administer,  even 
to  men  of  common  minds,  the  blessings  of  dignified  activity  and  con- 
tented cheerfulness,  but,  when  they  are  found  united  to  the  possession 
of  great  natural  endowments,  can  accompany  men  in  their  fall,  from 
the  highest  offices  of  the  state  to  the  obscurest  depths  of  their  retire- 
ment, and  transfer  a  man  like  Bacon,  though  ruined  and  disgraced, 
from  the  cabinet  of  a  prince  to  that  high  eminence  and  vantage-ground 
of  philosophy  and  truth  where  kings  from  their  humbler  thrones  might 
gaze  upon  him  with  reverence. 

I  must  even  venture  to  urge  reflections  of  this  nature  still  farther ; 
and  without  meaning  for  a  moment  to  intrude  upon  the  more  sacred 
privacies  of  the  character  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  I  cannot  but  take 
occasion  from  the  facts,  as  they  appear,  to  request  you  to  consider 
how  constantly  exposed  to  concussions  and  to  overthrow  will  assuredly 
be  the  happiness  of  every  man  who  directs  his  thoughts  too  exeliir 
sively  to  the  objects  of  ambition,  —  who,  amid  the  business  of  man- 
kind, may  have  habituated  himself  too  much  to  disregard  that  still 
more  important  concern  which  yet  awaits  him,  and,  amid  the  interests 


470  LECTURE  XXVII. 

* 

and  anxieties  of  those  who  crowd  around  him  for  his  patronage,  has 
suffered  himself  to  be  hurried  away  and  occupied  till  he  becomes  but 
too  insensible  of  that  yet  more  important  connection  which  he  is  per- 
mitted to  hold,  not  only  with  his  fellow-creatures  in  this  world,  but 
with  the  Creator  of  the  Universe  himself,  and  which,  when  those 
crowds  retire  and  his  power  is  no  more,  when  the  more  noisy  and  im- 
petuous calls  of  duty  are  hushed,  when  the  claims  of  mankind  seem 
to  part  away  from  him  on  every  side,  will  open  at  once  to  him  an  ob- 
ject of  never-ceasing  and  even  far  superior  anxiety  and  care,  and 
leave  him  to  the  more  exclusive  and  undisturbed  enjoyment  of  that 
silent  piety  which  should  never  have  been  banished  from  the  medita- 
tions of  his  heart,  and  which,  whether  in  health  or  in  sickness,  in  his 
elevation  or  in  his  fall,  will  best  explain  to  him  the  merits  of  his  active 
life  and  the  meaning  of  his  earthly  grandeur. 


LECTUEE    XXVII. 
1810. 

LAW.  —  MISSISSIPPI  SCHEME.  —  SOUTH-SEA  BUBBLE,  etc. 

DuiimG  the  period  which  we  have  been  lately  considering,  a  re- 
markable connection  of  amity  and  good  offices  took  place  between  the 
two  rival  countries  of  England  and  France. 

On  the  death  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  the  Duke  of  Orl(3ans  be- 
came, or  rather  made  himself,  regent ;  the  Duke  of  Bourbon  suc- 
ceeded ;  then  came  Cardinal  Fleury.  It  is  the  era  which  comprehends 
the  administration  of  the  three  that  must  engage  our  attention. 

The  writers  that  we  must  read  or  consult  are  th6  following :  the 
Memoirs  of  the  Due  de  St.  Simon ;  the  concluding  volume  of  An- 
quetil's  "  Louis  XIY.,  sa  Cour,  et  le  Rdgent" ;  Memoirs  of  Duclos  ; 
L'Histoire  of  Lacretelle.  All  these  works  may  be  read  with  ease  and 
advantage  ;  but  any  one  of  them  may  be  sufficient  for  the  era  which 
H  embraces.  The  topics  are  in  all  the  same.  St.  Simon  is  the 
groundwork  of  all  the  rest,  and  Duclos's  book  is  in  its  manner  the 
most  agreeable,  and  the  most  generally  read:  but  the  truth  is,  that 
the  whole,  in  whatever  author  read,  presents  to  the  view  Jittle  to  oc- 
cupy the  philosophical  reader  of  history.  We  have  the  intrigues  of 
ministers  and  courtiers  at  home  and  abroad ;  a  scene  displayed  lively 


THE  REGENT,  DUKE  OF  ORLEANS.       4Til 

and  striking,  and  even  necessary  to  the  comprehension  of  the  history 
of  Europe  at  that  time.  But  we  have  no  alterations  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  France,  and,  indeed,  little  concern  expressed  on  the  subject. 
Even  in  those  instances  which  are  fitted  to  convey  instruction  to  a 
statesman,  the  historians  may  be  said  to  desert  us :  they  write  me- 
moirs ;  they  please  and  entertain  us ;  but  are  either  unable  or  unwil- 
ling to  do  more  ;  and  they  enter  into  no  minuteness  of  explanation,  or 
criticism,  on  subjects  that  to  posterity  must  surely  appear  of  far  more 
importance  than  those  which  they  discuss. 

Our  own  Charles  the  Second  is  made  to  revive  in  our  memory  in 
the  person  of  the  regent,  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  and  Clarendon  in  the 
virtuous  and  faithful  St.  Simon ;  but  the  regent  is  more  outrageously 
debauched  than  Charles,  and  St.  Simon,  brought  up  in  an  arbitrary 
court,  cannot  have  the  views  and  feelings  of  Clarendon. 

It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  the  ill  success  of  St.  Simon,  in 
his  very  laudable  efforts  to  reform  his  master,  is  well  fitted,  in  a 
moral  point  of  view,  to  offer  edifying  lessons,  if  any  were  wanting,  of 
the  danger  of  self-indulgence,  the  fascination  of  bad  habits,  and, 
whatever  we  may  think  of  the  celebrated  doctrines  of  free-will  and 
necessity,  of  the  impossibiHty  which  every  man  will  find  of  altering 
his  character  at  his  pleasure  ;  that  is,  the  absurdity,  in  the  first  place, 
of  indulging  himself  in  courses  of  folly  and  vice,  and  of  then  suppos- 
ing, that,  whenever  he  thinks  proper,  he  may  begin  to  be  virtuous 
and  wise. 

gv  Yery  different  was  the  fate  of  the  regent.  Favored  by  nature  with 
superior  gifts  of  fancy  and  of  understanding,  with  no  malignity  in  his 
disposition,  and  well  calculated  to  receive  the  love  and  approbation 
of  mankind,  it  was  in  vain  that  he  often  resolved  to  make  some 
reasonable  efforts  to  deserve  both,  —  to  exercise  some  self-control,  — 
in  a  word,  to  be  virtuous.  He  was  bound  down  to  the  earth  by  the 
chains  of  his  long  established  associations,  —  that  is,  in  common  lan- 
guage, by  his  bad  habits.  Dubois  and  his  mistresses  always  prevail- 
ed over  his  better  reason ;  and  the  kind  and  honorable  counsels  of  St. 
Simon  were  sounds  that  were  no  sooner  heard  than  they  were  swept 
away  from  the  sense,  or  rather  were  never  properly  heard  at  all,  amid 
the  unholy  revelry  of  his  impieties  and  abominations.  He  died  im- 
maturely,  of  an  apoplectic  fit ;  for  at  last  he  could  not  exercise  self- 
control  sufficient  even  to  take  proper  steps  for  the  security  of  his 
own  life,  and  his  favorite  medical  attendant,  Chirac,  remonstrated 
with  him,  on  this  occasion,  as  vainly  as  had  done  before  his  'virtuous 
counsellor,  St.  Simon. 

"  The  most  amiable  of  men  in  society,"  says  one  of  the  historians ; 
"  full  of  genius,  talents,  courage,  and  humanity,  but  the  worst  of 
princes ;  that  is,  the  most  unfit  to  govern."  This  is,  however,  too 
%vorable  a  portrait  of  the  regent ;  one  more  minute  and  exact  is 
given  by  Lacre telle,  and  that  with  great  force  and  beauty  of  color 
ing. 


472  LECTURE  XXVII. 

This  is  the  prince  to  whom  Pope  alludes,  — 

"  A  godless  regent  tremble  at  a  star." 

He  was  one  of  those  licentious  men  who,  as  sometimes  happens,  bo- ' 
lieve  nothing  but  what  no  one  else  believes,  —  for  instance,  astrology 
and  magic  ;  and  St.  Simon  mentions  a  recital  given  him  by  the  re- 
gent, of  some  images  shown  him  in  a  mirror  descriptive  of  future 
events,  which  I  cannot  but  confess  are  quite  inexplicable.  St.  Simon 
had  nothing  to  say,  but  to  request  him  not  to  have  any  more  com- 
munication with  the  powers  of  darkness. 

On  the  subject  of  the  Parliaments  you  must  consult  Duclos.  It  is 
an  important  subject,  but  one  that,  if  you  endeavour  regularly  to 
study  it,  you  will  find  intolerably  tedious,  and  at  last  but  unsatisfactory. 
This  resistance  of  the  ParHaments  at  last  grew  to  be  formidable  to 
the  monarch,  and  at  length  ended  in  the  late  tremendous  Revolution. 
The  word  Parliament  must,  therefore,  be  a  most  interesting  word, 
whenever  we  can  observe  it  in  the  memoirs  or  histories  of  France. 

But  the  student,  while  adverting  to  the  history  of  France,  will  at 
length  be  conducted  to  the  financial  schemes  of  the  celebrated  John 
Law  ;  and  the  appearance  which  this  speculator  and  his  projects  make 
is  well  calculated  to  awaken  our  curiosity.  Some  of  the  particulars 
mentioned  are  of  a  ludicrous,  others  of  a  grave  nature ;  but  they  all 
indicate,  and  even  if  they  were,  some  of  them,  exaggerated,  the  very 
existence  of  them,  as  anecdotes  belonging  to  the  times,  would  still 
indicate,  a  state  of  the  public  mind  and  of  the  country  very  highly 
deserving  of  our  attention.     I  will  mention  some  of  them. 

Law,  from  an  obscure  individual  and  a  foreigner,  had  become  the 
first  man  of  consequence  in  such  a  kingdom  as  France.  Voltaire 
says,  that  he  saw  him  going  through  the  gallery  of  the  Palais  Royal, 
followed  by  the  first  clergy  and  nobility  of  France,  who  were  payiri^^ 
their  court  to  him,  —  dukes  and  peers,  marshals  and  bishops.  Again, 
it  was  about  Law  that  the  English  ambassador.  Lord  Stair,  differed 
with  his  own  court ;  and  the  result  was  Lord  Stair's  recall.  Of  a 
less  grave  nature  are  anecdotes  of  the  following  kind :  —  that  a 
woman  of  fashion  contrived  to  have  her  carriage  overturned,  to  take 
the  chance  of  his  running  to  her  assistance,  and  affording  her  an  op- 
portunity of  thus  becoming  acquainted  with  him  ;  —  that  another 
lady,  finding  all  regular  expedients  vain,  went  with  her  chariot  and 
servants,  and  set  up  a  cry  of  fire  near  the  house  where  he  was  din- 
ing. Again,  such  was  the  ferment  and  such  the  fury  of  speculation 
excited  in  Paris,  that  a  poor  man  wlio  had  a  hump-back  made  a  liveli- 
hood by  standing  in  the  place  where  the  bargains  were  made,  and 
converting  his  infirmity  into  a  sort  of  writing-desk.  Anecdotes  like 
these  may  be  thought  only  entertaining ;  but  in  another  stage  of 
Law's  financial  system,  three  men  were,  in  the  confusion  and  pres- 
sure of  the  crowd,  actually  killed. 


LAW.  473 

Soon  after  tlie  whole  scheme  had  fallen  into  ruin,  it  happened  that 
a  conflagration  had  destroyed  half  the  town  of  Rennes,  and  that  Mar- 
seilles and  part  of  Provence  were  visited  bj  the  plague.  When  the 
bishops  of  the  different  dioceses  of  France  were  exhorted  by  a  circu- 
lar letter  from  the  regent  to  make  efforts  for  the  assistance  of  the 
sufferers,  the  Bishop  of  Castres  rephed,  —  "that  all  the  efforts  he 
could  make  had  only  produced  one  hundred  pistoles  in  money,  and 
five  thousand  livres  in  paper ;  that  the  inundation  of  this  last  sort  of 
currency  had  done  more  mischief  in  his  district  than  all  the  flames 
could  have  done  in  Bretagne  ;  that  it  was  of  no  consequence  that  the 
houses  were  not  reduced  to  ashes,  if  there  remained  nothing  of  all  that 
was  necessary  to  their  existence  but  what  was  fit  only  to  be  thrown 
into  the  fire.  What  revolution,"  continues  the  bishop,  "  has  not  been 
pr6duced  in  six  months  by  this  paper  money,  in  fortunes  that  ap- 
peared the  best  estabhshed  !  It  is  impossible  to  comprehend  without 
seeing,  or  to  see  without  the  most  lively  sorrow,  the  effects  that  have 
taken  place.  There  is  an  end  with  us  to  all  commerce  and  labor,  and 
confidence  and  industry ;  even  friendship  and  charity  are  no  more. 
These  are  not  exaggerations,"  &c.,  &c. 

Particulars  like  these  are  surely  curious,  when  they  appear  on  the 
face  of  history  as  the  result  of  the  philosophic  speculations  of  an  in- 
dividual like  Law,^ —  one  who  had  left  his  own  country  in  search  of  a 
better,  and  was  then  brought  forward  to  attempt  his  experiments  in 
one  of  the  first  kingdoms  in  Europe.  But  all  who  hear  me  must  be 
very  conscious  that  finances,  and  paper  money,  and  stockjobbing  are 
sounds  not  unknown  to  ourselves ;  and  it  is  very  possible,  that,  if  one 
of  the  purposes  of  history  be  instruction,  these  transactions  may  afford 
us  some  lessons  not  without  their  importance.  We  may  consider  our- 
selves, as  a  nation,  very  intelligent  and  experienced,  but  it  must  be 
noted  that  the  regent  who  adopted  the  schemes  of  Law  was  a  man  of 
very  brilliant  talents.  Law  was,  certainly,  a  person  of  no  ordinary 
cast;  and  it  does  not  necessarily  follow,  from  the  failure  of  his 
schemes,  that  he  meant  originally  to  deceive.  The  French  people 
are  inferior  to  none  in  quickness  and  sagacity ;  yet  was  there  pro- 
duced, on  this  occasion,  in  France,  what  Smith  declares  to  be  "  the 
most  extravagant  project,  both  of  banking  and  stockjobbing,  that  per- 
haps the  world  ever  saw"  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the  most  serious  and 
extensive  confusion  and  distress  were  the  consequence. 

Having  made  these  observations  with  a  hope  of  recommending 
these  transactions  to  your  attention,  I  now  proceed  to  consider  what 
means  can  be  found  for  gratifying  any  curiosity  which  you  may  hap- 
pen to  entertain  on  the  subject. 

I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  confess  to  you  some  disappointments 
with  respect  to  this  point.  I  have  not  found  it  possible  to  compre- 
hend what  was  the  exact  theory  of  Law,  in  his  banking  and  Missis- 
sippi schemes,  from  anv  of  the  historical  writers  of  France.     This 

60''  NN* 


474  LECTURE  XXVIl. 

projector  and  his  projects  are  both  mentioned  bj  Voltaire,  who  lived 
at  the  time ;  but  he  gives  no  detail,  and  attempts  no  philosophic 
analysis,  either  of  the  system  or  its  success.  If  we  turn  to  the  Me- 
moirs of  St.  Simon,  a  contemporary  also,  he  gives  no  assistance  what- 
ever. Duclos,  in  like  manner,  affords  no  proper  information ;  nor 
does  even  Lacretelle,  though  he  has  a  chapter  dedicated  to  the  sub- 
ject ;  nor  do  the  writers  of  the  French  Encyclopaedia.  Adam  Smith, 
unfortunately,  gives  no  account  of  it,  because,  says  he,  "  the  different 
operations  of  this  scheme  are  explained  so  fully,  so  clearly,  and  with 
so  much  order  and  distinctness,  by  Mr.  Du  Verney,  in  his  Examina- 
tion of  the  Political  Reflections  upon  Commerce  and  Finances  of 
Mr;  Dutot,"  —  a  work  which  I  have  never  been  able  to  procure. 

But  we  have  another  treatise,  in  our  own  language,  on  political 
economy,,  which,  though  eclipsed  by  the  more  enlightened  and  pro- 
found work  of  Smith,  is  still  a  work  in  many  respects  deser^g  of  at- 
tention ;  it  is  particularly  so  on  the  present  occasion ;  I  allude  to  the 
book  of  Steuart,  —  Steuart's  Political  Economy.  Steuart  gives  a 
regular  account  of  the  system  of  Law ;  and  as  the  whole  is  concise, 
and  yet,  as  I  conceive,  satisfactory,  I  not  only  recommend  it  to  your 
study,  but  it  is  upon  this  book,  I  confess,  that  I  depend  for  furnishing 
you  with  proper  knowledge  on  the  subject. 

Law  was  a  man  of  a  contriving,  speculating  mind,  one  who  had  his 
fortune  to  make,  and  who,  after  in  vain  proposing  his  financial 
schemes  to  his  own  country,  Scotland,  and  to  other  countries,  at  last 
settled  in  France,  and  succeeded  in  getting  a  bank  established  in 
Paris  by  the  regent's  authority,  in  May,  1716. 

This  bank  seems  to  have  been  founded  on  the  common  principles, 
—  circulating  notes,  and  cash  reserved  to  pay  them,  when  occasion- 
ally presented.  As  he  was  a  man  of  great  address,  with  a  fine  per- 
son, and  every  attractive  quality,  both  himself  and  his  bank  seem  to 
have  prospered  most  completely.  No  common  success,  however, 
could  satisfy  him ;  his  ambition  was  unbounded.  Unfortunately,  too, 
he  thought  himself  possessed  of  a  secret  for  making  a  kingdom  rich ; 
and  his  dreams  of  personal  aggrandizement  were  probably,  therefore, 
of  the  most  unlimited  extent  and  splendor.  His  secret  was  this :  — 
he  held,  that,  by  increasing  the  circulating  medium  of  a  country, 
you  increased  its  prosperity,  and  that  therefore  you  were  to  supersede 
the  use  of  the  precious  metals,  and  issue  paper  money  to  any  requisite 
extent. 

Now  it  happened  at  the  time,  that  the  finances  of  France  were  in 
a  most  deplorable  state  of  embarrassment ;  and  it  happened  also, 
that  the  regent  was  a  man  of  very  quick  talents,  and  alike  fitted  tc 
comprehend  and  to  be  seduced  by  the  reasonings  and  promises  of 
any  new  and  extraordinary  system :  Law  and  he  were  therefore  made 
for  each  other.  The  finances  were  low,  and  Law  had  riches  to  be- 
stow ;  this  was  all  the  regent  wanted..    Law  was  an  insignificant  in- 


MISSISSIPPI  SCHEME.  475 

dividual,  and  the  regent  could  furnish  him  with  all  the  authority  of 
government ;  this  was  all  that  Law  wanted.  Their  operations  were 
therefor^  soon  begun. 

In  the  first  place,  to  Law's  private  bank  was  united,  in  September, 
1717,  a  great  commercial  company,  —  the  Mississippi  Company, 
which  was  formed  by  subscriptions  in  the  usual  manner.  And  in  the 
second  place,  on  the  first  of  January,  1719,  Law's  private  bank, 
which  had  now  flourished  for  three  years,  was  converted  into  a  royal 
bank. 

But  it  will  naturally  be  asked.  What  were  the  foundations  of  this 
new  royal  bank,  and  what  of  thi^  Mississippi  Company  ?  What  were 
the  funds,  and  what  was  the  security  ? 

With  respect  to  the  new  royal  bank,  its  notes  were  always  payable 
in  money.  The  security  must  have  been  Law's  personal  security  and 
the  faith  of  the  regent.  And  it  was  the  great  art  and  anxiety  of  this 
projector  to  make  his  bank-notes  preferable  to  the  coin  of  the  country ; 
so  that,  though  coin  might  be  legally  demanded  from  him,  in  point  of 
fact  it  never  would  be  demanded  from  him.  In  this  he  greatly  suc5- 
ceeded  for  a  considerable  time. 

With  respect  to  the  Mississippi  Company,  they  were  to  have  an 
exclusive  trade  to  Louisiana;  they  were  to  have  the  farming  of  the 
taxes,  and  other  privileges,  and  therefore  there  appeared  ample  in- 
come for  their  dividends  ;  and  the  profits  of  their  trade  might  be  con- 
sidered as  indefinite. 

It  was  settled,  that  the  shares  of  the  company  could  be  purchased 
only  by  bank-paper,  not  by  coin.  The  more,  therefore,  the  shares 
were  wanted,  the  more  were  the  bank-notes  called  for  to  purchase 
them.  Law  and  the  regent  had  the  fabrication  of  both,  —  of  the 
shares  and  of  the  bank-notes.  Shares,  therefore,  were  created,  and 
notes  were  issued,  to  answer  the  demand  of  the  public. 

Every  man  seems  to  have  supposed  that  the  profits  of  Law's  com- 
pany were  to  be  indefinite ;  all  eyes  were  fixed,  it  must  be  supposed, 
upon  Louisiana,  and  the  revenue  to  be  derived  from  farming  the  taxes 
and  other  privileges,  resulting  from  his  connection  with  the  regent.  It 
seems  scarcely  credible,  but  the  fact  was,  that  such  was  the  rage  for 
buying  and  selling  shares,  and  for  gambling  in  these  concerns,  that 
the  counting  and  recounting  of  hard  money  would  have  been  a  process 
too  tedious  and  slow ;  and  even  this  circumstance  gave  a  preference 
to  the  paper  money,  —  to  the  bank-notes.  The  hopes  and  fears  of 
the  individuals  concerned,  and  the  various  modes  of  managing  the 
company's  shares  and  the  notes  of  the  bank  by  Law,  gave  occasion 
to  all  that  stockjobbing,  and  those  strange  occurrences,  some  of  which 
I  have  alluded  to,  and  which  have  been  transmitted  to  us  even  in  the 
records  of  history. 

The  system  flourished  while  the  public  thought  of  nothing  but  of 
procuring  the  bank-notes  with  which  to  buy  the  shares.     While  this 


476  LECTURE  XXVII. 

was  the  case,  Law  could  answer  occasional  demands  on  his  bank  in 
gold  and  silver,  and  the  shares  of  the  company  kept  continually 
rising. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  through  the  whole  of  the  year  1719, 
till  the  end  of  November.  But  in  the  course  of  the  preceding  month 
of  August,  Law  had  promised  a  very  large  dividend  on  the  shares  of 
the  Mississippi  Company ;  he  then  increased  the  number  of  shares  to 
an  excessive  degree.  He  also  issued  the  bank-notes  profusely ;  and 
continued  to  do  so,  till,  before  the  end  of  May  in  the  next  year,  1720, 
he  had,  in  fact,  increased  this  issue  to  a  most  preposterous  extent. 

For  some  time  it  had  been  suspected  by  many,  that  the  profits  of 
the  company  could  not  be  such  as  the  holders  of  the  shares  had  ex- 
pected ;  that,  therefore,  there  was  no  real  foundation  for  the  edifice 
that  had  been  erected :  the  circulation,  too,  was  overloaded  by  the 
paper  issue.  Early,  therefore,  in  the  year  1720,  the  whole  system 
evidently  tottered.  From  the  first,  the  Parliament  of  Paris  had  con- 
stantly resisted  Law,  and  all  his  schemes  and  operations.  For  some 
time  it  had  been  necessary  to  make  use  of  the  assistance  of  govern- 
ment forcibly  to  support  his  projects ;  and  at  last  a  false  step  that  wa3 
made  on  the  21st  of  May,  1720,  produced  a  run  upon  the  bank,  and, 
as  he  could  not  find  gold  and  silver  to  pay  his  bank-notes,  the  whole 
system  fell  at  once  into  disgrace  and  ruin. 

It  may  be  said,  therefore,  to  have  flourished  from  January,  1719, 
to  the  month  of  December  ;  during  that  month,  and  the  fir§t  months 
of  1720,  to  have  declined  ;  and  to  have  expired  at  the  end  of  May, 
1720.    . 

Such  is  the  general  description  that  may  be  offered  of  these  trans- 
actions. 

We  may  now,  perhaps,  enter  a  little  into  some  particulars. 
Some  questions  occur.  What  could  be  the  design  of  the  regent,  a 
very  able  man,  in  adopting  this  scheme  ?  What  were  his  ends  ? 
What  did  he  suppose  his  means  ? 

To  these  questions,  the  answer,  according  to  Steuart,  seems  to  ba 
this  :  —  The  state  was  indebted  two  thousand  millions  of  livres  capi- 
tal, at  an  interest  of  four  per  cent.  His  wish,  therefore,  was,  to  take 
advantage  of  the  disposition  the  public  were  in  to  buy  the  shares  of 
Law's  trading  company ;  to  transfer  the  debts  of  the  state  from  him- 
self (the  regent)  to  that  company ;  to  become  himself  a  debtor  to 
Law's  company,  and  not  to  the  public ;  to  pay  the  company  a  smaller 
interest  than  he  did  the  public  creditors,  and  by  this  difference  to  re- 
lieve the  state. 

But  the  operation  by  which  all  this  was  to  be  effected  was  sadly 
circuitous  ;  so  it  will  appear  to  you,  and  scarcely  intelligible.  It  was 
this :  —  The  regent  was,  in  the  first  place,  to  coin  bank-notes  at  his 
royal  bank,  and  with  these  was  to  buy  the  shares  of  the  company ;  in 
this  manner  to  keep  up  the  price  of  those  shares :  the  company  were 


MISSISSIPPI  SCHEME.  -  477 

then  to  lend  him  the  bank-notes  they  had  thus  received,  at  a  low  in^ 
terest ;  with  these  bank-notes  he  was  to  pay  off  the  state  creditors. 
After  this  process,  he  remained,  it  is  true,  with  the  shares  in  hia 
hand ;  but  these  shares  he  was  to  sell  to  the  public,  and  get  rid  of 
them :  from  the  pubhc  he  was  to  receive  bank-notes  once  more,  and, 
as  these  were  the  notes  of  his  own  bank,  these  he  was  to  burn.  And 
the  result  of  the  whole  would  then  have  been,  that  the  public  cred- 
itor would  have  stood  with  one  of  the  company's  shares  in  his  hand, 
instead  of  one  of  his  former  claims  on  the  state ;  and  would  have 
been  left  to  find  his  interest,  no  longer  from  the  regent,  but  from  the 
dividends  of  the  company.  The  regent,  or  the  state,  would  in  the 
mean  time  have  remained  debtors  to  the  bank  for  the  notes  which  the 
bank  had  lent,  but  would  have  had  less  interest  to  pay  than  before,  — 
to  say  nothing  of  the  gain  which  might  have  been  made  by  a  lucky 
sale  of  the  shares ;  and  these  were  the  advantages  which  the  regent, 
it  is  probable,  expected. 

The  shares  were  therefore  raised,  in  round  numbers,  during  the 
early  parts  of  the  year  1719,  from  two  hundred  thousand  to  six  hun- 
dred and  twenty-four  thousand.  The  bank-notes  were  coined  during 
the  whole  of  the  year  1719,  and  more  particularly  during  the  earher 
parts  of  1720,  till  they  mounted  up  from  fifty-nine  millions  to  nearly 
two  thousand  seven  hundred  millions  of  livres ;  and  when  the  whole 
system  failed,  at  the  end  of  May,  the  regent  was  found  holding  four 
hundred  thousand  of  the  six  hundred  thousand  Mississippi  shares,  and 
the  pubhc  were  in  possession  of  (that  is,  there  had  been  paid  away) 
twenty-two  hundred  millions  of  the  twenty-six  hundred  milhons  of 
bank-notes. 

The  whole  scheme,  therefore,  failed ;  for  the  regent  was  answerable 
for  these  twenty-two  hundred  millions  of  bank-notes  that  were  out, 
just  as  he  had  been  before  for  the  billets  or  debts  of  the  state  ;  and 
he  had  four  hundred  thousand  shares  in  his  hands,  which  he  had  not 
been  able  to  dispose  of.  He  could  not  get  a  sufficient  number  of  the 
bank-notes  back ;  he  could  not  transfer  the  pubhc  debt  from  himself 
to  the  company,  as  he  had  hoped  to  do.  In  the  event,  therefore, 
after  the  run  on  the  bank,  and  in  the  course  of  the  remainder  of  the 
year  1720,  he  gave  up  the  whole  scheme  ;  settled  his  accounts  with 
the  company  by  burning  their  shares,  or  their  debt  to  him,  and  anni- 
hilating part  of  his  own  debt  to  them ;  and  he  returned  to  the  old 
system  of  providing  funds  for  paying  the  interest  of  the  bank-bills  out- 
standing, which  were  no  longer  to  be  negotiable,  and  to  be  destroyed 
at  the  end  of  the  year.  The  result  of  the  whole  arrangement  was, 
that  he  had  to  pay  fifty-three  millions  for  interest  on  the  national 
debts,  instead  of  eighty  milhons  per  annum,  as  he  had  before  done ;  so 
that  a  certain  advantage  was  gained ;  but  himself  and  his  adminis- 
tration were  covered  with  disgrace,  and  his  great  agent  and  adviser, 
Law,  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life. 


478  LECTURE  XXVII. 

Now,  though  these  were  the  facts,  and  though  such  were  the  m 
tentlons  of  the  regent  and  the  meaning  of  the  scheme,  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  regent,  as  has  been  sometimes  thought,  or  even  Law 
himself,  meant  to  defraud  the  public.  The  regent  must  have  con- 
ceived that  he  had  furnished  the  company  with  a  large  revenue :  first, 
by  the  interest  which  he  was  to  pay  them  for  their  loan  of  bank-notes ; 
secondly,  by  the  exclusive  advantages  of  trade,  and,  thirdly,  by 
the  advantages  of  farming  the  taxes,  which  he  had  allowed  them.  In 
this  manner  they  appeared  furnished  with  an  income  perfectly  ade- 
quate to  discharge  the  dividends  on  their  shares.  He  and  Law  might 
both  have  persuaded  themselves,  that,  by  the  paper  system  which 
they  had  introduced,  they  had  so  increased  the  wealth  of  the  state, 
that  the  interest  of  money  would  and  ought  to  fall,  —  and  that  he, 
therefore,  as  a  debtor  to  the  public,  might,  without  injustice  to  the 
public,  pay  less  interest  than  before.  The  only  question  is,  whether 
improper  arts  and  dishonest  practices  were  used  to  raise  the  value  of 
the  shares,  for  on  their  sale  all  depended. 

There  is  one  fact  extremely  suspicious.  In  the  middle  of  the  year 
1719,  the  year  of  the  system,  the  company  promised  a  dividend  far 
disproportioned  to  any  rational  expectations  that  could  be  formed  of 
their  means.  Why  they  did  so  has  never  been  properly  explained ; 
and  the  company  must  be  left  with  the  imputation  of,  at  least,  most 
unpardonable  delusion,  if  not  of  direct  dishonesty.  It  was  at  this 
moment,  it  may  be  remarked,  that  the  financial  scheme  we  have  men- 
tioned from  Steuart  appears  to  have  been  brought  into  action.  In 
August,  the  company  obtained  the  general  farming  of  the  taxes  from 
the  regent ;  and  while  they  promised  this  extraordinary  dividend  on 
their  shares,  they  agreed  to  lend  the  regent  one  thousand  six  hun- 
dred millions  at  three  per  cent.  Three  hundred  thousand  shares  were 
created  in  the  next  two  months  of  September  and  October  ;  and  in 
December,  1719,  and  the  first  five  months  of  1720,  two  thousand  mil- 
lions of  bank-notes  were  created  ;  but  in  the  last  of  these  five  months, 
in  May,  the  bank  stopped.  All  these  facts  connected  seem  to  be  best 
accounted  for  by  the  explanation  of  Steuart.  The  dividend  was  prom- 
ised, which  raised  the  value  of  the  shares ;  a  large  number  of  shares 
were  created  to  be  purchased ;  and  again,  a  large  number  of  bank- 
notes were  struck  off  and  paid  away  to  the  public  creditor,  who  was 
thus  furnished  with  the  means  of  buying  the  shares.  All  this  runs 
smooth ;  but  the  question  is,  upon  what  grounds  this  large  dividend 
was  promised,  —  a  question,  it  is  to  be  feared,  which  neither  Law 
nor  the  regent  could  have  properly  answered. 

Lastly,  with  respect  to  the  failure  of  the  system.  3teuart  thinks 
that  this  failure  was  owing  to  the  order  given  on  May  the  21st,  that 
the  bank-bill  should  go  for  only  half  its  numerical  value.  He  con- 
siders the  credit  of  the  bank  as  good,  all  through  the  months  of  Janu- 
ary, 1720,  February,  &c.,  down  to  May.     "  The  French  nation,"  ho 


MISSISSIPPI  SCHEME.         '  479 

says,  "  had  been  accustomed  to  diminutions  in  the  value  of  the  coin ; 
by  these  they  neither  were  nor  could  have  been  alarmed ;  indeed, 
such  depreciations  of  the  coin  had  been  always  urged  by  Law  and 
the  adherents  to  his  system,  as  arguments  to  show  the  superiority  of 
paper.  When,  however,  it  was  pubhcly  declared  that  the  paper 
money  should  be  subject  to  diminutions  too,  contrary  to  the  original 
terms  of  the  bill,  and  the  engagement  with  the  public,  —  and  when 
it  was  thus  seen  that  the  paper,  which  had  no  value  in  itself,  could 
not  even  boast  of  the  value  to  be  derived  from  good  faith,  that  is,  was 
in  fact  left  without  any  value  at  all,  the  consequence  was  sure  to  be 
what  immediately  took  place,  that  the  public  would  rush  forward  to 
get  for  it  any  value  that  could  be  found  in  silver  or  gold." 

All  this  must,  indeed,  be  allowed.  Tl^^  failure  of  the  system  was 
an  inevitable  consequence  of  such  an  edict  as  that  of  May.  The 
qi^pstion,  however,  that  remains  behind  is.  What  could  tempt  or  force 
the  regent  and  Law  to  issue  such  an  edict  ?  This  must,  I  think,  be 
accounted  for,  not  by  saying  with  Steuart,  that  it  was  a  mere  blunder, 
for  it  was  an  impossible  blunder ;  but  by  saying  that  it  was  an  expe- 
dient which  they  had  recourse  to  (a  vain  expedient,  no  doubt),  for 
enabling  their  bank  to  struggle  through  the  difficulties  which  are  al- 
ways the  consequence  of  an  over-issue  of  paper. 

Law  certainly  had  an  idea  that  paper  was  fitter  than  the  precious 
metals  to  become  the  money  of  a  state ;  and  he  had  even  thought 
that  money,  that  is,  in  this  instance,  that  paper,  was  wealth  to  a 
country,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  wealthy  —  that  is,  was  in- 
dustry, trade,  production,  prosperity,  in  every  meaning  of  these 
terms,  because  he  thought  it  caused  them.  With  these  ideas  he 
might  have  filled  the  imagination,  if  not  betrayed  the  understanding, 
of  the  regent ;  and  both  might  have  thought,  that,  in  a  country  hke 
France,  a  proper  exercise  of  the  authority  of  the  state  would  carry 
them  through  all  difficulties,  till,  at  length,  all  the  common  prejudices 
on  this  subject  of  money  being  removed,  the  new  medium  might  have 
its  full  circulation  and  influence,  and  the  system  be  left,  without  any 
further  interference  of  government,  to  stand  on  its  own  merits.  The 
paper  was  therefore  issued  without  fear,  to  an  enormous  extent. 

But,  in  the  mean  time,  the  real  nature  of  things  could  not  be  alter- 
ed. It  was  not  possible  that  the  shares  of  the  company  should  ad- 
vance so  high,  and  the  public  not  begin  to  perceive  that  they  had 
advanced  beyond  their  value ;  it  was  not  possible  that  the  paper 
money  should  be  so  increased  in  quantity,  and  the  numerical  prices 
of  things  not  increase  also,  and  that  foreigners  should  not  therefore 
bring  their  goods,  receive  for  them  paper,  turn  the  paper  into  cash, 
and  then  carry  the  cash  out  of  the  kingdom ;  it  was  not  possible  that 
the  disappearance  of  the  coin  should  not  create  alarm,  notwithstand- 
ing the  edicts  of  the  regent,  and  the  letters  and  reasonings  of  Law ; 
it  was  not  possible  that  all  annuitants  should  not  find  their  stipulated 


480  LECTURE  XXVH. 

incomes  less  valuable,  as  the  medium  they  were  paid  In  became  less 
valuable,  that  is,  was  more  multiplied ;  it  was  not  possible  that  the 
small  part  of  every  society,  which  may  be  called  the  sober  reasoning 
part,  should  not  be  much  struck  with  the  sudden  fortunes,  the  rest- 
less speculations,  the  extravagant  enthusiasm,  the  violent  agitation, 
that  everywhere  prevailed,  —  that  they  should  not  themselves  doubt, 
and  at  last  teach  others  to  doubt,  of  the  sohdity  of  a  system  unphilo- 
sophic  in  itself,  and  which,  after  all,  had  to  depend  on.  the  profits  of 
a  commercial  company  and  the  good  faith  of  the  regent.  It  was  im- 
possible, on  these  and  other  accounts,  that  gold  and  silver  money 
should  not  at  length  be  preferred  to  paper,  of  whatever  promise  or 
description ;  and  the  whole  merit,  and  meaning,  and  success,  of  Law's 
system  depended  upon  a  contrary  supposition,  —  the  preference  of 
the  bank-paper  to  the  precious  metals.  These  are  all  consequences 
that  were,  and  must  ever  remain,  inevitable,  when  an  excess  of  paper 
money  has  been,  on  whatever  account,  introduced  into  the  circulati(fti 
of  a  country  ;  and  the  only  real  grounds  of  astonishment  are,  how  the 
system  existed  so  long,  and  how  Law  could  succeed,  in  the  manner 
he  did,  in  persuading  the  public  of  the  value  of  the  company's  shares 
and  the  sohdity  of  the  bank-notes. 

On  the  whole,  the  failure  of  the  scheme  seems  to  have  been  omng 
to  two  great  causes :  first,  a  change  of  the  public  opinion  with  regard 
to  the  probable  success  of  the  mercantile  project ;  and,  secondly,  to 
the  over-issue  of  paper.  While  the  demand  for  shares  continued,  the 
bank-notes  were  thus  employed  and  absorbed,  and  though  there  might 
be  a  general  excess  of  circulation  visible  in  all  the  proper  tests  of  an 
excess,  still  there  might  be  no  positive  distinction  made  by  the  French 
people  between  notes  and  specie.  But  the  moment  the  demand  for 
shares  ceased,  the  demand  for  notes  ceased  with  it ;  and  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  notes  and  specie  immediately  began  to  take  place. 
The  famous  edict  of  May,  which  had  been  occasioned  by  circumstances 
like  these,  only  brought  on  a  crisis  which  was  from  the  first,  sooner 
or  later,  inevitable,  and  was  sure  to  be,  when  it  did  take  place,  totally 
ungoveraable. 

This  system  has  always  been  looked  upon  as  a  system  of  mere 
fraud,  and  Law  as  a  mere  projector  and  impostor.  It  has  always 
been  thought  that  the  short  account  of  the  whole  is,  that  he  deceived 
the  French  nation,  and  that  the  only  instruction  to  be  derived  from 
these  transactions  is,  the  disposition  of  the  public  to  the  folly  and 
guilt  of  gambling  and  stockjobbing,  the  caution  with  which  govern- 
ments should  listen  to  projectors,  the  hesitation  with  which  the 
public  or  individuals  should  embark ,  in  schemes  of  wide  extent  and 
rapid  profit. 

Without  meaning  to  controvert  positions  like  these,  the  undeniable 
maxims  of  experience  and  good  sense,  it  may  be  added,  I  conceive, 
that  these  transactions  afford  other  lessons,  not  less  valuable,  though 


SOUTH-SEA  BUBBLE.  481 

not  so  obviDus,  —  I  mean  the  circumspection  with  which  the  expedi- 
ent of  paper  money  should  be  used,  —  the  caution  with  which  govern- 
ments should  listen  to  those  whose  systems  proceed  upon  any  other 
supposition,  with  respect  to  their  paper  issues,  than  that  of  their  being 
freely  and  continually  checked  by  the  convertibility  of  the  paper  into 
the  precious  metals,  —  the  mistake  which  the  public  commit  when 
they  lend  themselves  to  any  systems  of  credit  which  require  the 
slightest  assistance  from  authority,  which  connect,  in  the  way  of  mu- 
tual assistance,  the  great  commercial  and  banking  concerns  of  indi- 
viduals with  the  government  of  a  country  and  the  finances  of  a  state, 
—  the  probability  there  is  that  men  wiU  outstep  the  proper  bounds 
even  of  justice  and  honesty,  much  more  of  general  prudence,  when 
they  can  make,  as  they  suppose,  money  at  pleasure.  It  is  lessons  of 
this  sort  that  ought  also  to  be  drawn  from  these  transactions,  because 
they  are  lessons  of  still  greater  importance  to  commercial  nations,  and 
because  all  such  communities  are  far  more  likely  tc  be  ignorant 
and  transgress  in. these  points  than  in  speculations  and  stockjobbing, 
not  to  say  that  the  consequences  are  far  more  extensively  and  irre- 
trievably ruinous. 

The  infatuation  that  was  exhibited  through  the  whole  of  the  trans- 
actions in  which  Law  was  concerned  was  by  no  means  confined  to 
the  French  nation.  By  a  coincidence  singular  enough,  the  year  1T20 
w^as  marked  in  our  own  history  by  the  folly  of  what  was  called  the 
South-Sea  Bubble.  This  subject  I  conceive  also  to  be  deserving  of 
your  consideration.  I  will  make  a  few  remarks,  and  leave  it  to  your 
examination. 

There  is  an  account  of  it,  as  there  is  of  the  French  Mississippi 
Scheme,  in  Anderson's  History  of  Commerce ;  but  you  will  better 
understand  it  by  a  reference  to  Coxe's  History  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole. 
You  may  read  his  Narrative  and  explanation  in  two  chapters  of  the 
first  volume,  and  then  the  letters  from  Mr.  Thomas  Brodrick  in  his 
second  volume.  The  observations  of  Steuart,  in  his  Political  Economy, 
must  by  all  means  be  referred  to,  and  then  Cobbett's  Parliamentary 
History  will  do  more  than  supply  the  rest.  There  are  a  few  obser- 
vations in  Sinclair's  History  of  the  Revenue  which  should  be  read. 

The  South-Sea  Company  owed  its  origin  to  Harley.  He  incorpo- 
rated the  national  creditors  into  a  company ;  the  debts  due  to  them 
by  the  state  became  their  stock,  about  ten  millions ;  and  he  appro 
priated  certain  duties  to  the  payment  of  their  interest.  He  allured 
them  into  this  arrangement  by  giving  them  an  exclusive  trade  to  the 
South  Sea  or  the  coast  of  Spanish  America. 

The  South-Sea  Bubble  was  but  a  preposterous  extension,  some 
years  afterwards,  and  a  sort  of  caricature,  of  the  scheme  and  bargain 
now  described.  The  debts  of  the  nation  were  in  the  year  1719  at  a 
greater  than  the  current  interest  of  the  time  ;  some  of  the  debts  were 
redeemable,  that  is,  might  be  discharged  by  paying  the  principal; 
61  0  0 


482  LECTURE  XXVH. 

others  were  irredeemable,  or  could  not  be  paid  off  without  the  consent 
of  the  creditors.  The  scheme,  therefore,  of  the  ministers  and  the 
company  was  this  —  (I  will  express  myself  not  in  technical,  but  in  the 
most  popular  terms  I  can  find)  :  —  That  the  company  should  have  an 
exclusive  trade  to  the  South  Sea,  and  therefore  be  enabled  to  get  rich, 
and  to  pay  large  dividends  on  their  shares ;  that  the  national  creditor 
should  be  thus  induced  to  change  his  security,  give  up  his  claim  on 
the  pubhc,  and  with  it  buy  one  of  the  company's  shares ;  the  com- 
pany were  to  pay  a  certain  interest  on  their  stock,  besides  the  occar 
sional  profits  on  their  shares,  and  the  nation  was  to  pay  the  company 
a  certain  sum  to  enable  them  to  pay  this  interest  and  all  expenses. 

Of  this  arrangement  the  advantages  to  the  nation  were  to  be,  that 
the  whole  debt,  redeemable  and  irredeemable,  was  to  be  put  into  a 
new  state,  a  redeemable  state,  —  that  is,  a  state  in  which  it  nught  be 
at  length  paid  off;  and  in  the  mean  time,  the  interest  paid  was  to  be 
at  a  more  easy  rate  than  the  original  bargain  admitted  of.  Another 
advantage  was  to  be  this :  the  nation  was  to  receive  from  the  South- 
Sea  Company  a  douceur  for  allowing  them  to  make  this  new  bargain ; 
more  than  seven  mUHons,  for  instance,  were  to  be  received. 

The  original  national  creditor  was  to  have  his  advantage  in  becom- 
ing a  proprietor  of  the  South-Sea  stock,  and  in  sharing  all  the  profits 
which  were  to  result  from  the  exclusive  trade  of  the  company,  the 
management  of  their  concerns,  &c. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  understand  what  was  in  the  mean  time  to 
be  the  advantage  of  the  company  itself.  It  was  of  this  nature  :  — 
Government  was  to  pay  them  five  per  cent,  for  seven  years,  at  a  time 
when  money  was  not  worth  so  much,  and  when,  therefore,  the  com- 
pany could  not  be  under  the  necessity  of  paying  so  much  to  their  own 
creditors,  —  the  difference  would  be  so  much  positive  gain ;  an  allow- 
ance was  to  be  made  them  for  the  managemenf  of  the  new  stock 
which,  in  consequence  of  the  bargain,  was  now  to  be  added  to  their 
old  original  stock ;  and,  finally,  great  profits  were  expected  to  arise 
from  their  exclusive  trade.  Such  were  to  be  the  advantages  of  the 
company.  But  it  must  be  observed  that  the  stock  of  the  company 
was  itself  expected  to  rise ;  and  it  did  rise,  so  high,  for  instance,  as 
to  three  hundred  pounds  per  cent. ;  that  is,  a  person  was  to  give 
the  company  three  hundred  pounds  money  before  he  could  be  rated 
a  proprietor  of  one  hundred  pounds  in  their  books,  —  that  is,  a  hold- 
er of  one  hundred  pounds  stock.  A  national  creditor,  therefore, 
brought  his  claim  for  three  hundred  pounds  on  the  nation  to  the  com- 
pany, and  was  in  return  constituted  the  owner  of  only  one  hundred 
pounds  of  their  stock,  —  that  is,  the  company  accounted  with  him  on 
the  supposition  of  owing  him  only  one  hundred  pounds ;  but  m  the 
mean  time  they  accounted  with  the  nation  as  having  paid  off,  on  the 
part  of  the  nation,  a  debt  to  their  creditors  of  three  hundred  pounds : 
the  difference  was  to  be  their  profit,  a  difference  that  depended  on  the 
rate  at  which  the  South-Sea  stock  sold. 


SOUTH-SEA  BUBBLE.  483 

My  hearers  will  now  comprehend  the  manner  in  which  the  national 
creditor  might  give,  in  the  progress  of  these  transactions,  not  only 
his  three  hundred  pounds  national  debt  for  one  hundred  pounds 
South-Sea  stock,  but  his  one  thousand  pounds  national  debt  for  one 
hundred  pounds  stock,  if  the  stock  ever  rose,  as  in  reaUty  it  did,  to 
one  thousand  pounds  per  cent.  ;  and  they  will  also  see,  if  the  stock 
did  not  afterwards  pay  him  the  interest  which  his  one  thousand  pounds 
before  had  done,  how  he  might  be  more  or  less  injured ;  and  if  the 
company's  stock,  for  which  he  had  paid  his  one  thousand  pounds,  be- 
came worth  little  or  nothing,  how  he  might  be  entirely  ruined,  losing 
his  national  stock,  and  getting  nothing  in  return.  You  will  now  also 
see  what  buying  and  selling  might  ensue,  while  the  stock  was  varying, 
and  how  all  the  later  holders,  when  the  stock  began  to  fall,  would  be 
the  sufferers ;  and  again,  that,  if  the  original  holders  of  the  South- 
Sea  stock  (the  directors  and  others)  sold  out  stock  while  it  was 
rising,  they,  and  afterwards  even  those  they  sold  to,  might  become 
rich  ;  and  if  they  made  use  of  any  arts  or  deception  to  raise  the 
stock,  for  the  purpose  of  selling  it,  such  as  promising  a  great  dividend, 
&c.,  &c.,  they  then  cheated  those  to  whom  they  sold  their  stock. 

The  next  point  to  be  considered  is  this :  the  manner  in  which  the 
bargain  was  made  with  the  company  by  the  nation,  and  the  terms 
agreed  upon.  The  ministers  originally  intended  to  give  the  South- 
Sea  Company  a  good  bargain  ;  it  had  even  been  settled  that  particular 
persons  were  to  be  considered  as  holders  of  stock  beforehand.  The 
stock,  it  was  foreseen,  would  soon  rise,  and  the  holders  were  to  re- 
ceive the  difference  on  the  sale  of  it.  If  the  stock  did  not  rise,  the 
whole  was  to  be  considered  as  a  nullity  ;  and  in  this  manner  distin- 
guished personages  in  the  state  were  engaged  to  forward  the  scheme 
from  the  prospect  of  this  probable  advantage.  This  was  the  first 
piece  of  iniquity,  and  indeed  the  most  striking,  that  was  afterwards 
proved. 

But,  unfortunately,  it  happened,  that,  when  the  minister  brought 
forward  the  plan  in  the  House  of  Commons,  having  made  his  speech 
and  been  duly  seconded,  in  the  midst*of  a  long  pause,  which  he  seems 
very  unskilfully  to  have  suffered  to  take  place,  Mr.  Brodrick  rose, 
and  most  unexpectedly  proposed  that  the  nation  should  offer  the 
scheme  to  the  Bank  of  England,  as  well  as  to  the  South-Sea  Company, 
and  have  the  benefit  of  the  competition.  The  minister  stood  pale  and 
puzzled,  and  it  was  found  in  tain  to  resist  so  equitable  a  proposition. 
The  result  was,  that  the  two  companies,  the  Bank  and  the  South-Sea, 
proceeded  to  bid  against  each  other,  and  the  South-Sea  Company  at 
last  succeeded,  by  undertaking  the  scheme  on  terms  most  prepos- 
terously disadvantageous  to  themselves,  —  disadvantageous  to  a  de- 
gree that  could  not  but  cause  the  ruin  of  those  who  were  ultimately 
to  abide  by  them. 

The  present  is  a  very  remarkable  instance  of  the  manner  in  which 


484  LECTURE  XXVII. 

a  competition  may  be  sometimes  carried  to  extremes.  Sir  Robert 
Walpole,  who  seems  almost  the  only  man  left  in  possession  of  his  un- 
derstanding on  this  occasion,  in  vain  remonstrated  against  the  pro- 
ject, and  declared  the  whole  to  be  founded  on  mistake  and  delusion. 
Such  proved  to  be  the  fact.  The  profits  of  the  South-Sea  trade 
never  enabled  the  directors  to  pay  such  profits  on  the  shares,  that  is, 
such  dividends,  as  were  expected.  The  value  of  the  shares  at  last 
fell  almost  to  nothing. 

But,  in  the  mean  time,  the  first  and  most  obvious  lesson  that  is  af- 
forded by  these  transactions  is,  no  doubt,  the  excess  to  which  the 
passions  of  avarice  and  hope  may  be  carried,  the  extraordinary  ef- 
fects of  sympathy  on  large  bodies  of  mankind,  the  inaccessible  blind- 
ness in  which  the  understanding  may  be  left,  when  exposed  to  such 
powerful  principles  in  our  nature  as  these  undoubtedly  are.  The 
whole  scheme  failed,  because  there  neither  was  nor  could  be  any 
trade  to  the  South  Sea,  or  to  any  sea,  sufficient  to  pay  adequate  divi- 
dends on  a  stock  purchased  so  dearly. 

Among  reasoners  of  a  certain  description.  Swift  and  Mandeville, 
for  instance,  it  is  a  very  favorite  fancy  to  throw  mankind  into  two 
grand  divisions,  the  knaves  and  the  fools,  on  the  right  and  on  the 
left,  —  themselves,  no  doubt,  standing  at  a  due  distance  in  the 
middle.  On  this  particular  occasion,  Sir  Robert  Walpole  and  a  few 
others  might  have  been  not  a  little  justified  in  some  sweeping  arrange- 
ment of  the  kind ;  and  there  are  particulars,  appearing  even  on  the 
face  of  history,  which  may  afford  the  most  captivating  entertainment 
to  all  such  reasoners  as  I  have  mentioned,  the  scoffers  and  satirists 
of  mankind,  the  insulters  and  deriders  of  our  imperfect  nature. 

In  Anderson's  History  of  Commerce,  and  in  Cobbett's  Parliamen- 
tary History,  may  be  seen  a  long  list  of  schemes  which  were  offered 
to  the  public  by  different  projectors,  some  of  them  ridiculous  enough, 
and  forming  altogether  a  striking  specimen  of  the  nature  of  the  times. 
Look  at  them;  they  will  entertain,  and  ought  to  instruct  you.  I 
will  mention  one  of  them.  A  proposal,  after  many  others,  at  last 
appeared  "  for  carrying  on  an  undertaking  of  great  advantage,  but 
nobody  to  know  what  it  is."  The  scheme  was  for  half  a  million,  and 
every  subscriber,  upon  first  paying  two  guineas,  as  a  deposit,  was  to 
have  one  hundred  pounds  per  annum  for  every  one  hundred  pounds 
subscribed.  It  was  declared  that  in  a  month  the  particulars  were  to 
be  laid  open,  and  the  remainder  of  theT  subscription  money  was  then 
to  be  paid  in.  A  more  complete  specimen  of  impudence  than  this 
can  scarcely  be  conceived.  It  may  be  necessary  to  mention,  that 
the  projector  actually  received,  in  one  forenoon,  deposits  for  one 
thousand  shares,  —  that  is,  he  received  two  thousand  guineas  ;  but  it 
cannot  be  necessary  to  add,  that  in  the  afternoon  he  moved  off,  and 
neither  the  guineas  nor  the  projector  were  ever  heard  of  more.  It 
was  probably  on  this  occasion  that  one  of  those  deriders  whom  I  have 


SOUTH-SEA  BUBBLE.  485 

just  alluded  to  amused  himself  with  putting  out  an  advertisement  in 
one  of  the  weekly  prints  (two  or  three  sheets  of  the  newspaper  were 
then  generally  dedicated  to  the  advertising  of  these  projects),  and 
the  advertisement  was  to  apprise  the  public  that  "  at  a  certain  place, 
on  Tuesday  next,  books  will  be  opened  for  a  subscription  of  two  mil- 
lions, for  the  invention  of  melting  down  sawdust  and  chips,  and  cast- 
ing them  into  clean  deal  boards  without  cracks  or  knots."  —  Ander- 
son, III.  103. 

There  was  one  difference  between  the  South-Sea  Scheme  and  the 
Mississippi  Scheme  in  France,  which  cannot  but  have  been  already 
observed  by  my  hearers.  In  England  there  was  no  national  bank 
connected  with  the  project ;  the  Bank  of  England  stood  aloof ;  there 
was  no  attempt  to  banish  the  precious  metals  from  the  currency  of 
the  country ;  the  wealth  of  many  individuals  was  left  to  rest,  if  they 
chose  it,  on  paper  and  delusion,  but  it  was  not  intended  to  enrich  the 
country  by  the  mere  substitution  of  paper  for  gold  and  silver :  an  im- 
portant difference,  this,  which  resolves  the  whole  of  our  South-Sea 
Bubble  into  a  mere  specimen  of  folly  or  fraud  on  the  one  part,  and 
ignorance  or  ridiculous  gambUng  on  the  other. 

When  it  began  to  be  seen  that  there  neither  were,  as  I  have  men- 
tioned, nor  could  be,  any  profits  arising  from  the  South-Sea  trade,  or 
arising  from  any  other  source,  sufficient  to  justify  the  rise  of  the 
stock,  or  to  enable  the  company  to  pay  the  dividends  which  they  had 
promised,  their  stock  fell  rapidly,  notwithstanding  every  effort  that 
could  be  made  in  its  support ;  and  all  the  silly  people  who  had  awak- 
ed from  their  dreams  had  no  alternative  but  to  vent  their  rage  on 
their  deceivers,  and  to  call  aloud  for  vengeance  on  the  boundless 
ambition  and  avarice,  as  they  called  it,  not  of  themselves,  but  of  the 
directors  and  others,  their  agents  and  accomplices,  the  rogues,  the 
parricides,  (I  quote  the  words  made  use  of  in  a  variety  of  different 
petitions  to  Parliament,)  the  traitorous,  perfidious,  &c.,  &c.,  betray- 
ers, plunderers,  robbers  of  their  country,  the  monsters  of  pride  and 
covetousness,  the  cannibals  of  'Change  Alley,  who  lick  up  the  blood 
of  the  nation,  &c.,  &c. 

Now  these  arQ  complimentary  terms  very  natural  for  those  to  use 
who  find  themselves  ruined  by  their  own  credulity ;  but  as  the  law 
cannot  well  attempt  to  protect  good  people  from  the  consequences  of 
their  own  folly,  it  was  not  found  possible,  by  any  regular  process  of 
legal  punishment,  to  pursue  with  due  pains  and  penalties  these  nefar 
rious  contrivers  of  what,  in  the  language  of  the  committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  was  called  "  a  train  of  the  deepest  villany  and 
fraud  that  Hell"  (that  is,  I  suppose,  the  Stock  Exchange)  "ever 
contrived  to  ruin  a  nation."  A  scene,  therefore,  followed,  not  very 
creditable  to  a  great  and  civilized  nation.  The  houses  of  ParHament 
showed,  no  doubt,  that  they  were  not  partners  in  these  swindling 
transactions ;  but  they  showed,  at  the  same  time,  a  great  disregard 

00* 


486  LECTURE  XXVII. 

to  all  the  niceties  that  should  be  observed  in  the  administration  of 
penal  justice.  They  made  the  directors  bring  in  an  account  of  their 
property  and  estates,  talked  over  the  different  proportions  of  guilt 
that  belonged  to  each  individual,  and  then,  in  a  loose  and  summary 
way,  fined  them  at  their  pleasure,  dedicating  almost  the  whole  of  the 
two  millions  private  property  which  they  possessed  to  the  assistance 
of  the  sufferers.  "  Instead  of  the  calm  solemnity  of  a  judicial  in- 
quiry,*^ says  Mr.  Gibbon,  whose  grandfather  was  a  director,  "  the 
fortune  and  honor  of  three-and-thirty  Englishmen  were  made  the 
topic  of  hasty  conversation,  the  sport  of  a  lawless  majority.'' 

As  an  obvious  and  general  remark,  it  must  be  mentioned  that  these 
popular  tempests  of  vindictive  justice  should  always  be  most  carefully 
watched  and  resisted  by  intelligent  men.  But  I  must  also  remark, 
that  there  seems,  on  this  occasion,  to  have  been  no  notice  taken  of 
the  guilt  of  a  particular  description  of  persons,  who  might  little 
suspect  their  own  criminality,  —  I  mean  a  part  of  the  members  of 
the  House  of  Commons  themselves,  more  particularly  the  gay, 
thoughtless  sons  of  peers  or  opulent  commoners,  who  had  undertaken 
to  be  legislators  before  they  had  made  themselves  men  of  business ; 
who  had  given  their  votes,  no  doubt,  for  schemes  of  finance  of  the 
nature  of  which  they  probably  knew  nothing,  and  were  contented  to 
know  nothing ;  and  who  had  failed  in  their  clear  and  bounden  duty, 
the  duty  of  being  the  honest,  the  laborious,  and,  I  must  add,  the  well- 
informed  protectors  of  the  public.  The  scheme  would  never  have 
taken  place,  if  the  House  of  Commons  had  been  properly  intelligent, 
if  it  had  been  even  intelligent  enough  to  admit  of  being  enlightened ; 
but  it  was  not.     Sir  Robert  Walpole  reasoned  in  vain. 

I  quit  this  subject  by  repeating  briefly  that  Anderson's  account  is 
worth  considering,  but  that  a  very  good  note"  by  Steuart,  in  his  Politi- 
cal Economy,  must  by  no  means  be  omitted.  The  narrative  of  Coxe, 
in  his  first  volume,  which  is  collected  from  every  different  source  of 
information,  will  be  the  most  intelligible  and  complete  exhibition  of 
the  whole  to  the  general  reader ;  but  the  letters  of  Mr.  Brodrick 
must  be  read,  as  containing  the  sentiments  of  a  person  living  at  the 
time,  a  member  of  the  House,  and  making  his  observations  on  all  that 
was  passing  within  and  without  doors. 

The  Parliamentary  History  of  Cobbett  is  very  full  on  this  occasion; 
all  the  regular  documents  are  preserved  and  given ;  but  there  is  so 
much  technical  language  used,  that  they  will  often  be  tedious,  and  at 
the  same  time  very  difficult  to  comprehend.  They  must  be  read  in 
conjunction  with  Steuart  and  Coxe,  and,  indeed,  there  is  a  good  nar- 
rative furnished  along  with  these  debates,  borrowed  from  Tindal ;  but 
the  great  misfortune  is,  that  the  speeches  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  are 
not  come  down  to  us,  or  at  least  not  properly  given.  The  most  in- 
structive portion  of  the  whole  would  have  been  found  in  the  speeches 
and  reasonings  that  took  place  whilst  the  scheme  was  in  agitation,  — 


SOUTH-SEA   BUBBLE.  487 

while  Sir  Robert  was  remonstrating,  for  instance,  against  the  accept- 
ance of  the  proposals  of  the  South-Sea  Company ;  a  general  descrip- 
tion only  can  be  found  of  what  was  probably  a  most  reasonable  speech, 
highly  creditable  to  him  as  a  statesman.  The  introductory  speech  of 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  would  have  been  also  very  instruc- 
tive ;  and,  again,  the  debates  that  ensued  when  the  bubble  burst,  and 
the  House  was  proceeding  to  punish  the  directors,  and  was  endeavour- 
ing to  rescue  the  nation  from  its  calamities.  But  on  these  most  im- 
portant occasions  the  debates  are  all  either  more  or  less  deficient,  and 
the  assistance  that  is  afforded  by  the  private  letters  produced  by  Coxe 
is  quite  trilling. 

The  first  report  of  the  proceedings  of  the  South-Sea  Company  may 
be  looked  at.  The  result  of  the  whole  is  contained  in  ten  of  the 
resolutions  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  will  give  some  idea  of  the 
swindling  practices  that  took  place.  The  remaining  documents  soon 
become  little  more  than  an  inquiry  into  the  particular  guilt  of  individ- 
uals, and  to  us,  at  this  distance  of  time,  lose  their  interest;  but  what 
minutes  remain  of  the  proceedings  in  the  House  are  worthy  of  obser- 
vation. The  last  two  thirds  of  Mr.  Aislabie's  second  defence  before 
the  Lords  contains  a  curious  account  of  the  whole  affair,  and,  whether 
Mr.  Aislabie  was  or  was  not  as  reasonable  as  he  pretends,  gives  a 
very  just  description  of  at  least  the  foUies  of  others.  The  manner  in 
which  the  concerns  of  all  parties  were  adjusted  may  be  best  under- 
stood from  Anderson ;  and,  in  the  first  place,  from  the  report  of 
the  address  of  the  House  itself,  drawn  up  by  Sir  Robert. 

Much  loss  must  have  been  suffered  by  those  who  last  entered  into 
the  scheme,  and  much  dissatisfactioii  was  expressed.  All  parties 
were  made,  very  properly,  to  abide  by  the  consequences  of  their  folly. 
The  seven  millions,  indeed,  which  the  nation  was  to  receive  from  the 
South-Sea  Company  weye  at  length  necessarily  remitted,  but  the 
nation  found  its  original  engagements  converted  into  new  engage- 
ments of  a  more  advantageous  nature ;  and  though  the  scheme  was 
in  every  respect  wretchedly  managed,  some  advantage  was  derived 
from  it,  and  the  pubUc  creditors  no  longer  received  an  interest  dis- 
proportioned  to  the  interest  at  which  money  could  at  the  time  bo 
borrowed. 


488  LECTURE  XXVIIl. 


LECTUEE    XXVIIl 


GEORGE   THE   SECOND  —  PELHAM.  —  REBELLION  OF 
1745,   ETC. 

We  left  the  English  history  at  the  close  of  the  administration  of 
Sir  Robert  Walpole ;  the  next  era  that  I  will  propose  to  you  is  the 
interval  between  that  event  and  the  peace  of  1763. 

To  this  era  we  turn  with  some  curiosity.  We  have  heard  much 
of  the  events  by  which  it  was  distinguished,  —  much  of  the  great 
statesmen  and  lawyers  by  whom  it  was  adorned.  The  nation,  in  the 
mean  time,  as  we  may  judge  from  the  effect,  must  have  made  a  great 
progress  in  its  commerce,  agriculture,  manufactures,  and  literature,  — 
in  its  general  opulence  and  general  intelligence.  Of  all  these  things 
we  are  somewhat  eager  to  know  the  history. 

But  on  this  occasion  we  meet  with  a  severe  disappointment.  We 
find  the  history  written  only  by  Smollett ;  and  we  learn,  upon  inquiry, 
that  the  work  was  drawn  up  as  a  Tory  history  (agreeably,  however, 
to  Smollett's  principles),  because  a  bookseller,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
trade,  had  perceived  that  such  a  history  would  obtain  a  sale.  Bel- 
sham's  History  is  but  short ;  and,  though  a  work  of  more  merit  than 
is  generally  allowed,  not  written  in  a  manner,  even»  in  these  earlier 
volumes,  sufficiently  calm  and  dignified.  The  Annual  Registers  do 
not  begin  till  the  year  1758  ;  and  the  London  Magazine  and  Gentle- 
man's Magazine  comprehend  some  of  the  materials  of  history  rather 
than  a  history  itself.  Above  all,  we  have  no  authentic  debates.  In 
four  volumes  is  comprised  every  thing  of  this  kind  that  can  now  be 
ofiered  to  our  notice.  Under  the  feigned  names  of  the  Roman  senate 
and  the  senate  of  Lilliput,  some  of  the  speeches  of  those  who  took  a 
part  in  the  debates  were  published  in  the  London  and  Gentleman's 
Magazines  ;  but  at  length  even  this  imperfect  and  mutilated  informa- 
tion was  denied.  The  public  were  prevented  from  knowing  the 
arguments  and  views  of  their  statesmen,  not  only  by  order  of  the 
Lords,  the  hereditary  protectors  of  the  community,  but  by  the  Com- 
mons, the  very  representatives  of  the  community ;  and  there  is  for 
some  time,  in  the  debates  of  both  Houses,  a  total  chasm  and  blank. 
After  all  that  we  have  heard  of  the  eloquence  of  Murray  and  of  Pitt, 
nothing  can  be  more  grievous  than  our  disappointment  in  this  part  of 
our  general  inquiries. 

I  have  already  noticed  to  you  the  very  strange  ignorance  of  the 
real  nature  of  this  subject  shown  by  the  House  of  Commons  on  a  for- 
mer occasion,  and  even  by  such  a  man  as  Pulteney,  while  leader  of 
the  opposition.     It  is  now  better  understood.     And  as,  on  the  ono 


GEORGE  THE  SECOND.  489 

hand,  every  reasonable  man  will  see  that  the  houses  of  Parhament 
should  always  have  the  right  of  excluding  strangers  when  they  think 
fit,  so,  on  the  other,  it  is  equally  clear  that  this  right  should  be  exer- 
cised as  seldom  as  possible,  —  by  no  means  so  often  as  men  of  violent 
and  arbitrary  dispositions  would  think  desirable.  You  who  hear  me 
will,  I  trust,  if  any  of  you  should  ever  sit  in  Parliament,  be  very 
careful  how  you  interfere  with  the  publicity  of  the  debates,  —  in 
other  words,  how  you  presume  to  assassinate  the  talents  of  your 
country,  stifle  the  free  spirit  of  its  constitution,  and  destroy  the  in- 
struction of  after  ages. 

On  the  whole,  it  will  appear,  from  all  the  particulars  I  have  men- 
tioned, that  we  have  no  very  good  means  of  appreciating  what  I  may 
call  the  fair,  open,  regular  politics  of  the  country.  We  must  judge, 
as  well  as  we  can,  from  the  events  that  took  place,  the  measures 
carried  by  the  different  administrations,  the  general  characters  of 
those  that  composed  them. 

We  are  allowed  a  slight  glance  into  another  part  of  the  general 
subject,  —  the  intrigues  and  cabals  of  the  times.  The  Diary  of  Dod- 
ington.  Lord  Melcombe,  has  been  published.  It  is  generally  amus- 
ing, and  sometimes  important :  amusing,  because  it  gives  sonie  idea 
of  the  way  in  which  public  men  of  more  talents  than  principle  usually 
reason  arid  act,  and  of  the  way,  too,  in  which  they  are  treated  by 
ministers  and  those  who  want  their  services  at  the  cheapest  rate ;  im- 
portant, because  it  gives  some  idea  of  Mr.  Pelham,  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  and  other  distinguished  men  of  the  times,  and,  above  all, 
because  it  affords  the  only  insight  we  can  as  yet  obtain  into  the  edu- 
cation and  manners  of  his  present  Majesty  when  young,  as  well  as 
into  the  characters  of  those  who  were  around  him,  his  tutors  and 
governors,  his  friend  the  Earl  of  Bute,  Prince  Frederic  his'  father, 
and  the  princess  dowager.  The  public  can  seldom  reach  any  knowl- 
edge of  this  peculiar  kind.  Those  who  are  usually  about  a  court  are 
unfit  to  make  any  proper  use  of  their  advantages,  and  indeed  they 
seldom  try.  The  slightest  particulars,  therefore,  are  eagerly  seized 
and  meditated  upon  by  every  philosophic  reader  of  history  ;  and  this 
book  of  Dodington  must  by  no  means  be  neglected. 

With  Dodington  may  be  read  a  book  that  has  been  lately  publish- 
ed by  Lord  Holland,  —  the  Memoirs  of  Lord  Waldegrave,  from  the 
year  1754  to  1758.  The  book  is  very  deserving  of  perusal,  as  it  af- 
fords us  the  observations  of  a  very  sensible  man  on  the  occurrences 
that  passed  before  his  eyes,  while  in  the  confidence  of  George  the 
Second,  and  the  governor  of  the  late  king.  It  somewhat  disappoints 
the  reader,  for  more  might  have  been  expected  than  is  found  on  the 
subject  of  the  young  prince,  the  princess  dowager,  and  Lord  Bute, 
(though  valuable  hints  are  given,)  and  on  the  political  principles 
of  Pitt,  Mr.  Fox,  and  others ;  but  the  book  must  be  read,  and  will 
be  read,  as  well  as  the  preface  and  the  letters  of  Mr.  Fox  (after- 
62 


190  LECTURE  XXVIIl. 

wards  Lord  Holland),  with  entertainment  and  instruction.  Charac- 
ters are  given,  and  well  drawn ;  the  style  is  very  easy,  clear,  and 
idiomatic,  —  the  style  of  a  polished  man,  rather  than  of  a  scholar, 
accustomed  to  the  company  of  people  of  rank  and  talents.  The 
general  conclusion  from  the  whole  is  very  unfavorable  to  all  the 
statesmen  concerned  :  that  they  contended  rather  for  power  than  for 
the  prevalence  of  any  political  principles  ;  that  they  constituted  fac- 
tions in  the  state,  rather  than  parties :  great  constitutional  principles 
were,  however,  sometimes  at  issue,  though  apparently  not  felt  and 
considered  to  be  such  at  the  time.  Lord  Waldegrave  himself  seems 
to  have  had  no  very  enlarged  or  proper  ideas  of  our  constitution,  — 
to  have  been  a  man  with  no  political  views  himself,  and  attributing 
none  to  other  people.  I  conclude  my  notice  of  this  work  by  observ- 
ing, that  a  mistake  may  be  made  with  regard  to  the  princess  dowa- 
ger. She  was  entitled  to  the  affection  and  respect  of  the  young 
prince,  the  future  king,  as  his  mother.  The  question  is,  whether  she 
was  or  was  not  converting  her  maternal  influence  into  a  means  of 
political  power,  and  whether  she  was  or  was  not^mbitious  to  rule  by 
the  assistance  of  Lord  Bute,  and  rule  on  Tory  principles. 

But  to  return  to  the  point  of  history  at  which  we  set  out.  —  The 
labors  of  Mr.  Coxe  do  not  exactly  close  with  the  Life  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole.  He  has  also  published  memoirs  of  Sir  Robert's  brother, 
the  first  Horace  Walpole  ;  and  it  is  to  these  we  must  have  recourse 
when  we  first  turn  to  the  era  which  we  are  more  immediately  con- 
sidering. ■    ^ 

I  will  now  proceed  to  advert  to  some  of  the  more  particular  occur- 
rences of  this  interval  from  1743  to  1763,  in  the  order  in  which  they 
appeared. 

In  th*e  first  place,  I  have  already  mentioned,  and  must  again  men- 
tion, the  intrigues  that  took  place  on  the  fall  of  Sir  Robert.  They 
are  worth  your  consideration.  A  general  notion  of  them  may  be 
formed  from  Coxe's  Life  of  Sir  Robert,  —  favorable  to  him,  no  doubt ; 
but  the  fact  seems  to  be,  that  all  the  parties  concerned  in  these  trans- 
actions had  their  foUies  and  their  faults,  —  the  public,  perhaps,  the 
least  so ;  but  even  the  public  was  not  without  them,  as  will  be  seen 
when  we  are  considering  those  of  their  statesmen. 

Pulteney,  for  instance,  seems  to  have  made,  when  in  opposition,  a 
very  improper  declaration  that  he  would  never  take  office.  A  public 
man  may  certainly  propose  himself  as  a  sort  of  inquisitor  of  all  other 
public  men ;  but  on  one  supposition,  that  he  takes  no  favors  from  any 
administration :  this  is  a  necessary  proviso.  He  then  may  occupy  a 
very  elevated  situation,  and  deserve  and  obtain  the  applauses  of  his 
country ;  for  this  is  a  sort  of  merit  that  is  very  great,  and  is  intelligi- 
ble. But  men  of  talents,  as  well  as  good  sense  and  honesty,  may 
even  more  materially  contribute  to  the  service  of  their  country  by 
going  into  office,  and  advancing  its  interests,  foreign  and  domestic, 


PULTENEY.  4^1 

civil  and  religious,  —  by  becoming  such  ministers  as  the  latter  (the 
men  of  honesty  and  good  sense)  may  safely  patronize.  This  is  a 
merit  of  a  still  higher  nature  ;  and  for  a  virtuous  and  intelHgent  states- 
man to  exclude  it  from  his  view  is,  in  fact,  to  abandon  the  govern- 
ment of  a  country  to  every  presumptuous,  self-interested  man  that 
will  undertake  it.  Pulteney,  however,  seems  to  have  attempted  to 
adhere,  when  power  was  within  his  reach,  to  the  ill-judged  declara- 
tions which  he  had  made  when  in  opposition ;  and  when  it  was  his 
business  to  form  an  administration,  he  seems  to  have  entertained  the 
unreasonable  expectation,  that  he  could  still  keep  his  consequence 
without  being  seen  in  any  one  responsible  situation  or  post,  —  not  in 
opposition,  —  not  in  office,  —  not  even  as  a  neutral  critic,  —  but 
merely  as  a  commoner  made  into  a  peer,  —  placed  calmly  to  survey 
the  proceedings  of  the  administration  he  had  constructed,  without  any 
means  of  influencing  their  movements,  —  without  any  duty  to  dis- 
charge to  the  public,  —  that  is,  in  other  words,  without  any  right  to 
receive  their  praises. 

What  was  the  result  ?  He  had  scarcely  finished  his  negotiations 
with  the  court  when  he  found,  too  late,  that  he  had  attempted  impos- 
sibihties.  He  was  almost  insulted  with  his  insignificance,  even  by 
the  Dake  of  Newcastle.  He  was  so  mortified  as  to  have  meditated  a 
renewal  of  his  opposition.  This,  indeed,  would  have  crowned  his 
mistakes  ;  and  he  is  said,  in  the  agonies  of  his  shame  and  disgust,  to 
have  trampled  the  patent  of  his  peerage  under  his  feet. 

The  most  edifying  part  of  these  transactions  is  the  view  which  Pul- 
teney had  himself  formed  of  his  plans  and  situation.  "  If,"  says  he, 
"  avarice,  ambition,  or  the  desire  of  power  had  influenced  me,  why 
did  I  not  take  (and  no  one  can  deny  but  T  might  have  had)  the 
greatest* ,post  in  the  kingdom?  But  I  contented  myself  with  the 
honest  pride  of  having  subdued  the  great  author  of  corruption ;  re- 
tired with  a  peerage,  which  I  had  three  times  at  different  periods  of 
my  life  refused ;  and  left  the  government  to  be  conducted  by  those 
who  had  more  inclination  than  I  had  to  be  concerned  in  it.  I  should 
have  been  happy,  if  I  could  have  united  an  administration  capable  of 
carrying  on  the  government  with  ability,  economy,  and  honor." 

Public  men  are  not  to  indulge  themselves  in  dreams  like  these : 
they  are  not  to  suppose  that  they  subdue  a  bad  minister,  or  a  set  of 
bad  men,  unless  they  do  their  best  to  form  a  better  administration,  — 
unless  they  hazard  their  own  characters  and  embark  their  own  labors 
in  a  new  system :  bad  ministers  and  bad  measures  are  not  so  readily 
cleared  away  and  disposed  of.  Pulteney  knew  very  well,  no  one 
could  know,  better,  the  discordant  materials  of  which  the  opposition 
had  been  composed ;  and  it  was  his  business,  as  the  great  leader  and 
soul  of  the  whole,  by  disinterestedness,  openness,  and  an  adherence 
to  the  great  constitutional  points  for  which  he  had  contended,  to  unite 
as  many  of  them  as  possible,  and  to  make  no  bargain  with  the  courfe 


492  LECTURE  XXVIII. 

that  could  leave  the  reasonable  part  of  the  public  any  cause  cf  com 
plaint. 

On  all  occasions  like  these,  great  difficulties  must  be  experienced. 
The  jealousies,  suspicions,  and  rivalships  by  which  a  party  is  secretly 
agitated,  while  openly  united  in  opposition  to  a  minister,  break  out 
when  the  victory  is  once  accomplished.  The  leaders  cannot  possibly 
satisfy,  or  even  silence,  the  preposterous  expectations,  more  particu- 
larly of  those  who  have  little  real  merit  to  boast.  But  Pulteney 
seems  not  even  to  have  done  what  might  have  been  expected.  He 
left  the  court  in  possession  of  the  important  offices  in  the  cabinet. 
The  Buke  of  Newcastle  was  to  be  secretary  of  state  ;  Lord  Hardwicke 
remained  chancellor ;  Lord  Wilmington  was  suffered  to  slide,  as  it 
was  called,  into  the  post  of  first  lord  of  the  treasury ;  and  the  result 
of  the  whole  was,  that  the  alteration  of  measures,  as  well  as  of  men, 
for  which  he  had  before  appeared  so  anxious,  never  did,  and,  indeed, 
never  could,  take  place  ;  for  how  were  the  measures  to  be  altered  but 
with  the  men  ? 

.  Melancholy  to  his  own  personal  feelings  were  the  consequences. 
Every  term  of  reproach  and  indignation,  all  that  could  be  suggested 
by  the  agreeable  pleasantry  of  Sir  Hanbury  Williams  and  the  more 
elevated  effusions  of  the  muse  of  Akenside,  was  levelled  at  his  char- 
acter and  fame ;  and  the  hissings  of  the  public  everywhere  pursued 
the  peer,  the  new-made  peer,  who  was  now  thought  but  the  tool  of  a 
court,  corrupted  and  corrupting,  though  so  late  the  patriot  who  had 
animated  his  countrymen  by  his  generous  efforts  against  the  baseness 
of  corruption,  and  charmed  the  House  of  Commons  by  the  liveUness 
of  his  retorts  and  the  vigor  of  his  arguments. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Pulteney  was  not  so  deserving  of  rep- 
robation as  was  supposed  at  the  time,  or  long  after.  .  In  ihis,  and 
in  all  other  cases,  we  are  to  take  the  most  natural  solution  of  the 
phenomena ;  and  in  judging  of  the  conduct  of  men  in  difficult  and 
critical  situations,  it  is  quite  idle  to  exclude  the  supposition  of  oc- 
casional folly  and  mistake.  Pulteney  seems  himself  to  have  medi- 
tated a  defence,  and  to  have  afterwards  devolved  the  task  and  point- 
ed out  the  proper  materials  to  his  friend.  Dr.  Douglas,  the  truly 
venerable  Bishop  of  Salisbury.  But,  on  his  death.  General  Pulteney, 
for  reasons  that  can  scarcely  have  been  sufficient,  destroyed  all  his 
papers,  as  if  the  conduct  of  distinguished  men  were  not,  in  fact,  the 
property  of  the  public,  —  their  example,  if  good,  —  their  warning,  if 
criminal  or  mistaken ;  finally,  as  if  silence  was  not  an  indirect  confes- 
sion of  a  bad  cause. 

The  fault  of  the  court  in  these  transactions  seems  to  have  been  a 
want  of  generosity,  and  even  of  common  gratitude,  to  their  protector, 
—  to  Pulteney.  The  objects  of  the  court  were,  to  disunite  the  oppo- 
sition, to  form  an  administration  on  the  Whig  basis,  and  to  save  Sir 
Robert  Walpole  from  a  public  impeachment,  if  possible,  —  at  all 


PULTENEY.  '  493 

events,  to  save  his  life.  In  the  last  two  Pulteney  was  quite  ready 
to  agree  with  them.  He  was  himself  a  Whig,  and  loved  the  consti- 
tution founded  on  Whig  principles.  He  was  not,  he  said,  "  a  man  of 
blood  "  ;  and  had  always  meant,  by  the  destruction  of  the  minister, 
"  the  destruction  of  his  power,  not  of  his  person."  But,  alas  for  hu- 
man weakness  !  he  had  an  unfortunate  wish  for  a  peerage,  a  still  more 
unfortunate  dislike  to  office.  These  circumstances  placed  him  suffi- 
ciently mthm  the  power  of  the  court ;  and  as  there  was,  therefore, 
no  need  of  either  duping  or  deceiving  him,  or  of  representing  him  as 
duped  or  deceived,  why  was  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  to  insult  him  ? 
What  need  for  the  king  to  break  his  word  with  him  in  the  affair  of 
Sir  John  Hynde  Cotton  ? 

All  'this  was  a  species  of  conduct  in  the  court,  not  only  ungenerous, 
but,  as  is  always  the  case,  unwise  as  it  was  ungenerous.  Courts 
seem  on  such  occasions  to  justify  the  reproaches  of  their  enemies, 
and  to  teach  mankind  that  every  negotiation  with  them  is  to  .be  a 
mere  contest  of  intrigue  and  trick,  of  baseness  and  cunning ;  so  that 
men  of  openness  and  honor  are  to  suppose  them  unfit  to  be  dealt 
with,  and  unsafe  to  be  approached.  Nothing  can  be  more  unfortu- 
nate for  the  country,  and  for  the  court  itself,  than  that  notions  like 
these  should  ever  appear  to  be  countenanced  by  facts. 

The  pubhc,  lastly,  were  not  without  their  blame  on  this  occasion. 
Their  faults  were  their  natural  faults,  —  violence,  precipitation,  un- 
reasonableness. They  overlooked,  in  the  first  place,  the  merits  of 
Sir  Robert ;  considered  not  the  difficulties  of  his  situation ;  that  he 
had  to  support  the  Brunswick  family  on  the  throne  ;  that  he  had  done 
so  ;  that  he  might  not  be  without  his  faults,  but  that  at  least  this  was 
his*  merit,  and  one  with  which  no  other  could  be  put  in  competition ; 
that,  with  Jacobites  and  Tories  to  oppose  him,  —  many  who  would 
have  dethroned  the  Hanover  family,  more  who  would  have  suffered 
it  to  be  dethroned,  —  he  was  not  merely  left  to  depend  on  the  intel- 
ligence and  purity  of  his  measures,  but  obliged  to  fight  his  battle  by 
the  natural  influence  of  the  posts  and  places  which  belong  to  our 
establishments,  and  which  he  was  to  distribute  among  the  great  fami- 
lies of  the  country,  so  as  to  throw  a  weight  of  influence  in  one  scale, 
to  be  opposed  to  disaffection  in  the  other. 

This  is  delicate  ground  on  which  I  am  now  treading,  —  this  ground 
of  the  influence  of  posts  and  places,  and  even  of  positive  money,  ac- 
cording to  the  custom  of  those  times,  offered  and  received.  I  am 
well  aware  of  it.  But  the  era  of  which  I  am  speaking  was  one  which 
cannot  be  brought  into  comparison  with  any  other ;  and,  in  this  situa- 
tion of  things,  to  suppose,  as  the  public  did,  that  Walpole  was  to 
answer  with  his  life  for  what  they  supposed  his  malpractices,  —  to 
imagine  that  he  was  the  great  author  of  all  ill,  and  that  patriotism 
and  purity  waited  only  the  signal  of  his  fall  to  rise  into  splendor,  and 
to  receive  universal  homage,  —  for  the  public  to  suppose  all  this  was 


494  LECTURE  XXVm. 

surely  to  be,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  violent,  precipitate,  and 
unreasonable ;  in  other  words,  was,  according  to  their  measure  and 
opportunity,  to  have  their  follies  and  faults  as  well  as  their  rulers. 

A  further  insight  into  these  curious  transactions,  which,  the  more 
they  could  be  known,  the  more  edifying  they  would  be,  cannot  now 
be  obtained.  We  have  the  known  facts,  the  debates,  and  the  pages 
of  Mr.  Coxe,  drawn  up  after  consideration  of  such  private  papers  as 
now  exist.  Mr.  Walpole  (Sir  Robert's  brother),  it  appears,  destroy- 
ed all  the  papers  of  the  minister.  "  As  the  enemies  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  seemed  desirous,"  says  Mr.  Coxe,  "  to  impute  to  him  alone 
all  the  measures  pursued  during  his  continuance  in  office,  apprehen- 
sions were  justly  entertained  lest  orders  should  be  issued  by  the  com- 
mittee of  secrecy  for  seizing  the  papers,  not  only  of  the  minister  him- 
self, but  even  those  of  his  brother Accordingly  Mr.  Walpole 

went  down  to  Wolterton,  and  burned  numerous  papers,  particularly  a 
great  part  of  the  private  correspondence  between  himself  and  his 
brother."  It  is  to  -this  Life  of  Mr.  Walpole,  afterwards  Lord  Walpole, 
by  Coxe,  that  I  must  continually  refer  you,  in  conjunction  with  the 
common  histories. 

Lord  Carteret  next  appears  on  the  stage,  —  a  man  of  genius  and 
ambition.  He  soon  became  a  great  favorite  with  the  king ;  and  he 
had  talents  that  could  throw  a  splendor  round  any  measures  that  he 
proposed  or  defended. ' 

You  may  begin  with  this  twenty-fourth  chapter  of  Coxe's  Wal- 
pole ;  and  you  will  receive  much  entertainment  and  information  on 
subjects  that  belong  to  this  period :  the  divisions  of  the  cabinet ;  the 
relative  abilities  and  political  views  of  the  leading  men,  particular- 
ly of  Lord  Carteret  on  the  one  side,  and  of  the  Pelhams  on  'the 
other. 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  scene  displayed  through  these  chap- 
ters is  not  very  pleasing.  The  Pelhams  overpowered  Lord  Carteret, 
who  had  the  favor  of  the  king ;  but  their  system  of  politics  turned  out 
to  be  too  nearly  the  same  with  his.  At  this  period,  the  great  point 
that  could  alone  divide  the  opinions  of  patriotic  and  intelligent  men 
was  our  system  of  Continental  interference.  George  the  Second,  as 
it  may  be  supposed,  thought  chiefly  of  Hanover,  and  was  ready  to 
push  the  system  to  any  extreme.  Lord  Carteret,  a  daring,  ambitious, 
able  minister,  was  ready  to  indulge  him  in  all  his  plans  and  preju- 
dices. Had  the  Pelhams  resolved  to  adopt  different  views,  the  con- 
test would  then  have  been  one  of  a  grave,  interesting,  constitutional 
nature,  —  one  in  which  it  would  have  been  very  fit  that  both  the 
monarch  and  his  favorite  should  have  found  themselves  unable  to 
proceed,  from  a  want  of  the  assistance  of  the  House  of  Commons  and 
of  the  public.  But  though  Mr.  Pelham  had  himself  very  reasonable 
opinions  on  the  subject  of  the  Continent,  very  different  from  those  of 
Lord  Carteret,  he  was  obliged,  or  induced,  to  give  way  to  his  brother, 


PELHAM.  495 

the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  had  been,  in  like  manner,  obliged  or  in 
duced  to  give  way  to  the  king.  The  king,  therefore,  after  all,  pre- 
vailed. The  result  was,  and  the  only  result,  that  a  Hanover  system 
of  politics  was  carried  on  by  the  king  and  the  Pelhams,  and  not  by 
the  king  and  Lord  Carteret :  that  is,  the  government  was  in  the  hands 
of  ministers  more  constitutional  and  more  reasonable  for  the  manage- 
ment of  home  politics,  but  less  fitted  to  engage  with  effect  in  the 
poHtics  of  Europe. 

The  peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  at  last  took  place.  It  is  well  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Coxe,  page  359.  "  The  terms  of  the  treaty  of  Aix- 
la-Chapelle,"  says  he,  "  were  highly  favorable  to  the  maritime  powers, 
as  France  relinquished  all  her  conquests  in  the  Low  Countries,  for 
the  restitution  of  Cape  Breton.  The  house  of  Austria  was  alone  dis- 
satisfied with  the  dismemberment  of  Silesia  and  the  country  of  Glatz, 
which  was  guarantied  to  the  king  of  Prussia,  with  the  loss  of  Par- 
ma and  Placentia,  which  were  settled  on  Don  Philip,  and  the  cession 
of  some  districts  in  the  Milanese  to  the  king  of  Sardinia. 

"  Thus,  after  an  immense  expense  of  blood  and  treasure,  ended  a 
war  in  which  Great  Britain  and  France  gained  nothing  but  the  ex- 
perience of  each  other's  strength  and  power.  France  perceived  the 
riches  and  perseverance  of  Great  Britain  to  be  much  greater  than  she 
had  imagined ;  and  Great  Britain  became  sensible,  that  the  power  of 
France,  acting  in  the  Low  Countries  and  in  her  own  neighbourhood 
against  so  despicable  a  barrier  as  was  then  opposed,  was  irresistible. 
The  commercial  disputes  between  Spain  and  Great  Britain  in  the 
West  Indies  —  the  great  object  of  the  war  —  seemed  to  have  been 
rehnquished,  and  only  specified  in  the  treaty  for  form's  sake  ;  while 
each  of  these  nations,  though  mutually  weakened,  found  themselves 
in  the  same  condition  as  before  the  war.  The  sober  and  sensible 
part  of  the  Enghsh  began  to  speak  with  reverence  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole's  pacific  administration  ;  and  those  who  had  been  his  greatest 
enemies  seemed  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  reasons  why  the  war  had 
been  undertaken," 

You  will  see  reason,  I  think,  to  assent  to  these  representations  of 
Mr.  Coxe. 

As  we  proceed  in  the  subsequent  chapters  of  his  work,  similar  m- 
trigues  for  power  continue  to  appear.  Frederic,  then  Prince  of 
Wales,  the  father  of  the  present  king,  had  his  party  in  opposition  to 
the  court ;  and  though  Pelham,  Fox,  Pitt,  and  Murray  were  rang- 
ed under  the  banners  of  administration,  the  prince's  party  was  clear- 
ly gaining  ground  when  he  unexpectedly  died  in  1751.  The  want 
of  proper  elevation  of  understanding  and  sentiment  in  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle  gave  endless  scope  to  the  jealousies  and  intrigues  of  the 
different  leaders  of  different  parties ;  and  when  Mr.  Pelham,  the  ef- 
fective minister,  died  in  1754,  a  new  scene  was  opened  of  contest 
between  Fox,  afterwards  Lord  Holland,  and  Pitt,  afterwards  Lord 


496  LECTURE  XXVm. 

Chatham.  Pitt  was,  however,  too  magnanimous  and  able,  to  please 
either  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  or  the  king.  Fox.,  who  loved  money, 
though  profuse  and  dissolute  in  his  youth,  was,  on  the  whole,  a  better 
courtier,  and  being  less  worthy  of  success,  obtained  it. 

These  times  cannot  now  be  more  easily  or  better  understood  than 
by  reading  these  chapters  of  Coxe.  Other  particulars  will  be  found 
besides  those  I  have  alluded  to :  that  Mr.  Pitt,  for  instance,  never 
spoke  the  invective  against  Horace  Walpole  which  is  attributed  to 
him  ;  that  the  kingdom,  from  want  of  vigor  in  the  cabinet,  had  a  nar- 
row escape  from  Marshal  Saxe  and  a  French  invasion ;  that  the  Life 
of  Lord  Chatham,  as  published  some  years  ago,  is  superficial  and  in- 
accurate, drawn  from  newspapers  and  party  pamphlets,  interspersed 
with  a  few  anecdotes  communicated  in  desultory  conversations  by  Earl 
Temple. 

Particulars  of  this  kind  may  be  found  in  the  text  and  in  the  notes 
of  this  work,  —  this  Life  of  Lord  Walpole.  The  great  wish  of  Lord 
Walpole  seems  to  have  been,  to  persuade  the  English  king  and 
ministry  to  form  a  strict  alliance  with  Prussia.  He  labored  the  point 
by  every  effort  in  his  power,  private  conversation,  and  a  written  me- 
moir. He  seems  not  to  have  sufficiently  appreciated  the  difficulty  of 
combining  Austria  and  Prussia  in  a  common  system  of  politics  ;  nor 
the  improbability  of  bringing  forward,  with  success,  any  power  but 
the  house  of  Austria  to  oppose  the  monarchy  of  France. 

The  Walpoles,  however,  must  be  thought  right  iri  the  main  point 
of  their  politics,  —  their  endeavouring  to  persuade  Maria  Theresa  to 
yield  to  the  injustice  of  the  king  of  Prussia  at  first,  the  better  to 
enable  them  to  make  a  combination  for  her  against  the  power  of 
France,  which  was  evidently  become  a  most  formidable  enemy  to  the 
liberties  both  of  Germany  and  of  Europe.  They  were  afeo  right  in 
another  point,  —  that  any  contest  with  France  would  certainly  be 
followed  by  another  contest  on  English  ground,  for  the  cro^^-n  of  these 
realms,  —  that  is,  by  an  invasion  from  the  Pretender.  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  lived  to  see  his  long  and  constant  prediction  just  fulfilling. 

On  the  whole,  the  proper  system  of  foreign  politics  was  sufficiently 
plain  :  that  France  was  becoming  too  strong ;  that  Prussia  was  inter- 
ested in  the  Germanic  liberties,  and  might  have  been  prevailed  upon 
to  be  at  least  neutral ;  and  that  Austria,  as  the  natural  enemy  of 
France,  was  to  be  brought  forward  in  open  opposition.  But  Hanover, 
not  England,  and  not  Europe,  was  unfortunately  the  object,  —  the 
great  point  at  all  events  to  be  secured.  Foreign  expenses  and  en- 
tanglements, to  an  endless  extent,  and  of  an  inextricable  nature,  were 
the  consequence ;  a  consequence  that  must  be  considered  as  the  price 
which  the  nation  paid  for  the  establishment  of  her  civil  and  religious 
liberties,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Brunswick  family  on  the 
throne,  on  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  in  1688. 

As  another  object  deserving  your  attention,  may  be  mentioned  the 


REBELLION  OF   1745.  497 

Rebellion  of  1745.  You  will  see  the  history  of  it  in  Smollett.  It 
has  been  professedly  treated  by  Home,  the  author  of  the  beautiful 
tragedy  of  Douglas.  It  is  also  noticed  by  Lacretelle  ;  and  it  is  al- 
ways amusing  to  observe  what  foreigners  say  of  us.  Smollett,  him- 
self a  Scotchman,  was  deeply  affected  by  the  cruelties  that  are  gen- 
erally understood  to  have  followed  the  defeat  of  the  Highlanders  at 
Culloden.  This  seems  the  most  material  point  of  difference  between 
his  account  and  that  of  Home,  who  passes  over  this  part  of  his  sub- 
ject in  silence,  very  improperly ;  for  it  is  on  occasions  like  these  that 
history  should  exercise  its  awful  censure,  if  blame  has  been  incurred ; 
and  as  the  charge  has  been  made,  it  should  have  been  either  confirm- 
ed or  refuted.  It  is  not  very  promising  to  see  a  history  of  the  Rebel- 
lion in  1745  dedicated  to  the  reigning  sovereign ;  and  the  silence  of 
Home  must  be  considered  as  an  indirect  acknowledgment  that  the 
severities  exercised  on  this  occasion  were  more  than  were  necessary, 
and  therefore  such  as  deserve  reprobation.  The  cause  of  humanity 
must  not  be  violated,  even  by  those  who  have  been  hazarding  their 
lives  in  the  defence  of  the  free  government  of  England,  —  still  less  by 
those  who  are  sitting  in  its  cabinets. 

Since  I  last  read  this  lecture,  a  book  has  been  published,  —  Me- 
moirs of  the  RebeUion  of  1745,  by  the  Chevalier  Johnstone,  who  was 
aid-de-camp  to  Lord  George  Murray, 'and  assistant  aid-de-camp  to 
Prince  Charles.  It  should  be  looked  at,  particularly  the  introduction, 
which  is  sensible  and  important.  The  notes  are  always  good.  The 
great  impression^  left  on  the  mind  of  the  reader  are,  that  the  rebellion 
was  in  reality  more  formidable  than  he  may  have  supposed,  the  cruel- 
ties of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  and  of  his  agents  more  disgraceful. 
The  author  endeavours  also  to  persuade  his  readers,  but  I  think  in 
vain,  that  the  battle  of  Culloden  was  less  decisive,  and  the  talents 
and  character  of  Prince  Charles  more  totally  unworthy  of  the  enter- 
prise, than  he  may  have  imagined.  The  last  half  of  the  book  is  oc- 
cupied with  the  author's  adventures  and  efforts  to  escape ;  they  are 
often  curious,  and  sometimes  descriptive  of  manners.  The  author 
ends  his  memoir  in  something  like  despair,  at  the  approach  of  old  age 
and  beggary.  The  manuscript  was  originally  in  the  Scotch  College, 
and  is  now  at  Longman's.  It  is  not  very  flattering  to  our  national 
character  to  be  obliged  to  conclude  from  the  Stuart  Papers,  now  in 
possession  of  his  Majesty,  that  so  large  a  part  of  the  English  aristoc- 
racy invited  the  prince  into  England,  —  that  much  the  same  conclu 
sion  may  be  drawn  from  the  Culloden  Papers  lately  published,  in  1815. 
This  is  noticed  in  a  note  to  the  present  work.  But  these  are  particu- 
lars not  to  be  forgotten,  when  we  are  considering  the  merits  and  de- 
merits of  the  Whigs  of  the  last  century,  and  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  ; 
those,  too,  of  their  opponents,  —  the  Tory  and  Jacobite  leaders,  — 
Shippen,  Sir  William  Wyndham,  Lord  Bolingbroke,  and  even  of 
Pulteney. 

63  pp* 

t 


498  LECTURE  XXVIII. 

I  have  now  again  another  postscript  to  add  to  my  lecture ;  foi , 
many  years  after  writing  what  I  have  just,  now  delivered,  I  have  just 
seen  an  article  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  of  June,  1827,  on  Mr.  Mac- 
kenzie's edition  of  the  Works  of  Home,  as  I  understand,  by  Walter 
Scott.  I  am  such  an  idolater  of  this  extraordinary  writer,  that 
nothing  can  be  so  gratifying  to  me  as  to  perceive  that  the  representa- 
tions thus  made  are  aljundantly  strengthened  and  confirmed  by  every 
thing  he  says.  The  article  cannot  be  as  gratifying  to  you  as  it  has 
been  to  me  ;  but  it  has  a  reference  to  other  literary  characters,  as  well 
as  to  Home,  and  you  will  find  it,  in  every  respect,  very  entertaining. 

The  work  of  Home  was  not  entirely  such  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected from  one  who  was  not  only  an  actor  in  the  scene,  but  the  au 
thor  of  a  tragedy  like  Douglas,  elegant  enough  to  have  pleased  on 
the  French  stage,  and  yet  affecting  enough  to  succeed  on  ours.  The 
History  of  the  Rebellion  was  a  work  which  had  been  meditated  so 
long,  that  it  was  delivered  to  the  world  too  late,  —  when  the  writer 
was  no  longer  what  he  once  was.  But  I  recommend  it  to  your  peru- 
sal, because  it  has  all  the  marlis  of  authenticity,  —  possesses,  I  think, 
more  merit  than  is  generally  supposed,  —  treats  of  a  very  remark- 
able event  in  our  history,  —  and  is,  after  all,  entertaining,  and  not 
long. 

I  do  not  now  detain  you  with  the  narrative  of  this  enterprise,  which 
even  in  the  history  will  not  occupy  you  for  many  pages.  The  points 
of  it  are  shortly  these  :  —  The  Pretender  landed  almost  alone  in  one 
of  the  desolate  parts  of  Scotland ;  with  difficulty  got  a  few  chiefs  to 
join  him  ;  obtained  possession  of  the  town,  though  not  of  the  castle,  of 
Edinburgh ;  defeated  one  royal  army  that  came  to  dislodge  him ; 
pushed  on  to  what  he  considered  the  disaffected  parts  of  England,  the 
northern  counties ;  shaped  his  course  for  the  capital,  and  actually 
reached  Derby  in  his  way  to  it.  His  followers,  or  rather  some  of  the 
leaders,  then  despaired  of  the  enterprise,  and  forced  him  to  retreat. 
When  he  had  returned  to  Scotland,  a  second  royal  army  was  de- 
feated at  Falkirk ;  and  at  length,  in  April,  1746,  about  nine  months 
after  his  first  landing,  his  Highlanders  were  regularly  encountered 
at  Culloden.  They  were  first  sustained  in  their  attack,  and  after- 
wards chased  from  the  field  by  the  veteran  troops  of  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland.  The  Pretender  then  became  a  fugitive,  and  was  hunted 
from  place  to  place ;  and  though  a  reward  of  thirty  thousand  pounds, 
m  a  manner  not  very  worthy  of  an  English  cabinet,  had  been  set  on 
his  head,  and  though  he  was  transferred  from  the  care  of  one  High- 
lander to  another,  during  several  weeks,  not  a  man  could  be  found 
among  these  hardy  children  of  tempests  and  poverty,  these  magnani- 
mous outcasts  of  government  and  nature,  base  and  unmanly  enough 
either  to  assassinate  or  to  betray.  He  at  length  made  his  way  to 
France,  like  his  ancestor,  Charles  the  Second,  after  sufferings  and 
escapes  almost  incredible. 


REBELLION  OF   1745.  499 

There  are  parts  of  this  story  which  you  will  find  very  interesting 
m  Home  :  —  the  commencement  of  the  enterprise  ;  the  transactions 
that  took  place  at  Edinburgh  while  the  rebels  were  approaching ;  the 
intended  night  attack  previous  to  the  battle  of  Culloden.  Some  dis- 
appointment is,  however,  experienced  by  the  reader,  when  he  comes 
to  the  adventures  of  Charles  after  his  final  defeat.  They  are  not 
given  either  in  a  very  clear  or  very  interesting  manner.  There  are 
a  few  papers  in  the  appendix  which  make  some  amends. 

But  there  are  some  particular  topics  connected  with  this  enterprise 
which  I  could  wish  you  would  make  the  subject  of  your  reflections. 
For  instance, — who,  and  what  could  be  the  men  who  could  thus 
crowd  in  a  moment  around  the  descendant  of  James  the  Second,  de- 
feat a  body  of  regular  troops,  throw  England  into  confusion,  and 
march  within  a  hundred  miles  of  the  metropolis  ?  These  Highlanders 
ought  surely  to  appear  to  the  student  a  very  extraordinary  descrip- 
tion of  men ;  they  certainly  were  so.  Some  account  of  them  is  given 
by  Home,  and  of  late  a  more  full  and  regular  account  by  Mrs.  Grant. 
From  this  work,  or  even  the  critique  on  it  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,* 
and  from  the  History  of  Home,  you  will  be  able  to  explain  to  your- 
selves the  singular  political  problem  (for  such  it  is)  to  which  I  am 
now  endeavouring  to  direct  your  future  consideration. 

I  will  allude  to  a  circumstance  or  two.  When  Charles  first  reach- 
ed the  Highlands,  in  a  small  ship,  with  no  other  means  than  a  few 
muskets  and  about  four  thousand  pounds  in  money,  and  proposed  to 
some  of  the  chiefs  to  march  to  England  and  dethrone  George  the 
Second,  heroic  as  were  their  natural  sentiments,  they  resolutely  de- 
clined all  share  in  so  wild  an  undertaking.  Charles  talked  to  two  of 
them  who  had  come  on  board  his  vessel ;  he  persuaded,  argued,  and 
explained ;  and  as  he  walked  backwards  and  forwards  on  the  deck, 
he  was  overheard  by  a  Highlander,  who  had  come  on  board  with  his 
leader,  and  who  had  no  sooner  gathered  from  the  discourse  that  the 
stranger  was  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  that  the  chief  and  his  brother 
refused  to  take  arms,  than  his  color  went  and  came,  his  eyes  sparkled, 
he  shifted  his  place,  he  grasped  his  sword.  "  And  will  not  you  as- 
sist me  ?"  said  Charles,  who  had  observed  him.  "I  will,  I  will," 
said  Ranald ;  "  though  no  other  man  in  the  Highlands  should  draw  a 
sword,  I  am  ready  to  die  for  you."  "  I  only  wish  that  all  the  High- 
landers were  like  you,"  said  Charles.  Without  further  deliberation, 
the  chief  and  the  brother,  the  two  Macdonalds,  declared  that  they 
also  would  join,  and  use  their  utmost  endeavours  to  engage  their 
countrymen  to  come  forward  in  his  cause. 

Now  such  was  the  first  extraordinary  step  in  this  extraordinary 
enterprise.  Another  remained.  Lochiel,  then  the  head  of  the 
powerful  clan  of  the  Camerons,  was  yet  to  be  gained  over.     He  was 

*  Edinburgh  Review  for  August,  1811.  —  N. 


500  LECTURE  XXVm. 

coming  to  Charles  to  give  his  reasons  for  not  joining  him,  —  reasons, 
as  he  had  told  his  brother,  which  admitted  of  no  reply.  "  But  that 
is  of  no  consequence,"  said  his  Aviser  brother.  He  was,  no  doubt, 
very  right ;  they  certainly  admitted  of  no  reply,  and  had  received 
none  when  urged  to  the  prince.  But  as  the  conference  was  closing, 
X]harles,  in  his  despair,  declared  that  he  w^ould  erect  the  royal  stand- 
ard even  with  the  few  friends  he  had ;  proclaim  to  the  people  of 
Britain  that  Charles  Stuart  was  come  over  to  claim  the  crown  of  his 
ancestors,  —  to  win  it,  or  perish  in  the  attempt.  "  You,  Lochiel," 
said  he,  "  who  my  father  has  often  told  me  was  our  firmest  friend,  — 
you,  Lochiel,  may  stay  at  home,  and  learn  from  the  newspapers  the 
fate  of  your  prince."  "  No,"  said  Locliiel,  "  I  will  share  the  fate  of 
my  prince,  and  so  shall  every  man  over  whom  nature  or  fortune  has 
given  me  any  power."  It  is  a  point  agreed  amongst  the  Highlanders, 
that,  if  Lochiel  had  persisted  in  his  refusal  to  take  up  arms,  the  other 
chiefs  would  not  have  joined  the  standard  of  Charles,  and  the  spark 
of  rebellion  must  have  instantly  expired. 

Such  were  the  chances  and  turns  of  elevated  sentiment  on  which 
this  enterprise  depended ;  such  were  the  grounds  on  which  these 
bands  of  brothers  were  to  descend  from  their  mountains,  at  every 
stfep  they  took  incur  the  penalties  of  treason  and  death,  lift  up  their 
eyes  and  gaze  unappalled  on  the  colossal  power  of  England !  —  never 
pause  for  a  moment  to  contrast  the  simple  target  and  claymore  of 
Scotland  with  her  mighty  lance  and  segis,  —  the  artillery  at  her  feet, 
and  her  fleets  in  the  distance  ;  but  at  all  events  precipitate  themselves 
forward,  and  ask  from  their  chief  no  question  but  —  "  Was  it  his 
will  ?  "  and  from  their  prince  no  signal  but  —  "  Did  he  lead  ?  " 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  history  of  the  world  ever  exhibited 
a  stronger  instance  of  the  triumph  of  heroic  sentiment  over  the  calmer 
suggestions  of  reason.  But  when  our  first  impression  of  surprise  and 
indeed  of  admiration  is  passed  away,  we  must  look  upon  this  as  a  very 
striking  instance  to  prove  the  indispensable  necessity  of  the  general 
diffusion  of  political  knowledge  among  all  ranks  and  descriptions  of 
men.  A  mistake  was  now  made  merely  from  the  want  of  political 
knowledge ;  and  on  this  account,  and  on  no  other,  brave  men  were  to 
perish  in  the  field,  and  the  great  cause  of  civil  and  religious  liberty 
was  to  be  endangered  to  the  utmost,  —  the  cause  of  the  Revolution  of 
1688,  the  cause  of  England  and  of  mankind,  —  and  endangered  by  the 
most  noble  and  generous  of  men.  I  say,  endangered  to  the  utmost ; 
for  had  tlie  northern  parts  of  England  been  as  magnanimous  in  senti- 
ment  as  they,  too,  were  mistaken  in  opinion,  —  had  they  been,  like 
the  Highlanders,  not  only  ignorant  and  misled  in  their  political  no- 
tions, but  generous  and  fearless  in  their  characters,  it  is  scarcely  too 
much  to  affirm  that  the  Rebellion  of  1745  would  have  been  successful, 
the  Brunswick  family  would  have  been  driven  from  our  land,  and 
freedom  would  have  lost  her  boast  (a  boast  so  cheering  to  a  philo' 


REBELLION  OF   1745.  501 

Bophic  mind) J  that  she,  too,  had  placed  a  monarch  on  a  throne,  and,  in 
England  at  least,  was  had  in  honor  in  palaces  and  courts.  The  senti- 
ment on  which  the  Stuart  family  had  to  depend,  from  the  first,  was 
merely  an  over-statement  of  an  acknowledged  principle  in  political 
science,  the  principle  of  hereditary  right.  It  was  this  sentiment,  and 
this  alone,  that  now  armed  the  clans  of  Scotland  in  their  cause,  and 
so  prejudiced  Wales  and  the  northern  counties  of  England  in  their 
favor. 

I  will  not  insult,  as  some  seem  ready  to  do,  the  memory  of  these 
heroes  of  the  Highlands  (for  such  they  were)  by  supposing  that 
either  plunder  or  power  was  their  object ;  far  higher  and  more  noble 
were  the  feelings  of  their  hearts.  It  was  loyalty  to  the  chief  in  the 
follower,  —  it  was  loyalty  to  the  prince  in  the  chief,  —  it  was  in  all 
the  indefeasible  nature,  as  they  supposed,  of  hereditary  right,  that 
made  the  cause  of  Charles  Stuart,  in  their  opinion,  the  good  cause 
and  the  true,  whatever  might  be  its  issue,  however  discountenanced 
and  abandoned  by  the  timeserving  sycophants  of  the  Lowlands  and 
of  the  South. 

"  The  king  shall  have  his  own  again," 

was  the  language  of  the  popular  ballads  of  the  time.  The  same  senti- 
ment has  been  caught  by  the  poet  of  Caledonia,  in  his  Chevalier's 
Lament :  — 

"  His  right  are  these  hills,  and  his  right  are  these  valleys, 
Where  the  wild  beasts  find  shelter,  but  I  can  find  none." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  respect  men  who  could  thus  devote  them- 
selves, from  principle,  to  an  unprotected  adventurer  like  Charles. 
It  may  be  useful  for  us  to  meditate  upon  these  examples  of  elevated 
sentiment,  that  we  may  catch  a  portion  for  our  own  hearts  of  the  di- 
vine flame  which  we  are  admiring.  But  we  must  be  admonished,  at 
the  same  time,  by  examples  like  these,  that  heroism  in  the  sentiment, 
and  generosity  in  the  feeling,  are  not  alone  sufficient ;  that  these  are 
the  lights  which,  "though  Hghts  from  heaven,  may  lead  astray"; 
that  principles,  however  elevated,  must  be  properly  estimated,  their 
bounds  ascertained,  their  value  compared  with  that  of  other  princi- 
ples ;  and,  in  a  word,  that  sentiment  alone  must  not  actuate  the  man, 
till  it  has  first  been  shown  its  course  and  taught  its  limits  by  the 
superintending  power  of  the  understanding. 

What  spectacle  was  ever  seen  like  that  before  us  ?  The  children 
of  poetry,  gallantry,  and  song,  of  hardiness  and  courage,  of  courteous- 
ness  and  truth,  rushing  from  the  free  air  and  simple  pleasures  of 
their  mountains,  to  fight  the  battles  of — what?  —  of  arbitrary 
power !  to  bleed  in  defence  of  —  whom  ?  —  of  the  representatives 
of  civil  and  religious  tyranny  !  to  perish,  and  for  what  end  ?  —  that 
they  might  destroy  the  fair  fabric  of  the  constitution  of  England ! 


502  LECTURE  XXVm. 

It  pleased  a  Higher  Power,  in  his  overruHng  mercies  to  these 
kingdoms,  to  order  it  otherwise,  —  to  decree  that  they  should  not  suc- 
ceed. They  paid  the  forfeit  of  their  delusions  and  mistakes :  they 
lay  slaughtered  on  the  plain  of  Culloden ;  they  were  hunted  down  by 
their  conquerors  amid  their  native  wilds ;  they  perished,  and  their 
cause  has  perished  with  them.  So  perish  the  memory  of  their  faults ! 
Their  high  and  noble  qualities  survive,  for  they  have  descended  to 
their  countrymen,  the  heroes  of  our  own  days,  the  heroes  who  carry 
terror  into  the  legions  of  France,  an^  who  have  at  length  found  a 
cause  where  the  Muse  of  History  may  tell  their  achievements  without 
a  blush,  and  record  their  virtues  without  a  sigh. 

When  we  reflect  on  the  character  of  these  inhabitants  of  the  High- 
lands, it  is  not  very  agreeable  to  observe  the  want  of  prospective  wis- 
dom that  was  shown  by  our  English  cabinets.  The  exiled  family  of 
the  Stuarts  had  belonged  to  Scotland ;  there  had  been  a  rebellion  in 
their  favor  in  1715  ;  and  it  was  always  the  maxim  of  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole,  that  on  the  event  of  a  French  war  another  would  take  place. 
Was  no  effort,  therefore,  made  by  the  legislature  to  counteract  this 
disposition  of  the  Highlanders  to  insurrection  ?  Could  nothing  have 
been  attempted  ?  Could  not  their  generous  and  active  qualities  have 
been  converted  to  the  benefit,  as  they  had  been  to  the  injury,  of  the 
state  ?  A  mechanic  requires  a  fulcrum,  an  artist  a  rude  material ; 
he  asks  no  more  ;  his  ingenuity  and  labor  are  to  do  the  rest.  Were 
there y  therefore,  in  the  character  of  the  Highlanders  no  opportunities 
for  the  science  of  a  statesman,  —  no  fulcrum,  and  no  rude  material  ? 

These  are  questions  that  should  occupy  your  thoughts  while  you 
read  the  events  of  this  rebellion  ;  and  before  you  consider  what  might 
have  been  done,  I  will  mention  what  really  was  done,  in  the  way  of 
legislative  provision. 

The  Highland  clans,  you  will  observe,  were  not  all  disaffected: 
far  from  it.  There  were  Whig  as  well  as  Jacobite  clans.  The  gov- 
ernment of  George  the  First  issued  out  its  orders,  therefore,  to  dis- 
arm the  Highlanders.  This  is  always  a  very  favorite  measure  of 
lazy  and  arbitrary,  and,  I  may  add,  ignorant  legislators.  They  seize 
the  arms,  and  leave  the  hearts  of  a  people  to  be  seized  by  others. 
But  what  was  the  result  ?  The  common  one,  —  that  the  well-affected 
gave  up  their  arms  at  the  time  appointed,  and  the  rest  concealed 
them,  or  took  some  subsequent  opportunity  of  providing  themselves 
afresh. 

At  last,  Duncan  Forbes,  the  president  of  the  Court  of  Session, 
seeing  a  war  with  Spain  approaching,  and  aware  of  the  consequences, 
in  the  autumn  of  the  year  1738  (more  than  twenty  years  after  the 
first  rebellion)  proposed  that  government  should  raise  four  or  five 
regiments  in  the  Highlands,  appoint  an  Enghsh  or  Scotch  officer  of 
undoubted  loyalty  to  be  colonel  of  each  regiment,  and  name  all  the 
other  officers  from  a  list  which  he  gave  in,  and  which  comprehended 


REBELLION  OF  1745.  503 

all  the  chiefs  and  chieftains  of  the  disaffected  clans.  He  had  no 
doubt,  he  said,  that  these  men  would  serve  well  against  the  enemy 
abroad,  and  even,  in  fact,  be  hostages  for  the  good  behaviour  of  their 
relations  at  home. 

That  this,  at  least,  should  have  been  one  of  the  expedients  resorted 
to  long  before  is  sufficiently  obvious  ;  but  wliat  was  the  event  ?  Sir 
Robert  Walpole  said  it  was  the  most  sensible  plan  he  had  seen,  sum- 
moned a  cabinet  council,  laid  it  before  them,  recommended  it  strong- 
ly, —  and  then,  what  was  the  difficulty  ?  Why,  every  other  member 
of  the  cabinet  was  against  it,  because  opposition,  they  said,  would  ex- 
claim that  Sir  Robert  Walpole  was  raising  an  army  of  Highlanders  to 
join  the  standing  army  and  enslave  the  people  of  England.  The 
plan  was,  therefore,  laid  aside,  and  Sir  Robert,  and  probably  the 
cabinet,  with  the  fear  of  a  rebeUion  constantly  before  their  eyes,  did 
nothing.  They  had  done  nothing  for  twenty  years  before,  when  any 
expedients  of  the  kind  might  have  been  tried  with  a  good  grace  and 
with  a  proper  chance  of  success. 

"  What  impolicy ! "  we  cry,  and  justly.  But  this  is  not  a  field  in 
which  our  EngUsh  statesmen,  at  least  our  English  cabinets,  have 
much  displayed  their  legislative  wisdom.  More  than  a  thousand 
years  before  the  Revolution  of  1688,  the  Romans  could  contrive  that 
"  the  Barbarians  should  consume  their  dangerous  valor  in  the  service 
of  the  state."  No  policy  so  obvious  ;  and  though  it  was  abused  by 
the  later  emperors  of  Rome,  in  a  very  extraordinary  state  of  the 
world,  to  their  injury,  none  so  easy  to  be  modified  and  properly 
adapted  to  the  circumstances  of  any  critical  case ;  yet  no  hint  either 
of  ancient  or  modern  poHcy  seems  ever  to  have  reached  our  legisla- 
tors. Lord  Chatham,  who,  with  all  his  faults,  had  that  elevation  in 
the  character  of  his  mind  without  which  no  minister  can  ever  be 
great,  made  it  his  boast  (and  it  was  an  honest  boast)  that  he  had  been 
the  first  to  take  advantage  of  the  noble  qualities  of  the  Scottish  na- 
tion. "  I  was  the  first  minister,"  said  he,  "  who  looked  for  merit, 
and  found  it  in  the  mountains  of  the  North.  I  called  it  forth,  and 
drew  into  your  service  a  hardy  and  intrepid  race  of  men,  —  men  who, 
when  left  by  your  jealousy,  became  a  prey  to  the  artifices  of  your 
enemies,  and  had  gone  nigh  to  overturn  the  state,  in  the  war  before 
the  last."  His  example  stands  alone.  Nothing  is  ever  done  by 
cabinets  in  the  way  of  conciliation  or  timely  and  prospective  wisdom ; 
they  five  upon  expedients,  and  provide  only  for  the  day  that  is  going 
over  them. 

But,  before  I  conclude  this  lecture,  I  would  wish  you  to  cast  one 
glance  more  on  this  remarkable  rebellion.  I  would  wish  you  to  con- 
sider once  more  the  character  of  the  Highlanders,  and  the  romantic 
nature  of  this  enterprise  in  its  commencement  and  progress,  and  then 
turn  to  the  melancholy  contrast  exhibited  by  the  people  of  England 
at  this  singular  crisis.     I  do  not  say  that  associations  were  not  form- 


604  LECTURE  xxAan. 

ed,  —  that  volunteers  were  not  collecting,  —  that  the  nobility  and 
gentry  were  not  in  alarm  and  in  motion.  But  what  is,  on  the  whole, 
the  simple  fact,  as  it  has  been  stated  with  his  usual  point  and  acute- 
ness  by  Mr.  Gibbon  ?  That  Charles  and  his  followers  marched  into 
the  heart  of  the  kingdom^  without  either  being  joined  by  their  friends 
or  opposed  by  their  enemies. 

But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  could  such  a  strange  fact  as  this  take 
place  ?  From  national  apathy,  or  disaffection,  or  pusillanimity  ? 
Whence  could  it  arise  ?  The  first  answer  to  this  question  must  be, 
that  the  nobility,  gentry,  ajid  yeomanry  of  the  country  were  not  pre- 
pared for  an  inroad  of  this  kind ;  they  had  not  been  taught  by  their 
rulers  to  expect  it,  nor  directed  to  learn  the  use  of  arms,  and  accus- 
tom themselves  to  military  exercises. 

But  what  need,  it  will  be  replied,  of  the  use  of  arms  and  military 
exercises  ?  Why  did  not  the  country  rise,  as  one  man,  to  beat  back 
invaders  that  were  as  insulting  from  their  numbers  as  their  designs  ? 
Four  or  five  thousand  men  marching  against  the  people  of  England, 
to  give  away  their  crown  and  destroy  their  civil  and  religious  liber- 
ties !  This  question,  after  all,  can  best  be  answered  by  the  compari- 
son of  the  English  and  Highland  character  at  the  time.  The  High- 
land character  had  remained  the  same ;  but  the  English  character 
had  been  materially  altered  by  the  influence  of  commerce  and  manu- 
factures, and  half  a  century  of  peace  and  prosperity.  There  was  in- 
telligence, hterature,  industry,  affluence,  civilization,  in  England  ;  but 
there  was  no  ardor  of  sentiment,  as  in  Scotland,  —  no  visions  of  the 
imagination,  no  traditional  poetry,  and  no  national  music,  —  no  spirits 
in  the  mountains,  and  the  ghosts  of  no  heroes  in  the  clouds,  —  no 
poverty  that  walked  erect  and  familiar  into  the  castle  and  the  hall,  — 
no  links  of  genealogy  that  united  the  hovel  and  the  palace.  Little 
had  been  heard  of  these  things  in  England  during  the  last  century, 
though  much  had  been  heard  of  the  value  of  estates,  of  the  balance 
of  trade,  and  of  profit  and  loss. 

I  speak  not  to  depreciate  the  labors  of  the  manufacturer,  the  value 
of  commerce,  or  the  progressive  blessings  of  successful  industry  in 
the  towns  or  in  the  country ;  but  I  certainly  do  speak  in  order  to 
represent  to  you,  that,  as  I  have  before  observed  how  necessary  is 
the  frequent  exercise  of  the  understanding  to  save  men  from  the  de- 
lusions of  their  feelings,  so  I  must  now  observe,  with  no  less  anxiety, 
how  necessary  is  the  influence  of  sentiment  as  well  as  reason,  of  the 
elevated  sensibiUties  as  well  as  the  prudent  dispositions  of  the  mind, 
to  the  perfection  of  the  human  character,  more  particularly  of  the 
human  character  when  found  in  any  highly  commercial  and  manu- 
facturing and  prosperous  community ;  that,  without  these  sensibilities, 
wisdom  and  science  may  be  of  no  avail  to  the  individuals  of  a  great 
nation,  and  their  opulence  be  wrested  from  them  and  be  only  an  in- 
citement to  the  enterprise  of  their  invaders;  that  the  romance  of 


REBELLION  OF  1745.  505 

sentiment,  as  it  would.be  thought  on  the  Royal  Exchange  of  London, 
must  not  be  banished  from  the  land,  lest  the  land  should  perish  as 
Holland  has  done,  surrounded  with  the  images  of  its  comme  y'  a-  d 
its  wealth,  but  no  longer  the  Holland  where  Philip  and  the  Span./ 
infantry  were  defied,  and  Louis  and  the  armies  of  France  successfully 
resisted.  You  will  easily  trace  out,  on  the  one  hand,  the  various  and 
inestimable  blessings  which  result  from  commerce  and  manufactures, 
from  the  successful  exertions  of  industry,  and  the  increasing  opulence 
and  independence  of  the  inferior  orders  of  the  community ;  but  you 
will  easily  see,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  virtue  of  personal  courage, 
and  all  the  high  qualities  that  belong  to  the  character,  not  merely  of 
the  soldier,  but  even  of  the  patriot,  have  a  tendency  to  decline  in  a 
nation  as  it  advances  in  its  commerce  and  manufactures,  as  it  makes, 
in  short,  greater  progress  in  the  science  of  affluence,  —  that  is,  as 
those  men  everywhere  multiply  and  spread  themselves  who  are  more 
exclusively  occupied  in  the  mere  pursuit  of  gain. 

How  the  sentiment  may  still  be  kept  high  in  the  community,  while 
men  of  this,  I  admit,  very  useful  description  are  everywhere  increas- 
ing in  their  numbers  and  influence,  —  how  these  men  are  themselves 
to  be  properly  elevated  in  their  minds,  while  they  are  so  exclusively 
occupied  with  their  bargains  and  their  markets,  the  articl^  they 
are  to  produce,  and  the  price  they  are  to  receive,  —  how  this  can  be 
effected,  I  may  not  have  here  any  leisure  to  inquire  ;  but  I  may  at 
least  say  this,  that  it  cannot  be  done  by  pressing  hard  on  the  demo- 
cratic parts  of  the  constitution,  or  that  it  cannot  be  done  by  prevent- 
ing the  education  of  the  lower  orders.  I  should  rather  say  that  it 
can  be  done  only  by  means  exactly  the  reverse :  by  keeping  the  poor 
man  as  enhghtened,  that  is,  as  susceptible  of  a  sense  of  duty  and 
generous  feelings,  as  the  nature  of  his  imperfect  condition  will  allow  ; 
and  by  accustoming  every  man  to  interest  himself,  and  by  calling  him 
out  to  interest  himself,  in  the  concerns  of  his  country,  —  that  is,  to 
think  as  highly  of  his  own  political  importance  as  the  peace  of  that 
country,  as  the  safety  and  respectability  of  the  executive  power,  will 
possibly  admit. 

Supposing  you  now  to  pass  on  from  this  rebellion  in  1745,  you  will 
reach  the  peace  in  1748,  then  arrive  at  a  delicious  period  of  tranquil- 
lity that  intervened  for  seven  short  years,  and  thus  at  last  be  con- 
ducted to  the  great  war  which  was  raging  when  his  present  Majesty, 
George  the  Third,  ascended  the  throne.  This  war  was  concluded  by 
the  peace  of  1763. 

On  the  subjects  of  these  wars,  their  causes  and  their  events,  you 
will  find  information  in  the  common  histories  of  the  times.  I  have 
already  insisted,  perhaps  to  a  degree  of  tediousness,  on  the  principles 
by  which  questions  of  tliis  nature  ought  to  be  judged,  —  "  Justa  bella 
quibus  necessaria.'*  It  remains  but  to  observe  that  the  question  of 
the  proper  boundaries  of  the  French  and  English  settlements  in  North 
64  QQ 


506  .  LECTURE  XXVIII. 

America  was  not  accurately  determined,  when  it  might  have  been,  at 
the  peace  of  Aix-larChapelle  in  1748,  and  that  the  subsequent  war 
was  marked  by  those  successes  which  must  for  ever  attest  the  hero- 
ism of  which  the  inhabitants  of  these  islands  can  be  made  capable, 
and  attest,  at  the  same  time,  the  genius  of  that  great  minister,  the 
first  Mr.  Pitt,  who  was  called  bj  the  people,  rather  than  by  the 
monarch,  to  draw  forth  the  energies  of  his  country. 

And  now  it  must  be  further  observed,  that  this  was,  the  very  peo- 
ple who  had  suffered  the  Highlanders  to-  march  to  the  centre  of  their 
kingdom  to  give  away  their  empire  to  the  Stuarts ;  that  afterwards 
without  a  murmur  suffered  a  secretary  of  state,  Mr.  Henry  Fox,  to 
bring  over  Hessians  and  Hanoverians  for  their  defence  ;  and  that 
gave  occasion  to  Dr.  Brown,  in  his  Estimate  of  the  Times,  to  repre- 
sent them  as  degraded  and  lost  in  effeminacy  and  luxury.  At  the 
summons,  however,  of  Mr.  Pitt,  they  started  from  their  trance,  such 
is  the  importance  of  the  government  of  a  country,  and  they  shamed 
the  secretary  who  had  insulted,  and  confuted  the  author  who  had 
libelled  them ;  they  did  so  by  defeating  their  eneijiies  in  every  quar- 
ter of  the  world.  The  truth  is,  that  ministers  Hke  the  first  Mr. 
Fox,  and  writers  like  Dr.  Brown,  were  not  fit,  the  one  to  call  forth 
the  powers  of  a  great  civihzed  nation,  or  the  other  to  estimate  its 
character. 

They  who  rail  against  the  luxury  of  the  times  are  in  fact  declaim- 
ing against  the  growing  prosperity  of  the  country.  The  most  re- 
fined of  men  may  be  the  most  brave,  —  they  generally  are  so.  It 
was  not  by  luxuries  that  the  Roman  and  Grecian  empires  fell,  as  has 
been  commonly  supposed ;  but  by  defects  in  their  civil  poHty,  and  by 
the  gradual  and  consequent  decay  of  that  spirit  of  freedom  which, 
when  it  existed  unimpaired,  preserved  them  safe  from  every  invader. 
Luxuries  are  not  fatal  to  a  people,  but  as  the  possession  of  them  sup- 
poses a  large  mass  of  the  community  employed  in  furnishing  them  by 
their  industry,  —  that  is,  employed  in  the  pursuit  of  gain,  and  there- 
fore exposed  to  great  debasement  in  their  natural  sentiments,  and  the 
loss  of  their  military  spirit.  But  if  this  debasement  be  counteracted 
by  such  expedients  as  I  have  mentioned,  by  diffusing  as  widely  as 
possible  the  benefits  of  education,  and  by  keeping  the  constitution  of 
the  country  as  free  as  the  security  of  society  will  allow,  that  ^is,  by 
giving  every  man  some  interest  in  his  own  character,  some  feeling  of 
personal  duty,  and  some  sense  of  poHtical  consequence  and  right,  then 
assuredly  it  will  folloAV  that  never  will  there  be  wanting  to  that  com- 
munity men  of  high  sentiments  and  military  spirit,  those  who  are  to 
lead  and  those  who  are  to  follow,  not  merely  to  the  defence  of  their 
native  land,  but  to  every  enterprise  that  can  be  pointed  out  to  them 
of  honorable  danger. 

These  are,  however,  subjects  which  may  not  be  entirely  mthout 
their  difficulty  either  in  theory  or  in  practice  ;  but  of  their  importance 


REBELLION  OF   1745.  507 

it  is  needless  to  speak.  I  have  at  least  presented  them  to  your  curi- 
osity, and  offered  my  own  view  of  them,  and  I  proceed  to  other  mat- 
ters. You  will  find  some  sensible  observations  respecting  them  in 
the  fourth  volume  of  Millar ;  and  finally,  the  defence  of  our  island 
by  the  resident  natives  of  it,  its  industrious  and  commercial  popu- 
lation, has  much  occupied  the  Parliamentary  debates  of  our  own 
times. 

Having  thus  noticed  the  national  wars  before  and  during  the  ad- 
ministration of  Mr.  Pitt,  I  must  leave  you  to  read  the  events  in  the 
regular  histories.  The  different  hopes  and  fears,  and  the  various 
emotions  of  mortification  or  triumph,  by  which  the  public  were  agi- 
tated, will  be  best  seen  in  the  magazines  of  the  time  ;  and  the  events 
and  leading  particulars  from  the  year  1758,  in  the  Annual  Register. 
I  ek»  not  longer  detain  you  with  allusions  to  enterprises  and'  successes 
which  can  never  cease  to  be  interesting  to  the  reasonable  pride  as 
well  as  natural  curiosity  of  every  English  reader. 

Such  are  the  more  obvious  topics  to  which  the  history  of  this  era 
will  lead  you :  the  intrigues  of  different  parties  on  the  fall  of  Sir 
Robert,  and  afterwards  ;  the  RebelUon  of  1745  ;  the  two  great  wars ; 
the  peace  in  1748,  and  the  peace  in  1763. 

We  have  Coxe,  Dodington,  Lord  Waldegrave ;  we  have  the  common 
magazines  and  the  histories  to  refer  to ;  from  the  year  1758,  the  An- 
nual Register.  But  I  have  already  intimated,  that,  when  we  look 
for  Parliamentary  debates,  our  mortification  is  extreme .  No  names 
so  great  as  those  of  Lord  Hardwicke,  Lord  Talbot,  Lord  Mansfield, 
Mr.  Pitt.  The  latter  commanded  by  his  eloquence  the  attention  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  the  affections  of  his  countrymen ;  and  at  last 
that  eloquence  enabled  him,  according  to  the  phrase  then  current,  to 
take,  the  cabinet  by  storm.  Yet  it  is  not  till  all  these  wonders  had 
been  accomplished,  and  till  the  breaking  out  of  the  disputes  with 
America,  that  the  debates  afibrd  us  any  adequate  specimens  to  enable 
us  to  comprehend  his  extraordinary  powers.  Of  the  silver-tongued 
Murray  there  is  still  less.  But  in  the  course  of  the  four  volumes  of 
Debrett's  Debates  from  the  year  1743  to  1768,  a  few  speeches  and 
imperfect  debates  appear,  which  should  be  read  not  only  on  account 
of  the  speakers,  but  the  subjects :  the  debate  on  Lord  Hardwicke's 
clause  to  be  added  to  the  Treason  Bill,  in  1745  ;  the  corresponding 
debate  in  the  Commons,  more  particularly  a  debate  in  the  Commons 
on  a  motion  for  annual  Parliaments,  in  January,  1745,  which  was 
lost  by  a  majority  of  only  thirty-two,  —  namely,  one  hundred  and 
forty-five  to  one  hundred  and  thirteen ;  Lord  Hardwicke's  speech  on 
his  Bill  for  aboHshing  the  Heritable  Jurisdictions  in  Scotland ;  de- 
bates on  the  Mutiny  Bills  ;  the  reasons  that  were  urged  for  the  Bill 
to  naturalize  Foreign  Protestants  ;  the  discussions  that  arose  on  the 
subject  of  a  national  mihtia  ;  on  the  Marriage  Act ;  the  debate  on  the 
Jew  Bill,  and  :n  its  repeal ;  the  debate,  or  rather  Mr.  Pitt's  speech, 


h08  LECTURE  XXVIII. 

on  the  peace  of  1763  ;  the  proceedings  in  the  case  of  Wilkes ;  the 
motion  and  debate  on  general  warrants.  These  are  parts  of  Debrett's 
four  volumes  that  will  more  particularly  furnish  you  with  general 
principles  and  materials  for  reflection.  The  legislature,  on  the  whole, 
seems  to  have  been  growing  more  liberal  and  tolerant  as  the  century 
advanced ;  the  pubHc  to  have  been  far  behind  them. 

Of  the  Pelham  administration  less  can  now  be  known  than  could 
have  been  expected.  The  best  account  of  their  measures  and  views 
may  be  collected  from  Smollett,  who  was  at  least  a  contemporary  his- 
torian and  a  man  of  talents.  With  some  slight  exceptions,  they  al- 
ways showed  themselves  friendly  to  the  principles  of  mild  government. 
They  were  tolerant,  peaceful,  prudent ;  they  had  the  merit  of  respect- 
ing public  opinion ;  and  though  they  were  not  fitted  to  advance  the 
prosperity  of  their  country  by  any  exertions  of  political  genius,  tiiey 
were  not  blind  to  such  opportunities  as  fairly  presented  themselves. 
They  were  quietists,  but  meant  well;  they  were  disinterested,  did 
good  service  to  the  house  of  Hanover,  and  their  administration  is 
honorably  remembered ;  but  Mr.  Pelham  unfortunately  died  in  1754, 
and  the  duke,  his  brother,  was  deprived  of  his  assistance  when  it  was 
more  than  ever  indispensable  to  him.  The  scene  was  becoming 
stormy,  and  great  difficulties  were  to  be  encountered ;  the  duke, 
therefore,  and  his  adherents  gave  way  to  Mr.  Pitt,  and  very  proper- 
ly assisted  with  their  votes  the  minister  who  disdained  their  counsels. 

The  administration  of  this  mhiister  of  the  people,  the  first  Mr.  Pitt, 
is  now  known  only  by  the  conquests  which  he  either  achieved  or 
planned.  What  passed  in  the  houses  of  Parliament  has  not  come 
down  to  us ;  it  was  probably  of  little  importance.  Opposition  was 
silenced  not  only  by  a  sort  of  union  of  parties,  but  by  the  popularity 
of  Mr.  Pitt  and  the  successes  of  the  war.  The  secretary,  as  it  has 
been  said,  with  one  hand  wielded  the  democracy  of  England,  and 
with  the  other  smote  the  house  of  Bourbon.  The  monarch  himself, 
George  the  Second,  seems  at  last  to  have  become  a  convert  to  his 
merits,  and  to  have  joined,  however  late,  in  the  applauses  of  the 
public.  The  monarch,  however,  George  the  Second,  died  ;  and  this 
great  minister,  on  the  accession  of  his  present  Majesty,  George  the 
Third,  to  the  throne,  soon  felt  the  ground,  as  he  said,  tottering  under 
him.  On  the  first  opportunity  he  was  displaced,  and  Europe,  that 
had  seen  only  two  successful  war  ministers  during  the  century,  Marl- 
borough and  Mr.  Pitt,  alike  iii  their  fame,  and  alike  in  their  fall, 
must  have  thought  that  in  our  extraordinary  island  the  surest  method 
of  losing  office  was  to  display  the  talents  that  deserve  it,  and  that,  to 
fill  St.  James's  with  murmurs  and  dissatisfaction,  it  was  necessary 
only  to  make  the  world  resound  with  the  triumphs  of  our  arms. 

The  lecture  that  you  have  just  heard  was  written  more  than  twenty 
years  ago,  with  such  assistance  as  was  then  within  my  reach ;  but  I 
can  now  refer  the  student  to  more  ample  information,  which  has  lately 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA.  509 

appeared,  chiefly  derived  from  the  indefatigable  labors  of  the  late 
Archdeacon  Coxe,  to  whom  all  readers  of  history  are  so  deeply  in- 
debted. In  the  year  1829  were  published  his  Memoirs  of  the  Pel- 
ham  Administration,  a  posthumous  work,  drawn  up  under  circum- 
stances which  add  a  sentiment  of  melancholy  tenderness  to  the  re- 
spectful gratitude  with  which  this  mos-t  valuable  writer  must  ever  be 
regarded.  Such  sentiments  will  be  confirmed  by  a  very  sensible 
article  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  October,  1833,  where  the  merits 
of  the  author  and  the  man  are  properly  stated,  neither  of  which,  as  it 
has  always  struck  me  while  I  have  been  a  reader  of  history,  were 
sufficiently  estimated  by  the  public. 

I  have  now,  then,  only  to  refer  the  student  to  the  work  I  have  just 
mentioned,  and  to  request  that  he  will  depend  on  this  regular  and 
authentic  account  of  an  important  period  in  our  annals,  while  he 
wishes  to  know  not  only  the  transactions  that  belong  to  it,  but  the 
characters  of  the  ministers  and  Parliamentary  leaders  by  whom  it 
was  distinguished.  In  no  other  way  can  he  derive  a  proper  idea  of 
the  merits  of  Mr.  Pelham,  Lord  Hardwicke,  and,  above  all,  of  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  whose  vanity  and  some  defects  of  character  ex- 
posed him  to  the  ridicule  of  wits  and  satirists,  and  have  hitherto  ob- 
scured (but  need  no  longer  obscure)  his  real  merits  both  as  a  states- 
man and  a  man.  He  was  neither  without  his  talents  nor  his  virtues, 
as  the  public  at  present  suppose. 

I  mu^t  guard  you  against  the  historical  publications  of  the  cele- 
brated Horace  Walpole.  Look  for  entertainment  in  them,  if  you 
please,  and  you  will  not  be  disappointed  ;  but  give  him  not  your  con- 
fidence :  indeed,  you  will  soon  see,  from  his  lively  and  epigrammatic 
style  of  invective,  that  he  cannot  deserve  it. 

Finally,  I  must  mention  to  you  that  a  very  full  and  entertaining 
account  of  the  RebelHon  in  1745  was  drawn  up  by  Mr.  Chambers, 
of  Edinburgh,  and  now  makes  two  very  interesting  volumes  in  ^^^- 
etable's  Miscellany. 


LECTURE    XXIX. 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA. 

We  have  been  now  long  occupied  with  the  English  history.  I  did 
not  wish  to  break  through  the  different  links  by  which  the  diflferent 
parts  are  connected  together ;  but  in  the  mean  time  we  have  entirely 
turned  away  from  the  Continent,  and  even  from  France.     To  the 


510  LECTURE  XXIX. 

Prench  history  I  will  advert  immediately ;  but  in  the  mean  time  I 
will  call  your  attention  to  the  Continent.  While  reading  the  works 
of  Mr.  Coxe,  you  will  have  been  continually  summoned  away  in  this 
manner,  and  I  can  no  longer  forbear  adopting  the  same  course.  The 
truth  is,  that  our  progress  has  long  since  brought  us  within  the  view 
of  a  personage  so  celebrated  during  the  last  half-century,  that  for  the 
present  I  must  leave  the  histories  both  of  France  and  of  England,  and 
I  must  endeavour  to  furnish  you  with  proper  materials,  for  the  appre- 
ciation of  the  striking  events  with  which  he  was  connected,  and  of  his 
own  very  extraordinary  talents  and  character ;  I  allude  to  the  king  of 
Prussia. 

I  must  in  the  first  place  observe,  that,  as  France  and  England 
were  actively  engaged  in  hostiUties  with  each  other,  as  they  took  a 
part  in  the  politics  of  Europe,  and  were  connected  with  the  great  wars 
in  which  the  king  of  Prussia  was  engaged,  some  general  view  must  be 
obtained  of  those  hostilities  and  of  those  politics,  that  their  relation  to 
the  measures  of  this  military  sovereign  may  be  understood.  As  a  pre- 
parative, therefore,  to  this  subject  of  Prussia,  I  must  propose  some 
short  general  history ;  and  I  therefore  mention,  as  adequate  to  this 
particular  purpose,  the  History  of  Belsham,  —  his  reign  of  George 
the  Second. 

With  respect  to  the  king  of  Prussia,  the  great  features  of  his  life 
are,  —  1st,  his  invasion  of  the  territories  of  the  young  Queen  Maria 
Theresa,  on  the  death  of  the  emperor,  her  father ;  2dly,  the  Seven 
Years'  War ;  3dly,  the  partition  of  Poland.  It  is  to  the  two  former 
that  I  shall  at  present  allude,  a^  the  latter  belongs  to  times  of  a  more 
recent  date  than  I  shall  be  able,  as  yet,  to  approach. 

In  considering  the  subjects  of  history,  I  have  always  made  it  my 
business,  first,  to  inquire  for  works  in  our  own  language,  —  those 
being  the  most  likely  to  be  placed  within  your  reach."  I  have  there- 
fore to  mention,  that  a  view  of  the  reign  of  Frederic  has  been  publish- 
ed by  Dr.  Gillies  ;  another  by  Dr.  Towers  ;  a  short  account  is  given 
of  Frederic  by  Dr.  Johnson ;  and  we  have  Memoirs  of  the  Court  of 
Berlin,  by  Wraxall.     Of  each  in  its  order. 

The  work  of  Dr.  GiUies  I  can  in  no  respect  admire.  There  ap- 
pear some  good  observations  about  the  king's  mihtary  genius,  and 
there  are  some  incidents  mentioned  of  a  general  nature,  which  I  do 
not  observe  in  other  English  works.  On  the  whole,  I  can  recommend 
it  to  the  student  only  when  he  wishes  to  learn  what  can  be  said  in  the 
praise  or  defence  of  Frederic.  Gillies  appears  to  me  only  a  warm  pane- 
gyrist, and  on  this  occasion  neither  an  historian  nor  a  philosopher. 

Before  I  proceed  to  other  English  or  any  foreign  works  on  this  sub- 
ject, I  must  observe,  that  the  following  appear  to  me  the  points  to 
which  the  student  must  more  particularly  attend,  in  considering  the 
merits  of  Frederic  :  —  1st,  The  justice,  or  injustice,  of  his  original  at- 
tack on  Silesia.     Tliis  very  valuable  province  he  wrested  from  the 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA.  511 

house  of  Austria,  taking  advantage  of  the  unprepared  situation  of  the 
young  queen,  Maria  Theresa,  on  her  first  accession  to  the  throne. 
This  was  an  injury  and  an  outrage  which  could  never  be  forgiven  by 
her ;  and  if  this  was  an  act  of  ambition,  and  if  to  this  all  his  subse- 
quent contests  with  Austria  may  be  traced,  it  is  he  who  is  responsible 
for  all  the  calamities  that  ensued.  2dly,  Frederic  endeavoured,  by 
the  interference  of  his  personal  vigilance  and  wisdom,  to  nourish  the 
prosperity  and  advance  the  happiness  of  his  subjects.  His  measures 
and  his  success  form,  therefore,  the  next  division  of  the  subject. 
8dly,  Frederic  was  a  man  of  wit  and  Hterature  ;  and  we  can  never, 
in  considering  the  character  of  this  monarch,  forget  his  personal 
qualities.  What,  therefore,  was  Frederic  to  his  scholars  and  men  of 
science  whom  he  called  around  him  ?  and  what  to  his  generals  and 
companions  in  arms  ?  This  is  the  third  division  of  the  subject.  And 
such  are  the  points  which  must  be  always  kept  in  mind  by  those  who 
read  the  history  of  Frederic.  He  was  one  of  the  sovereigns  of  Eu- 
rope, and  a  great  military  hero ;  he  endeavoured  to  be  the  father  of 
his  people ;  lastly,  he  was  a  man  of  talents,  fond  of  society,  and  dis- 
posed to  be  a  patron  of  the  wits  and  philosophers  of  his  age. 

All  these  points,  and  the  character  and  merits  of  Frederic  in  every 
respect,  appear  to  me  to  be  well  understood  and  represented  by  Dr. 
Towers ;  a  writer  who  has,  like  Gillies,  undertaken  to  give  the  Eng- 
lish public  an  account  of  the  life  and  reign  of  this  renowned  monarch. 
He  has  fulfilled  the  promise  which  he  gives  in  his  preface,  and  he 
has  not  been  induced,  by  the  splendor  which  surrounded  his  hero,  to 
vindicate  his  actions  when  they  w^ere  repugnant  to  justice  and  hu- 
manity. He  has  given  references  to  authorities,  which  Gillie?  has 
very  improperly  omitted ;  and  it  will  be  found  that  every  topic  of 
importance  connected  with  this  extraordinary  character  is  touched 
upon.  Proper  dihgence  has  been  exerted,  and  reasonable  observa- 
tions are  made ;  so  that  the  work  may  be  recommended  as  giving  a 
correct  general  idea  of  all  that  there  is  to  be  known,  and  as  pointing 
out  to  the  reader  the  proper  sources  of  more  minute  inquiry.  The 
book  may  not  be  written  with  any  peculiar  Strength  or  ability,  but  it 
is  unaffected  and  sensible,  sufficiently  concise,  and  adequate,  I  con- 
ceive, to  all  its  purposes.  The  great  events  are  detailed ;  the  cam- 
paigns described ;  anecdotes  given  of  the  king,  and  the  great  military 
characters  that  surrounded  him ;  and  the  reader  is  dismissed  mth  an 
impression  very  favorable  to  the  talents,  at  least,  of  Frederic,  as  a 
commander  of  armies,  and  as  a  prince  placed  at  the  head  of  an  arbi- 
trary monarchy,  but  not  favorable  to  him  in  other  respects. 

To  this  impression,  as  far  as  it  is  favorable,  little  will,  I  think,  be 
added  by  further  inquiries  into  other  books.  It  was  with  the  king  as 
■with  the  image  in  Nebuchadnezzar's  vision,  —  to  borrow  the  compli- 
ment of  Voltaire  to  Turgot,  when  in  the  gout,  —  "  the  head  was  of 
gold,  but  every  other  part  of  a  very  inferior  quality."     Something, 


612  LECTURE  XXIX. 

therefore,  may  be  subtracted  from  the  general  impression  left  by 
Towers.  We  may  learn  that  the  king's  policy  was  not  always  en- 
lightened, and  that  his  talents,  eminent  as  they  were,  did  not  save 
him  from  the  mistakes  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived.  But  it  is  im- 
possible from  Towers,  or  from  any  book  or  treatise,  to  learn  how  to 
regard  Frederic  with  any  sentiments  of  kindness.  He  is  often  great, 
but  never  amiable,  —  perhaps  with  the  single  exception  of  his  be- 
haviour to  his  friend  and  favorite  philosopher,  Jordan. 

There  is  a  short  account  of  Frederic  by  Dr.  Johnson,  which  was 
first  printed  in  the  Literary  Magazine,  in  the  year  1756,  and  is  there- 
fore only  a  fragment.  It  should  be  read,  because  whatever  Dr. 
Johnson  writes  must  necessarily  entertain  and  instruct.  It  is  written 
with  the  usual  decision  and  vigor  of  his  biographical  compositions ; 
but  it  was  never  continued,  and  was  probably  not  a  work  of  much  de- 
liberation or  labor. 

Coxe's  House  of  Austria  must  be  diligently  read,  to  understand 
the  politics  of  Frederic's  opponents ;  but  of  this  work  I  shall  speak 
more  hereafter. 

When  other  books,  English  and  foreign,  have  been  read,  the  two 
volumes  of  Wraxall  may  be  looked  at,  —  the  Memoirs  of  the  Court 
of  Berlin.  They  will  be  found  very  entertaining,  and  they  will  some- 
times amphfy,  and  sometimes  revive,  the  views  and  opinions  respect- 
ing Frederic,  and  subjects  connected  with  him,  which  the  student 
may  have  collected  from  prior  reading. 

Such  are,  I  think,  our  English  authors ;  I  must  now  advert  to  the 
writings  of  the  Continent.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  three  authors, — 
Thi^bault,  the  king  of  Prussia  himself,  and  Mirabeau. 

And  first,  with  respect  to  the  five  octavo  volumes  of  Thi^bault. 
You  will  see  an  account  of  the  work  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for 
October,  1805.  Thii^bault  was  a  man  of  letters,  sent  to  Frederic 
from  Paris,  at  his  desire.  Having  read  the  work  myself,  and  first 
put  down  my  own  observations,  I  afterwards  found  most  of  them  con- 
firmed by  the  Review,  and  very  few  that  had  not  been  there  antici- 
pated. Occurring,  therefore,  to  two  different  minds,  they  are  proba- 
bly the  observations  that  naturally  arise  out  of  the  subject.  There  is 
a  slight  passage  or  two  in  which  the  reviewer,  who  is  always  most  at 
ease  when  he  is  severe,  appears  to  me  to  have  indulged  his  particular 
genius  a  Httle  too  far.  .  For  instance  ;  there  is  no  need  of  supposing 
that  Frederic  did  not  feel  most  sensibly,  in  the  common  import  of  the 
words,  the  execution  of  his  friend  De  Catt.  But,  on  the  whole,  I 
subscribe  sufficiently  to  the  sentiments  and  opinions  which  the  re- 
viewer has  dehvered  respecting  Frederic,  and  recommend  them  to 
your  attention.  I  must  even  depend  on  your  reading  this  Edinburgh 
Review  for  October,  1805 ;  my  lecture  will  otherwise  want  one  of  its 
component  parts. 

It  is  very  natural  to  wish  to  see  the  interior  of  the  life  and  char 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA.  613 

acter  of  any  of  those  personages  who  are  distinguished  in  history.  It 
is  on  this  account  that  Thi^bault's  volumes  should  be  consulted.  A 
very  fair  portion  of  this  sort  of  information  is  given  by  Dr.  Towera ; 
but  those  who  wish  for  more  must  read  Thidbault.  His  Recollections, 
indeed,  as  he  calls  them,  seldom  rise  to  the  dignity  of  history ;  but 
they  are  always  agreeable,  often  instructive,  occasionally  very  inter- 
esting. In  the  first  volume  we  have  a  good  representation,  not  only 
of  the  king,  his  talents,  his  opinions  on  every  subject,  his  conduct  to 
those  around  him,  but  of  Thi^bault  himself.  A  general  estimate  of 
the  merits  of  Frederic  concludes  the  volume,  which  is  on  the  whole 
the  best  of  the  five,  —  the  first.  It  should  by  all  means  be  read  ;  it 
will  be  read  with  great  pleasure.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  first 
volume,  and  several  parts  of  each  succeeding  volume,  will  either  oo- 
cupy  or  instruct  the  reader  very  agreeably. 

Frederic  is,  however,  himself  an  author,  and  the  student  will 
gcarcely  be  excused,  if  he  does  not  read  those  parts  of  his  works  that 
are  of  an  historic  nature. 

The  most  curious  point  to  observe,  in  these  productions  of  the  king, 
is  the  deceitfulness  of  the  human  heart.  The  king  talks  of  the  rage 
for  conquest,  the  folly  of  ambition,  the  waste  of  human  life,  as  if  he 
had  not  been  himself  one  of  the  most  striking  specimens  of  this  sort 
of  atrocious  character  that  appear  in  history. 

But  his  account  of  his  campaigns  should  be  looked  at.  Though 
too  cold  and  formal,  it  is  concise,  striking,  rapid,  —  the  work,  as  well 
of  a  statesman  and  of  a  man  of  letters,  as  of  an  accomplished  warrior, 
—  and  therefore  deserving,  in  different  parts,  the  attention,  not  only 
of  military  men,  but  of  all  who  hope  to  distinguish  themselves  on  the 
theatre  of  the  world.  I  had  made  large  references  to  them,  but 
omit  them  from  want  of  time. 

I  now  proceed  to  another  view  of  his  character.  Frederic,  having 
tried  the  powers  of  his  genius  in  laying  v/aste  the  labors  of  man  ^and 
in  diminishing  the  population  of  his  provinces,  was  next  seen  to  un- 
dertake a  task  more  difficult,  one  in  which  the  leaders  of  armies  and 
cabinets  have  not  hitherto  been  equally  successful,  —  the  task  of 
nourishing  the  industry,  increasing  the  numbers,  and  raising  up  the 
prosperity  and  happiness  of  those  they  govern.  In  this  enterprise, 
however,  as  in  the  other,  the  king  seems  to  have  exerted  himself  with 
his  usual  energy  and  activity ;  and  we  are  bound  to  consider,  as  far 
SLS  we  are  able,  the  movements  of  his  mind,  as  we  before  did  of  Lis 
armies,  —  the  wisdom  of  his  counsels,  when  his  ambition  had  taken 
the  right  direction,  and  was  occupied  in  laboring  to  create,  not  de- 
stroy. To  many,  this  part  of  the  general  subject  may  not  be  so 
entertaining  as  those  I  have  hitherto  mentioned ;  but  students  must 
endeavour  to  instruct  themselves  as  well  as  search  for  their  amuse- 
ment ;  and  by  those  who  would  deserve  the  high  character  of  states- 
men or  men  of  reflection,  such  portions  of  reading  must  be  sought  for 
rather  than  avoided. 
65 


614  LECTURE  XXIX. 

« 

It  happens  that  a  work  was  composed  and  entirely  dedicated  to 
this  division  of  our  subject  by  Mirabeau,  the  celebrated  Mirabeau  of 
the  French  Revolution.  As  he  was  the  son  of  the  marquis  who  is 
so  distinguished  amongst  the  French  economists,  it  was  natural  for 
him,  while  resident  at  Berlin,  to  turn  his  attention  to  the  situation  of 
Prussia,  and  to  the  efforts  which  the  king  had  made  for  the  reestab- 
lishment*  and  furtherance  of  the  prosperity  of  his  dominions.  The 
monarch  had,  in  fact,  labored  to  this  effect,  but  rather  after  his  own 
particular  manner,  as  one  used  to  threaten  and  command,  as  a  mon- 
arch rather  than  as  a  philosopher ;  and  therefore  the  work  of  Mira- 
beau, which  is  drawn  up  according  to  the  principles  of  the  modem 
system  of  political  economy,  is  generally  occupied  in  finding  fault. 
But  it  is  interesting  and  valuable,  even  from  its  very  nature,  —  even 
from  the  circumstance  of  its  being  a  critique,  by  a  disciple  of  the  new 
school  of  political  economy,  on  the  labors  of  a  statesman  of  the  very 
highest  natural  talents,  proceeding  upon  the  principles  of  the  old.  It 
may  be  said,  indeed,  that  we  cannot  now  follow  the  author  of  this 
work  through  all  the  laborious  investigations  which  he  exhibits.  This 
may  be  admitted ;  but  when  proper  allowance  has  been  made  for  this 
consideration,  abundant  matter  will  remain  to  which  no  such  objection 
can  be  offered,  and  quite  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  reader  even  in  those 
particulars  in  which  the  representations  of  Mirabeau  cannot  now  be 
examined.  When  the  results  at  which  he  arrives  are  such  as  might, 
on  general  grounds,  be  expected,  it  seems  unnecessary  to  hesitate 
about  their  propriety,  or  to  deny  him  his  conclusions. 

The  work  of  Mirabeau  (Mirabeau  on  the  Prussian  Monarchy)  em- 
braces every  topic  that  can  excite  your  curiosity  or  need  occupy  your 
reflection  with  respect  to  Prussia  or  its  monarch,  its  agriculture,  its 
commerce,  its  military  system,  the  efforts  of  the  king  on  these  sub- 
jects, ai>d  on  its  laws,  its  systems  of  education,  and  many  others. 
Mirabeau,  while  criticizing  the  labors  of  Frederic,  naturally  throws 
out  hiP.  own  opinions  on  all  the  important  concerns  that  can  interest 
a  statesman ;  and  as  a  study  for  a  statesman  and  a  political  philoso- 
pher^ I  recommend  it  to  your  attention.  You  cannot  expect  to  ac- 
cede to  the  views  of  a' man  of  licentious,  daring  mind  like  this,  but 
you  may  consider  his  work  as  a  study,  as  a  lesson  in  political  science. 
Many  observations  are  made  in  these  volumes  respecting  the  nature 
and  strength  of  the  Prussian  and  Austrian  monarchies,  that  might 
have  taught  some  most  useful  lessons  to  our  own  ministers  and  to 
those  of  our  allies  at  a  subsequent  period,  during  the  late  great  revo- 
lutionary wars  with  France. 

The  first  book,  at  least,  of  Mirabeau's  work  may  be  read,  and  the 
general  conclusion  or  summary  of  the  whole.  The  general  impres- 
sion from  these  two  will  be,  that  the  work  is  the  work  of  a  statesman, 
and  deserves  the  study  of  a  statesman,  and  the  student  may  then  de- 
termine whether  he  will  or  will  not  consult  the  intermediate  volumes. 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA.  515 

I  have  drawn  up  a  lecture  on  this  work  of  Mirabeau,  but  omit  it,  for 
it  would  be  tedious  to  some  and  unnecessary  to  others.  The  Note- 
book on  the  table  may,  however,  be  consulted. 

But  to  form  a  proper  estimate  of  the  character  of  Frederic  and  of 
this  period  of  history,  it  is  necessary  that  the  student  should  acquaint 
himself  with  the  situation  and  merits  of  his  great  political  opponent, 
Maria  Theresa.  It  is  in  this  manner  only  that  the  real  odiousness 
of  Frederic  can  be  at  all  understood  ;  and  a  more  disgusting  picture 
of  what  is  called  the  ambition  of  princes  cannot  be  easily  pointed  out 
than  was  exhibited  in  the  conduct  of  this  celebrated  monarch ;  at  a 
moment,  too,  when  he  himself  had  just  begun  to  reign  ;  when  he  was 
himself  only  about  the  age  of  thirty,  and  when  the  queen  was  young, 
in  the  full  possession  of  every  female  attraction,  and  summoned, 
amidst  all  the  inexperience  of  three-and-twenty,  without  a  counsellor 
of  abihty  near  her,  to  undertake  the  administraftion  of  the  dominions 
of  the  house  of  Austria. 

A  very  sufficient  idea  may  be  formed  of  this  very  interesting  part 
of  the  general  subject  by  a  reference  to  the  work  of  Mr.  Coxe.  The 
subject  may.  be  considered  as  opening*  in  the  sixteenth  chapter, 
about  the  close  of  the  life  of  the  emperor  Charles  the  Sixth,  the  father 
of  Maria  Theresa.  An  account  is  given  of  the  situation  of  the  Eu- 
ropean powers  ;  and  in  the  seventeenth  chapter,  of  the 'young  king 
of  Prussia,  and  of  his  father,  Frederic  William,  with  the  death  of 
the  emperor.  In  the  eighteenth  chapter,  Maria  Theresa  ascends 
the  throne  of  her  ancestors,  —  possessed,  it  seems,  of  a  command- 
ing figure,  (I  quote  the  words  of  Mr.  Coxe  from  different  para- 
graphs,) great  beauty,  animation  and  sweetness  of  countenance,  a 
pleasing  tone  of  voice,  fascinating  manners,  and  uniting  feminine 
grace  with  a  strength  of  understanding  and  an  intrepidity  above  her 
sex.  But  her  treasury  contained  only  one  hundred  thousand  florins, 
and  these  claimed  by  the  empress  dowager ;  her  army,  exclusive  of 
the  troops  in  Italy  and  the  Low  Countries,  did  not  amount  to  thirty 
thousand  effective  men ;  a  scarcity  of  provisions  and  great  discontent 
existed  in  the  capital ;  rumors  were  circulated  that  the  government 
was  dissolved,  that  the  Elector  of  Brunswick  was  hourly  expected  to 
take  possession  of  the  Austrian  territories ;  apprehensions  were  enter- 
tained of  the  distant  provinces,  —  that  the  Hungarians,  supported  by 
the  Turks,  might  revive  the  elective  monarchy ;  differei  t  claimants 
on  the  Austrian  succession  ^uere  expected  to  arise  ;  besides,  the  Elec- 
tor of  Bavaria,  the  Elector  of  Cologne,  and  the  Elector  Palatine  were 
evidently  hostile ;  the  ministers  themselves,  while  the  queen  was  her- 

*  The  references  which  follow  are  applicable  only  to  the  original  quarto  edition  of 
Coxe  (London,  1807),  Vol.  ii.,  which  is  now  rarely  to  be  met  with,  at  least  in  this 
countiy.  For  the  convenience  of  the  student,  it  may  be  mentioned,  therefore,  that  the 
chapters  here  named,  xvi.,  xvii.,  and  xviii.,  correspond  respectively  to  chapters  xcr, 
xcvi.,  and  xcvii.  in  the  second  and  subsequent  editions.  —  N. 


616  LECTURE  XXIX. 

self  without  experience  or  knowledge  of  business,  were  timorous,  de- 
sponding, Irresolute,  or  worn  out  with  age.  To  these  ministers,  says 
Mr.  Robinson,  in  his  despatches  to  the  English  court,  "  the  Turks 
seemed  already  in  Hungary,  the  Hungarians  themselves  in  arms,  the 
Saxons  in  Bohemia,  the  Bavarians  at  the  gates  of  Vienna,  and  France 
the  soul  of  the  whole."  The  Elector  of  Bavaria,  indeed,  did  not  con- 
ceal his  claims  to  the  kingdom  of  Bohemia  and  the  Austrian  domin 
ions ;  and,  finally,  while  the  queen  had  scarcely  taken  possession  of 
her  throne,  a  new  claimant  appeared  in  the  person  of  Frederic  of 
Prussia,  who  acted  with  "  such  consummate  address  and  secrecy" 
(as  it  is  called  by  the  historian),  that  is,  with  such  unprincipled 
hypocrisy  and  cunning,  that  his  designs  were  scarcely  even  suspected 
when  his  troops  entered  the  Austrian  dominions. 

Silesia  was  the  province  which  he  resolved,  in  the  present  helpless 
situation  of  the  young  queen,  to  wrest  from  the  house  of  Austria. 
He  revived  some  antiquated  claims  on  parts  of  that  duchy.  The 
subject  is  discussed  in  different  writers,  and  in  the  notes  of  Coxe. 
The  ancestors  of  Maria  Theresa  had  not  behaved  handsomely  to  the 
ancestors  of  Frederic,  and  the  young  queen  was  now  to  become  a 
lesson  to  all  princes  and  states  of  the  real  wisdom  that  always  belongs 
to  the  honorable  and  scrupulous  performance  of  all  public  engage- 
ments. Little  or  nothing,  however,  can  be  urged  in  favor  of  Fred- 
eric. Prescription  must  be  allowed  at  length  to  justify  possession  in 
cases  not  very  flagrant.  The  world  cannot  be  perpetually  disturbed 
by  the  squabbles  and  collisions  of  its  rulers ;  and  the  justice  of  his 
cause  was,  indeed,  as  is  evident  from  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
case,  and  his  own  writings,  the  last  and  the  least  of  all  the  many  fu- 
tile reasons  which  he  alleged  for  the  invasion  of  the  possessions  of 
Maria  Theresa,  the  heiress  of  the  Austrian  dominions,  young,  beauti- 
ful, and  unoffending,  but  inexperienced  and  unprotected. 

The  common  robber  has  sometimes  the  excuse  of  want ;  banditti,  in 
a  disorderly  country,  may  pillage,  and,  when  resisted,  murder ;  but 
the  crimes  of  men,  even  atrocious  as  these,  are  confined  at  least  to  a 
contracted  space,  and  their  consequences  extend  not  beyond  a  limit- 
ed period.  It  was  not  so  with  Frederic.  The  outrages  of  his  ambi- 
tion were  to  be  followed  up  by  an  immediate  war.  He  could  never 
suppose,  that,  even  if  he  succeeded  in  getting  possession  of  Silesia, 
the  house  of  Austria  could  ever  forget  the  insult  and  the  injury  that 
had  thus  been  received ;  he  could  never  suppose,  though  Maria  The- 
resa might  have  no  protection  from  his  cruelty  and  injustice,  that  this 
illustrious  house  would  never  again  have  the  power,  in  some  way  or 
other,  to  avenge  their  wrongs.  One  Avar,  therefore,  even  if  success- 
ful, was  not  to  be  the  only  consequence  ;  succeeding  wars  were  to  be 
expected ;  long  and  inveterate  jealousy  and  hatred  were  to  follow ; 
and  he  and  his  subjects  were,  for  a  long  succession  of  years,  to  be 
put  to  the  necessity  of  defending,  by  unnatural  exertions,  what  had 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA  517 

Reen  acquired  (if  acquired)  by  his  own  unprincipled  ferocity.  Such 
were  the  consequences  that  were  fairly  to  be  expected.  What,  in 
fact,  took  place  ? 

The  seizure  of  this  province  of  Silesia  was  first  supported  by 
a  war,  then  by  a  revival  of  it,  then  by  the  dreadful  Seven  Years' 
War.  Near  a  million  of  men  perished  on  the  one  side  and  on 
the  other.  Every  measure  and  movement  of  the  king's  administra- 
tion flowed  as  a  direct  consequence  from  this  original  aggression : 
his  military  system,  the  necessity  of  rendering  his  kingdom  one 
of  the  first-rate  powers  of  Europe,  and,  in  short,  all  the  long  train 
of  his  faults,  his  tyrannies,  and  his  crimes.  We  will  cast  a  momen- 
tary glance  on  the  opening  scenes  of  this  contest  between  the  two 
houses. 

As  a  preparatory  step  to  his  invasion  of  Silesia,  the  king  sent  a 
message  to  the  Austrian  court.  "  I  am  come,"  said  the  Prussian 
envoy  to  the  husband  of  Maria  Theresa,  "  with  safety  for  the  house 
of  Austria  in  one  hand,  and  the  imperial  crown  for  your  Royal  High- 
ness in  the  other.  The  troops  and  money  of  my  master  are  at  the 
service  of  the  queen,  and  cannot  fail  of  being  acceptable  at  a  time 
when  she  is  in  want  of  both,  and  can  only  depend  on  so  considerable 
a  prince  as  the  king  of  Prussia,  and  his  alhes,  the  maritime  powers 
and  Russia.  As  the  king,  my  master,  from  the  situation  of  his  do- 
minions, will  be  exposed  to  great  danger  from  this  alliance,  it  is 
hoped,  that,  as  an  indemnification,  the  queen  of  Hungary  will  not 
ofier  him  less  than  the  whole  duchy  of  Silesia."  "  Nobody,"  he 
added,  "  is  more  firm  in  his  resolutions  than  the  king  of  Prus- 
sia :  he  must  and  will  enter  Silesia ;  once  entered,  he  must  and 
will  proceed ;  and  if  not  secured  by  the  immediate  cession  of  that 
province,  his  troops  and  money  will  be  offered  to  the  Electors  of 
Saxony  and  Bavaria."  Such  were  the  king's  notifications  to  Maria 
Theresa.  Soon  after,  in  a  letter  to  the  same  Duke  of  Loraine, 
the  husband  of  Maria  Theresa,  "  My  heart,"  says  Frederic,  (for  he 
wrote  as  if  he  conceived  he  had  one,)  "  My  heart,"  says  Frederic, 
"  has  no  share  in  the  mischief  which  my  hand  is  doing  to  your 
court." 

The  feelings  of  the  young  queen  may  be  easily  imagined,  powerful 
in  the  qualities  of  her  understanding,  with  all  the  high  sensibilities 
which  are  often  united  to  a  commanding  mind,  and  educated  in  all 
the  lofty  notions  which  have  so  miiformly  characterized  her  illustrious 
house.  She  resisted  ;  but  her  arms  proved  in  the  event  unsuccessful. 
She  was  not  prepared  ;  and  even  if  she  had  been,  the  combination  was 
tqp  wide  and  powerful  against  her.  According  to  the  plan  of  her 
enemies,  more  particularly  of  France  (her  greatest  enemy),  Bo- 
hemia and  Upper  Austria,  spite  of  all  her  efforts,  were  likely  to  be 
assigned  to  the  Elector  of  Bavaria ;  Moravia  and  Upper  Silesia  to  the 
Elector  of  Saxony ;  Lower  Silesia  and  the  country  of  Glatz  to  the 

BB 


518  LECTURE  XXIX. 

king  of  Prussia ;  Austria  and  Lombardy*  to  Spain;  and  some  compen 
sation  to  be  allotted  to  the  king  of  Sardinia. 

It  was  therefore,  at  last,  necessary  to  detach  the  king  of  Prussia 
from  the  general  combination  by  some  important  sacrifice.  The  suf- 
ferings, the  agonies,  of  the  poor  queen  were  extreme.  Lord  Hynd- 
ford,  on  the  part  of  England  as  a  mediating  power,  prevailed  on  the 
helpless  Maria  Theresa  to  abate  something  of  her  lofty  spirit,  and 
make  some  offers  to  the  king.  "  At  the  beginning  of  the  war,"  said 
Frederic,  "  I  might  have  been  contented  with  this  proposal,  but  not 
now.  Shall  I  again  give  the  Austrians  battle,  and  drive  them  out  of 
Silesia  ?  You  will  then  see  that  I  shall  receive  other  proposals.  At 
present  I  must  have  four  duchies,  and  not  one.  —  Do  not,  my  lord," 
said  the  king,  "  talk  to  me  of  magnanimity ;  a  prince  ought  first  to 
consult  his  own  interests.  I  am  not  averse  to  peace ;  but  I  expect 
to  have  four  duchies,  and  will  have  them." 

At  a  subsequent  period,  the  same  scene  was  to  be  renewed,  and 
Mr.  Robinson,  the  English  ambassador,  who  was  very  naturally  capti- 
vated with  the  attractions  and  spirit  of  Maria  Theresa,  endeavoured 
to  rouse  her  to  a  sense  of  her  danger.  "  Not  only  for  political  rea- 
sons," replied  the  queen,  "  but  from  conscience  and  honor,  I  will 
not  consent  to  part  with  much  in  Silesia.  No  sooner  is  one  enemy 
satisfied  than  another  starts  up ;  another,  and  then  another,  must  be 
contented,  and  all  at  my  expense."  "  You  must  yield  to  the  hard 
necessity  of  the  times,"  said  Mr.  Robinson.  "  What  would  I  not 
give,  except  in  Silesia  ?  "  replied  the  impatient  queen.  "  Let  him 
take  all  we  have  in  Gelderland ;  and  if  he  is  not  to  be  gained  by  that 
sacrifice,  others  may.  Let  the  king,  your  master,  only  speak  to  the 
Elector  of  Bavaria !  0,  the  king,  your  master,  —  let  him  only 
march !  let  him  march  only  ! " 

But  England  could  not  be  prevailed  upon  to  declare  war.  The 
dangers  of  Maria  Theresa  became  more  and  more  imminent,  and  a 
consent  to  further  ofiers  was  extorted  from  her.  "  I  am  afraid,"  said 
Mr.  Robinson,  "  some  of  these  proposals  will  be  rejected  by  the 
king."  "  I  wish  he  may  reject  them,"  said  the  queen.  "  Save 
Limbourg,  if  possible,  were  it  only  for  the  quiet  of  my  conscience. 
God  knows  how  I  shall  answer  for  the  cession,  having  sworn  to  the 
states  of  Brabant  never  to  alienate  any  part  of  their  country." 

Mr.  Robinson,  who  was  an  enthusiast  in  the  cause  of  the  queen,  is 
understood  to  have  made  some  idle  experiment  of  his  own  eloquence 
on  the  king  of  Prussia ;  to  have  pleaded  her  cause  in  their  next  inter- 
view :  to  have  spoken,  not  as  if  he  was  addressing  a  cold-hearted,  bad 
man,  but  as  if  speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  of  his  own  countrj, 
in  the  assembly  of  a  free  people,  with  generosity  in  their  feelings  and 
uprightness  and  honor  in  their  hearts.     The  king,  in  all  the  mahgnant 

=*  So  in  all  the  previous  editions;  but  obviously  a  misprint  for  Au^rian  Lombard}/ 
See  Coxe,  Ch.  xcix.  — -  N. 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA.  519 

security  of  triumphant  power,  in  all  the  composed  consciousness  of 
great  intellectual  talents,  aflfected  to  return  him  eloquence  for  elo- 
quence ;  said  his  ancestors  would  rise  out  of  their  tombs  to  reproach 
him,  if  he  abandoned  the  rights  that  had  been  transmitted  to  him; 
that  he  could  not  live  with  reputation,  if  he  lightly  abandoned  an 
enterprise  which  had  been  the  first  act  of  his  reign ;  that  he  would 
sooner  be  crushed  with  his  whole  army,  &c:,  &c.  And  then,  descend- 
ing from  his  oratorical  elevation,  declared  that  he  would  now  "  not 
only  have  the  four  duchies,  but  all  Lower  Silesia,  with  the  town  of 
Breslau.  If  the  queen  does  not  satisfy  me  in  six  weeks,  I  will  have 
four  duchies  more.  They  who  want  peace  will  give  me  what  I  want. 
I  am  sick  of  ultimatums  ;  I  will  hear  no  more  of  them.  My  part  is 
taken ;  I  again  repeat  my  demand  of  all  Lower  Silesia.  This  is  my 
final  answer,  and  I  will  give  no  other."  He  then  abruptly  broke  off 
the  conference,  and  left  Mr.  Robinson  to  his  own  reflections. 

The  situation  of  the  young  queen  now  became  truly  deplorable. 
The  king  of  Prussia  was  making  himself  the  entire  master  of  Silesia ; 
two  French  armies  poured  over  the  countries  of  Germany ;  the  Elec- 
tor of  Bavaria,  joined  by  one  of  them,  had  pushed  a  body  of  troops 
within  eight  miles  of  Vienna,  and  the  capital  had  been  summoned  to 
surrender.  The  king  of  Sardinia  threatened  hostihties ;  so  did  the 
Spanish  army.  The  Electors  of  Saxony,  Cologne,  and  Palatine  join- 
ed the  grand  confederacy  ;  and  abandoned  by  all  her  allies  but  Great 
Britain,  Avithout  treasure,  without  an  armj^,  and  without  ministers,  she 
appealed,  or  rather  fled  for  refuge  and  compassion,  to  her  subjects  in 
Hungary. 

These  subjects  she  had  at  her  accession  conciliated  by  taking  the 
oath  which  had  been  abolished  by  her  ancestor  Leopold,  the  confirma- 
tion of  their  just  rights,  privileges,  and  approved  customs.  She  had 
taken  this  oath  at  her  accession,  and  she  was  now  to  reap  the  benefit 
of  that  sense  of  justice  and  real  magnanimity  which  she  had  display- 
ed, and  which,  it  may  fairly  be  pronounced,  sovereigns  and  govern- 
ments will  always  find  it  their  interest,  as  well  as  their  duty,  to  dis- 
play, while  the  human  heart  is  constituted,  as  it  has  always  been, 
proud  and  eager  to  acknowledge  with  gratitude  and  afibction  the 
slightest  condescensions  of  kings  and  princes,  the  slightest  marks  of 
attention  and  benevolence  in  those  who  are  illustrious  by  their  birth 
or  elevated  by  their  situation. 

When  Maria  Theresa  had  first  proposed  to  repair  to  these  subjects, 
a  suitor  for  their  protection,  the  gray-headed  politicians  of  her  court 
had,  it  seems,  assured  her  that  she  could  not  possibly  succeed  ;  that 
the  Hungarians,  when  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  had  been  proposed  to 
them  by  her  father,  had  declared  that  they  were  accustomed  to  be 
governed  only  by  men ;  and  that  they  would  seize  the  opportunity  of 
withdrawing  from  her  rule,  and  from  their  allegiance  to  liie  house  of 
Austria. 


620  LECTURE  XXIX. 

Maria  Theresa,  young  and  generous  and  high-spirited  herself,  had 
confidence  in  human  virtue.  She  repaired  to  Hungary ;  she  sum- 
moned the  states  of  the  Diet ;  she  entered  the  hall,  clad  in  deep 
mourning ;  habited  herself  in  the  Hungarian  dress  ;  placed  the  crown 
of  St.  Stephen  on  her  head,  the  scymitar  at  her  side ;  showed  her  sub- 
jects that  she  could  herself  cherish  and  venerate  whatever  was  dear 
and  venerable  in  their  sight ;  separated  not  herself  in  her  sympathies 
and  opinions  from  those  whose  sympathies  and  opinions  she  was  to 
awaken  and  direct ;  traversed  the  apartment  with  a  slow  and  majestic 
step,  ascended  the  tribune  whence  the  sovereigns  had  been  accustom- 
ed to  harangue  the  states,  committed  to  her  chancellor  the  detail  of 
her  distressed  situation,  and  then  herself  addressed  them  in  the  lan- 
guage which  was  familiar  to  them,  the  immortal  language  of  Rome, 
which  was  not  now  for  the  first  time  to  be  employed  against  the  enter- 
prises of  injustice  and  the  wrongs  of  the  oppressor.  "  Agitur  de 
regno  Hungarise,"  said  the  queen,  "  de  persona  nostra,  prolibus  nos- 
tris  et  corona ;  ab  omnibus  derelicti,  unice  ad  inclytorum  statuum 
fidelitatem,  arma  et  Hungarorum  priscam  virtutem  confugimus."  * 

To  the  cold  and  relentless  ambition  of  Frederic,  to  a  prince  whose 
heart  had  withered  at  thirty,  an  appeal  like  this  had  been  made  in 
vain ;  but  not  so  to  the  free-born  warriors,  who  saw  no  possessions  to 
be  coveted  like  the  conscious  enjoyment  of  honorable  and  generous 
feelings,  —  no  fame,  no  glory,  like  the  character  of  the  protectors  of 
the  helpless  and  the  avengers  of  the  innocent.  Youth,  beauty,  and 
distress  obtained  that  triumph  which,  for  the  honor  of  the  one  sex,  it 
is  to  be  hoped  will  never  be  denied  to  the  merits  and  afflictions  of  the 
other.  A  thousand  swords  leaped  from  their  scabbards,  and  attested 
the  unbought  generosity  and  courage  of  untutored  nature.  "  Moria- 
mur  pro  rege  nostro,  Maria  Theresa ! "  was  the  voice  that  resounded 
through  the  hall,  —  "  Moriamur  pro  rege  nostro,  Maria  Theresa  I  " 
The  queen,  who  had  hitherto  preserved  a  calm  and  dignified  deport- 
ment, burst  into  tears  (I  tell  but  the  facts  of  history).  Tears  start- 
ed to  the  eyes  of  Maria  Theresa,  when  standing  before  her  heroic  de- 
fenders, —  those  tears  which  no  misfortunes,  no  suffering,  would  have 
drawn  from  her  in  the  presence  of  her  enemies  and  oppressors. 
"Moriamur  pro  rege  nostro,  Maria  Theresa!"  was  again  and  again 
heard.  The  voice,  the  shout,  the  acclamation,  that  reechoed  around 
her,  and  enthusiasm  and  frenzy  in  her  cause,  were  the  necessary  ef- 
fect of  this  union  of  every  dignified  sensibility  which  the  heart  can 
acknowledge  and  the  understanding  honor. 

It  is  not  always  that  in  history  we  can  pursue  the  train  of  events, 
and  find  our  moral  feelings  gratified  as  we  proceed ;  but  in  general 

*  "The  business  before  you,"  said  the  queen,  "affects  the  kingdom  of  Hungary,  our 
royal  person,  our  issue,  and  our  crown ;  deserted  on  all  sides,  it  is  to  the  illustrious  at- 
tachment of  the  states,  to  the  arms  and  the  long-tried  valor  of  the  Hungarians,  that  we 
now  fly  for  assistance." 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA   THERESA.  521 

we  may.  Philip  tlie  Second  overpowered  not  the  Low  Countries,  nor 
Louis,  Holland  ;  and  even  on  this  occasion,  of  the  distress  and  danger 
of  Maria  Theresa,  we  may  find  an  important,  though  not  a  perfect 
and  complete,  triumph.  The  resolutions  of  the  Hungarian  Diet  were 
supported  by  the  nation  ;  Croats,  Pandours,  Sclavonians,  flocked  to 
the  royal  standard,  and  they  struck  terror  into  the  disciplined  armies 
of  Germany  and  France.  The  genius  of  the  great  General  Keven- 
huller  was  called  into  action  by  the  queen ;  Vienna  was  put  into  a 
state  of  defence  ;  divisions  began  to  arise  among  the  queen's  enemies; 
a  sacrifice  was  at  last  made  to  Frederic,  —  he  was  bouglit  off  by  the 
cession  of  Lower  Silesia  and  Breslau ;  and  the  queen  and  her  generals, 
thus  obtaining  a  respite  from  this  able  and  enterprising  robber,  were 
enabled  to  direct,  and  successfully  direct,  their  efforts  against  the  re- 
maining hosts  of  plunderers  that  had  assailed  her.  France,  that  with 
her  usual  perfidy  and  atrocity  had  summoned  every  surrounding  power 
to  the  destruction  of  the  house  of  Austria,  in  the  moment  of  the  help- 
lessness and  inexperience  of  the  new  sovereign,  —  France  was  at  least, 
if  Frederic  was  not,  defeated,  disappointed,  and  disgraced. 

The  remaining  pages  of  Coxe,  to  the  end  of  his  volume,  are  not  less 
worthy  of  perusal.  The  administration  of  Maria  Theresa  occupies  the 
greater  part  of  it ;  and  the  interest  that  belongs  to  a  character  like 
hers,  of  strong  feelings  and  great  abilities,  never  leaves  the  narrative j 
of  which  she  is,  in  fact,  the  heroine.  The  student  cannot  expect  that 
he  should  always  approve  the  conduct  or  the  sentiments  that  but  too 
naturally  flowed  from  qualities  like  these,  when  found  in  a  princess 
like  Maria  Theresa,  —  a  princess  placed  in  situations  so  fitted  to  be- 
tray her  into  violence  and  even  rancor,  —  a  princess  who  had  been 
a  first-rate  sovereign  of  Europe  at  four-and-twenty,  and  who  had  never 
been  admitted  to  that  moral  discipline  to  which  ordinary  mortals,  who 
act  in  the  presence  of  their  equals,  are  so  happily  subjected.  That 
the  loss  of  Silesia  should  never  be  forgotten,  —  the  king  of  Prussia 
never  forgiven,  —  that  his  total  destruction  would  have  been  the  high- 
est gratification  to  her,  can  be  no  object  of  surprise.  The  mixed 
character  of  human  nature  seldom  affords,  when  all  its  propensities 
are  drawn  out  by  circumstances,  any  proper  theme  for  the  entire  and 
unqualified  praises  of  a  moralist ;  but  every  thing  is  pardoned  to 
Maria  Theresa,  when  she  is  compared,  as  she  must  constantly  be 
with  her  great  rival,  Frederic.  Errors  and  faults  we  can  overlook, 
when  they  are  those  of  our  common  nature ;  intractability,  impetuosi- 
ty, lofty  pride,  superstition,  even  bigotry,  an  impatience  of  wrongs, 
furious  and  implacable,  —  all  these,  the  faults  of  Maria  Theresa,  may 
be  forgiven,  may  at  least  be  understood.  But  Frederic  had  no  merits, 
save  courage  and  ability ;  these,  great  as  they  are,  cannot  reconcile 
us  to  a  character  with  which  we  can  have  no  sympathy,  —  of  which 
the  beginning,  the  middle,  and  the  end,  the  foundation  and  the  essence, 
was  entire,  unceasing,  inextinguishable,  concehtrated  selfishness. 
m  RR* 


522  LECTURE  XXIX. 

I  do  not  detain  my  hearers  with  any  further  reference  to  Maria 
Theresa.  She  long  occupies  the  pages  of  history,  —  the  interesting 
and  captivating  princess,  —  the  able  and  still  attractive  queen,  — 
the  respected  and  venerable  matron,  grown  prudent  by  long  famil 
iarity  with  the  uncertainty  of  fortune,  and  sinking  into  decline  amid 
the  praises  and  blessings  of  her  subjects.  From  the  books  and  me- 
moirs which  I  have  mentioned  every  particular  may  be  drawn  which 
can  be  necessary  to  enable  you  to  form  your  own  estimate.  Indeed, 
all  the  relevant  and  important  observations  connected  with  her  history 
anl  her  character  will  be  furnished  you  either  by  Coxe  or  by  Towers, 
or,  lastly,  by  the  king  of  Prussia  himself. 

I  must  now  say  a  word,  and  but  a  word,  on  the  wars  of  this  par- 
ticular era.  Mr.  Coxe,  who  prides  himself  on  the  military  part  of 
his  History,  may  be  consulted  with  respect  to  the  Seven  Years'  War. 
Of  all  others  this  war  has  been  the  most  celebrated,  from  the  variety 
of  its  events,  the  military  science  displayed,  and,  above  all,  the  ex- 
traordinary eiforts  of  military  genius  exhibited  by  the  king  of  Prussia. 
They  who  wish  to  pursue  the  subject  farther  than  I  can  conceive 
necessary  to  any  but  professional  men  may  refer  to  the  book  of  Gen- 
eral Lloyd,  a  work  of  character,  and  dedicated  to  the  consideration  of 
this  part  of  the  subject.  Archenholz  you  will  see  quoted  by  Coxe, 
and  it  is,  I  understand,  a  work  of  great  authority  on  the  Continent. 

I  have  not  adverted  to  a  most  important  part  of  the  history  of 
Frederic,  —  the  partition  of  Poland  ;  for  I  cannot  yet  conveniently 
approach  times  so  near  our  own.  But  I  may  mention  that  my  hear- 
ers will  hereafter  be  referred  by  me  chiefly  to  the  Annual  Register 
for  1771,  1772,  1773.  The  account  there  giren  is  supposed  to  be 
drawn  up  by  Burke.  After  all,  the  situation  of  Poland  was  such  as 
almost  to  afford  an  exception,  perhaps  a  single  exception,  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind,  to  those  general  rules  of  justice  that  are  so  essen- 
tial to  the  great  community  of  nations.  I  speak  this  with  great  hesi- 
tation, and  you  must  consider  the  point  yourselves.  I  do  not  profess 
to  have  thoroughly  considered  it  myself.  There  has  lately  appeared 
one  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh's  valuable  articles  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review*  on  the  subject  of  Poland ;  and  you  will  in  him  always  find  a 
master  of  moral  and  pohtical  science  worthy  of  every  attention  you 
can  bestow. 

I  have  now  mentioned  all  the  books  I  consider  necessary  for  your 
information.  There  are  others  which  I  do  not  think  necessary,  but 
which  you  may  be  led  to  consult  from  their  connection  with  Frederic. 
I  allude  more  particularly  to  parts  of  his  own  works,  —  his  corre- 
spondence with  the  wits  and  philosophers  of  the  day,  more  especially 
with  Voltaire,  whose  reception,  adventures,  and  final  escape  from  tho 
court  of  Prussia  become  almost  a  serious  part  of  the  history  of  the 
monarch. 

*  Edinburgh  Review  for  November,  1822.  —  N. 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA.  523 

The  J  who  wish  to  know  the  nature  of  the  speculations  and  religious 
opinions  of  Frederic,  and  the  restlessness  of  his  spirit  of  proseljtism, 
may  find  matter  enough  for  either  their  amusement  or  instruction  in 
the  Memoirs  of  Thi^bault.  They  will,  at  the  same  time,  be  nqt  a 
little  entertained  by  observing  the  invincible  patience,  the  sevenfold 
shield  of  prudence  and  reserve,  under  which  the  attacks  of  the  mon- 
arch were  sustained  by  Thi^bault,  the  most  wary  of  dependants  and 
the  most  calm  of  observers. 

But  with  respect  to  the  king's  correspondence  with  Voltaire,  as  I 
am  thus  obUged  to  allude  to  it,  as  well  as  to  the  works  of  Frederic 
himself,  I  cannot  but  recommend  it  to  the  student  to  hesitate  and 
pause  before  he  ever  presumes  to  wander  over  the  writings  of  these 
celebrated  men,  or  indeed  visit  at  all  the  unhealthy  regions  of  French 
literature.  Of  course  I  do  not  speak  of  the  great  dr&^mas,  or  of  the 
grave  or  of  the  important  works  to  be  found  in  it.  What  I  now  say 
must  be  interpreted  reasonably ;  I  speak  of  the  lighter  works,  and  of 
those  that  profess  chiefly  to  entertain ;  and  speaking  of  such  parts  of 
the  French  literature,  I  would  recommend  it  to  the  English  student 
to  prepare  himself  for  the  climate  and  company  he  will  there  meet, 
by  first  acquainting  himself,  and  that  most  thoroughly,  with  the  ex- 
cellent authors  that  dignify  the  literature  of  our  own  country.  John- 
son and  Paley,  Locke  and  Butler,  immediately  occur  as  the  great 
masters  of  moral,  metaphysical,  and  rehgious  instruction,  —  Locke, 
the  votary  of  truth,  and  Paley,  the  very  genius  of  good  sense.  Others 
might  be  mentioned,  if  this  were  the  proper  place  to  advise,  or  if  I  were 
worthy  to  be  the  adviser  on  subjects  so  important.  But  some  adviser 
is  necessary,  and  some  preparation  is  necessary,  before  this  depart- 
ment of  very  fashionable  reading  (the  French  literature)  is  entered 
upon.  Ground  must  be  secured  upon  which  the  great  bulwarks  of 
the  understanding  and  the  heart  must  be  first  erected  and  their  foun- 
dations deeply  laid.  Already,  and  ere  we  have  yet  descended  to  the 
still  more  modern  parts  of  history,  we  have  been  brought  into  contact 
with  Voltaire  and  Frederic,  and  the  wits  and  philosophers  of  their 
school.  Whatever  may  be  the  merit,  and  whatever  may  be  tho 
praise,  —  the  praise  of  genius  undoubtedly,  which  cannot  be  denied 
to  many  of  the  popular  writers  of  the  French  nation,  —  it  is  not,  I 
think,  too  much  to  say,  that  the  general  effect  of  their  works  is  al- 
ways to  withdraw  the  mind  from  that  sound  and  virtuous  state  in 
which  our  own  writers  have  left  it.  In  the  conversation  and  corre- 
spondence of  Frederic  the  student  will  find  much  of  what  is  well  fitted 
to  give  him  intellectual  pleasure,  and  much  also,  I  fear,  that  can  have 
no  tendency  but  ultimately  to  destroy  all  intellectual  pleasure  what- 
ever. He  will  find,  for  instance,  elegant  literature,  liveliness  and 
good  taste,  wit,  sententiousness,  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  of 
the  world,  interesting  allusions  to  men  who  have  made  a  figure  in  it  > 
but  he  will  also  find  impudent  ridicule,  gross  ribaldry,  systematic  h 


524  LECTURE  XXIX. 

religion,  and  a  sort  of  unceasing,  inveterate  hostility  :xercised  on 
subjects  and  names  that  the  student  himself  has  always  been  ac- 
customed (and  very  properly}  to  consider  with  sentiments  of  serious- 
ness and  reverence.  These  are  but  mixed  and  opposite  ingredients 
to  be  presented  to  a  reader  in  the  same  work.  How  are  we  to  hope 
that  the  mind,  that  the  youthful  mind,  is  to  be  only  improved  by  the 
good,  and  not  injured  by  the  evil  ? 

It  is,  therefore,  with  no  little  satisfaction  that  I  can  ussure  my  hear- 
er that  he  need  not  approach  these  volumes  as  a  reader  of  history. 
There  is  in  them  little  or  nothing  of  an  historical  nature.  The  corre- 
spondence with  Voltaire,  which  is  the  most  likely  to  attract  your 
notice,  begins  with  the  time  when  Frederic  was  under  the  displeasure 
of  his  father,  and  finding  refuge  from  his  tyranny  in  the  pleasures  of 
study  and  the  'consciousness  of  his  own  improving  talents  and  matur- 
ing knowledge.  Voltaire  was  his  idol ;  and  Frederic,  the  presump- 
tive heir  of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  and  evidently  possessed  of  an  in- 
quiring and  powerful  mind,  might  very  naturally  be  in  turn  the  idol 
of  Voltaire.  The  praises,  however,  that  are  interchanged  between 
the  two  correspondents  soon  disgust  the  modest  and  reasonable  temper- 
ament of  an  Enghsh  reader,  and  they  never  cease  more  or  less  to  dis- 
gust, from  the  first  opening  to  the  last  page  of  the  correspondence. 
In  one  shape  or  another,  these  compliments  constitute  a  large  portion 
of  the  whole ;  observations  on  literature,  and  railings  against  super- 
stition, the  remainder ;  and  by  superstition  is  always  meant  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  The  meritorious  part  of  Voltaire's  letters  consists  in 
the  protestations  that  he  does  not  fail  to  make  against  wars,  —  pro- 
testations that  are  not  at  all  reUshed  by  the  king.  The  king  confines 
himself  to  general  declamations  against  the  stupidity  and  folly  of  man- 
kmd,  —  observations  that  come  with  no  very  good  grace  from  a  man 
who  never  turned  their  stupidity  and  folly  to  any  purposes  but  those 
of  bloodshed  and  destruction,  for  the  sake  of  his  own  personal  aggran- 
dizement. The  talents  of  the  king  are,  no  doubt,  very  clearly  seen 
in  these  letters,  and  he  seems  at  last  to  write  to  Voltaire  with  all  the 
freedom  and  decision  of  one  who  was  his  equal  in  intellectual  powers, 
not  his  pupil.  But  it  is  in  no  other  way  than  as  an  exhibition  of 
literary  talents  that  these  letters  can  be  of  use  to  any  reader.  Poli- 
tics are  never  mentioned  but  in  a  slight  and  superficial  manner.  The 
historian,  even  the  speculator  on  human  nature  on  the  larger  scale, 
can  glean  but  Uttle  ;  nothing  of  any  consequence  about  the  first  in- 
vasion of  Silesia ;  little  about  the  Seven  Years'  War,  —  little  but 
this,  that  the  king  was  evidently  pressed  to  the  utmost,  and  that  he 
became  at  last  quite  sullen  and  fierce,  as  the  dangers  of  his  situation 
gathered  more  and  more  gloomy  around  him.  Even  of  his  amusing 
quarrel  with  Voltaire  only  the  symptoms  appear,  not  the  particulars, 
and  these  but  in  two  letters.  The  correspondence  afterwards  con- 
tinues almost  as  if  no  quarrel  had  happened ;  the  two  wits  were,  from 


PRUSSIA  AND  MARIA  THERESA.  525 

their  talents  and  a  coincidence  of  sentiment  on  certain  important 
points,  quite  necessary  to  each  other ;  and,  in  a  word,  from  the  whole 
of  the  intercourse  that  subsisted  between  these  celebrated  men,  I 
know  httle  of  an  edifying  nature  that  can  be  offered  to  the  consider- 
ation of  the  student  but  this,  —  that  the  regard  which  they  expressed 
for  each  other  before  they  met,  though  originating  in  the  proper 
sources  of  regard,  personal  merit  and  kindred  talents,  was  still  of 
too  extravagant  a  nature  to  be  properly  secured  from  uncertainty  and 
disappointment.  Now  this  is  in  itself  edifying,  for  this  I  conceive 
will  always  be  the^case.  Friendship  between  men,  when  it  deserves 
the  name,  is  the  slow  growth  of  mutual  respect,  is  of  a  nature  calm 
and  simple,  professes  nothing  and  exacts  nothing,  —  is,  above  all, 
careful  to  be  considerate  in  its  expectations,  and  to  keep  at  a  distinct 
distance  from  the  romantic,  the  visionary,  and  the  impossible.  The 
torrid  zone,  with  its  heats  and  its  tempests,  is  left  to  the  inexperience 
of  youth,  or  to  the  love  that  exists  between  the  sexes ;  the  temperate, 
with  its  sunshine  and  its  zephyrs,  cheerful  noon  and  calm  evening, 
is  the  proper  and  the  only  region  of  manly  friendship. 

But  if  there  be  nothing  to  edify  in  the  correspondence  of  the  king, 
or  even  in  those  parts  of  Thiebault  which  exhibit  his  speculative  and 
rehgious  opinions,  there  is  much  in  his  example  that  is  of  a  most  in- 
jurious nature.  Frederic  will  be  seen  in  the  common  course  of  these 
historical  narratives  hving  a  life  of  activity  and  duty,  at  least  of  ex- 
3rtion  and  usefulness,  as  he  behoved,  to  his  people,  and  dying  at  a 
very  advanced  age  tranquil  and  unmoved,  not  indeed  with  the  hope 
and  humble  confidence  and  pious  anticipations,  but  certainly  with  all 
the  composure,  of  a  rehgious  man.  In  all  this  there  is  nothing  to 
edify,  there  is  much  to  mislead  the  mind.  The  airy  gayety  and  care-. 
lessness  of  skepticism  is  never  without  its  attraction  to  the  light-heart- 
edness  of  youth.  Fearlessness,  and  courage,  and  tranquillity,  in 
scenes  the  most  appalling,  the  field  of  battle  or  the  bed  of  death,  ex- 
tort from  us  our  involuntary  respect,  whatever  be  the  person  or  the 
cause.  The  example  of  Frederic  may  therefore  be  well  fitted  to  have 
its  influence,  and  that  influence  one  of  a  very  unfortunate  and  melan- 
choly kind ;  it  may  appear  to  recommend  to  our  choice  the  fascina- 
tions and  privileges  of  skepticism. 

But  skepticism,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  one  of  those  spirits  that 
change  their  guise  as  we  advance  along  in  their  company.  This  is 
the  fiend  that  "  expects  his  evening  prey."  Extraordinary  men  like 
Frederic,  long  conspicuous  in  the  eyes  of  mankind,  and  knowing 
themselves  to  be  so,  long  habituated  to  the  exercise  of  self  command 
in  seasons  of  the  most  imminent  danger,  may  be  consistent  to  the  last, 
and  never  lose  that  composure  and  fortitude  which  have  so  uniformly 
through  life  elevated  them  above  the  level  of  their  fellow-creatures. 
Their  reward  is  of  this  world,  and  they  obtain  it.  But  what  is  this 
wO  the  rest  of  mankind  ?   what  is  it  to  us  common  mortals  ?  what  is 


526  LECTURE  XXIX. 

tij  lis  the  example  of  Frederic  ?  His  example  is  nothing,  ar.d  his 
opinions  are  nothing,  and  his  death-bed  is  nothing.  Placed  as  we 
are,  not  on  thrones  and  at  the  head  of  armies,  and  to  be  gazed  at  by 
mankind,  now  and  in  future  ages,  but  in  the  midst  of  our  own  un- 
noticed rounds  of  amusements  and  of  business,  of  pleasures  and  of 
pains,  amid  temptations  and  duties  of  an  ordinary  nature,  —  grow- 
ing to  maturity  for  one  short  season,  flourishing  for  another,  fading, 
decaying,  visibly  dying  away  for  a  third,  while,  in  the  mean  time,  we 
at  least  are  well  aware  that  somewhere  or  other  resides  some  stu- 
pendous Intelligence,  in  whose  presence  we  thus  revolve  through  the 
appointed  vicissitudes  of  our  being,  and  whose  almighty  will  is  then 
once  more  to  be  exercised  upon  our  fate  in  some  unknown  manner, 
in  some  new  situation,  that  is  as  yet  impenetrably  removed,  beyond 
what  is  therefore  to  us  the  affecting,  the  anxious,  the  awful  moment 
of  our  dissolution,  —  what  is  to  us  the  example  of  Frederic  ?  His 
example  is  nothing,  and  his  opinions  are  nothing,  and  his  death-bed 
is  nothing ;  they  are  nothing,  they  are  worse  than  nothing. 

I  have  made  these  observations  on  French  literature  and  on  the 
skeptical  writings  of  distinguished  men,  but  nothing  that  I  have  now 
said  must  be  interpreted  in  any  manner  unfavorable  to  the  great 
interests  of  truth  or  the  rights  of  free  inquiry.  Still  less  must  it  be 
supposed  that  men  are  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  religious  opinions  of 
each  other,  and  decide  on  the  salvation  of  particular  men,  of  Frederic, 
for  instance,  or  Voltaire.  To  his  own  Master  must  each  individual 
stand  or  fall,  and  to  Him  alone  be  responsible  for  the  use  of  those 
faculties  and  opportunities  with  which  he  has  been  intrusted.  Men 
must  also  be  allowed  the  publication  of  their  opinions,  if  this  be  done 
with  decency  and  seriousness  ;  for  the  learned  can  have  no  right  to 
say  that  they  are  in  possession  of  the  truth,  still  less  can  the  unlearn- 
ed, unless  every  grave  man  can  offer  his  opinions,  be  they  what  they 
may,  though  not  to  the  multitude,  at  least  to  grave  men  like  himself. 
Such  are  the  principles  which  I  conceive  to  be  fundamentally  neces- 
sary to  the  proper  cultivation  of  reUgious  truth,  and  of  all  truth.  I 
must  not  be  supposed  for  a  moment  to  entertain  the  slightest  wish  to 
disturb  or  violate  them ;  but  when  all  this  has  been  admitted,  distinc- 
tions may  still  be  made  between  different  descriptions  of  literature, 
different  systems  of  opinion,  and  different  modes  of  religious  inquiry. 
And  when  we  are  made  thus  casually  to  approach,  in  the  course  of 
our  historical  reading,  a  very  particular  department  of  modern  litera- 
ture, and  in  reality  the  most  awful  subjects  that  can  be  presented  to 
our  thoughts,  it  may  be  competent  for  me,  it  may  be  necessary,  to 
compare  and  contrast,  at  least  in  the  passing  manner  I  have  now 
done,  the  great  body  of  the  more  entertaining,  popular,  and  modern 
French  writers  with  our  oAvn,  and  to  require  that  the  one  should  be 
well  examined  and  digested,  and  that  before  the  other  be  even  at  all 
looked  at,  —  the  more  so  because  the  human  mind,  when  adverting 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  527 

to  serious,  to  moral,  and  religious  subjects,  is  unhappily  affected,  par- 
ticularly in  early  life,  by  many  other  considerations  besides  the  just 
and  salutary  impressions  of  reason  and  of  truth. 

Such  are  the  books  and  memoirs  to  which  I  would  wish  to  refer 
the  student,  while  he  is  endeavouring  to  appreciate  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  characters  of  history,  and  the  events  with  which  that 
character  is  connected.  The  mass  of  reading  I  have  mentioned  is 
very  considerable,  —  Gillies,  Towers,  Thi^bault,  Frederic's  own  ac- 
count of  his  political  transactions,  Mirabeau,  and  Coxe ;  and  to  these 
I  have  added  a  very  amusing  work  by  Wraxall,  —  his  Memoirs  of 
the  Court  of  Berlin.  But  the  general  reader  may,  I  think,  be  satis- 
fied with  Towers  and  Coxe ;  though  much  of  Thi^bault,  of  the  ac- 
count of  Frederic,  and  of  Mirabeau,  ought,  I  think,  to  be  added  by 
those  who  would  fit  themselves  for  the  high  character  of  men  of  intel- 
ligence and  of  statesmen. 

But  I  must  also  mention,  that  by  the  general  reader,  and  by  every 
reader,  the  account  that  is  given  of  Thidbault's  book  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  for  October,  1805,  should  also  be  considered.  It  is  always 
my  wish  to  occupy  as  little  of  your  time  in  this  place  as  possible,  and 
never  to  offer  you  imperfectly  what  you  may  easily  read  properly  de- 
livered to  you  by  the  author  himself.  For  these  reasons  I  do  not 
now  stop  to  lay  before  you  many  of  the  observations  which  had  oc- 
curred to  me  on  the  subject  of  Frederic,  because  I  really  have  found 
them  anticipated  by  the  Edinburgh  reviewer.  I  depend,  however, 
upon  your  reading  them  in  the  Review,  otherwise  my  lecture  will 
want  a  part  which  I  should  have  supplied  myself,  and  without  wliich 
it  will  be,  even  in  my  own  conception,  most  materially  defective.  1 
must  confess,  too,  that  my  dislike  of  Frederic  would  be  thus  disap- 
pointed of  its  gratification.  This  dislike  is  so  great,  that  I  can  even 
bear  to  throw  him,  without  compunction,  as  I  now  do,  to  the  mercy 
of  these  Northern  tormentors. 


LECTURE    XXX 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD. 


In  a  late  lecture,  I  endeavoured  to  conduct  you  through  the  his- 
tory of  the  remaining  part  of  the  reign  of  George  the  Second,  the  in- 
trigues that  took  ^lace  on  the  fall  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  the  merits 
of  the  Pelham  administration,  and  of  the  ministry  of  Lord  Chatham. 


528  LECTURE  XXX. 

And  I  more  particularly  proposed  to  you  such  subjects  (the  Rebel- 
lion of  1745  and  others,  drawn  partly  from  the  events  of  the  time, 
and  partly  from  Debrett's  Debates)  as  I  thought  best  fitted  to  supply 
your  minds  with  proper  materials  of  philosophic  and  pohtical  reflec- 
tion. 

But  before  I  proceed  to  our  next  subject,  the  reign  of  his  present 
Majesty,  I  must  observe,  that,  as  you  read  our  history  down  from 
the  Revolution  to  the  present  time,  more  especially  as  you  read  the 
debates  in  Parliament,  you  will  be  repeatedly  called  upon  to  exercise 
your  opinion  upon  reasonings  and  pubhc  measures  that  relate  to  our 
national  debt,  to  taxes,  excises,  and  topics  of  this  nature ;  and  it  is 
desirable,  as  a  preparation  for  such  reading,  that  you  should  acquire 
some  notion,  as  soon  as  possible,  of  the  nature  of  a  national  debt  and 
its  consequences,  —  in  short,  become  acquainted  with  the  great  sub- 
jects of  political  economy.  I  should  therefore  be  well  pleased,  if  I 
could  refer  you  to  some  book  or  treatise  where  elementary  explana- 
tions respecting  such  subjects  might  be  found  ;  but  I  know  of  no  such 
book  or  treatise.  The  great  work  of  Adam  Smith  is  not  an  element- 
ary book,  —  very  far  from  it ;  and  your  best  chance  of  understanding 
it  is,  to  read  of  each  chapter  as  much  as  you  can,  then  go  to  the  next 
chapter,  and  so  on ;  and  when  you  have  got  to  the  end  of  the  book, 
begin  the  book  again ;  and  you  will  at  length  comprehend  the  whole 
sufficiently  for  any  general  purpose.  I  have  lately  seen  a  treatise 
by  Mr.  Boileau,  which  I  hoped  I  might  recommend  to  you  on  this 
occasion ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  it  -will  be  found  either  more  simple 
or  more  inteUigible  than  Adam  Smith's  original  work,  from  which  it 
is  avowedly  borrowed. 

Since  I  wrote  what  I  am  now  delivering,  I  have  met  with  a  book 
lately  published,  —  Conversations  on  Political  Economy.  This  ap- 
peared to  me  the  elementary  book  that  was  wanted  ;  and  though  there 
is  a  doubtful  point  or  two  in  the  more  profound  parts  of  the  science, 
which  is,  I  believe,  rather  mistaken,  still  the  work  seemed  to  me  a 
work  of  merit,  and  fitted  for  your  instruction.  In  this  opinion  I 
found  Mr.  Malthus,  and  Mr.  Pryme,  our  own  lecturer  on  political 
economy,  concurring,  and  therefore  I  think  myself  authorized  to  rec- 
ommend it  to  you. 

I  cannot  detain  you  with  observations  on  political  economy ;  I  do 
not  lecture  on  political  economy,  and  there  is  one  of  the  members  of 
our  University  who  does,  and  who,  T  am  sure,  from  the  purest 
motives  of  endeavouring  to  do  good  to  his  fellow-creatures,  has  been, 
for  some  time,  soliciting  your  attention  to  these  most  important,  but 
grave  and  somcAvhat  repulsive,  subjects.  Still,  as  the  plan  of  my 
lectures  is,  to  assist  you,  if  I  can,  in  reading  history  for  yourselves, 
ana  as  it  is  quite  necessary  to  the  proper  comprehension  of  history 
from  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  that  you  should  have  some  proper 
notion  of  at  least  the  nature  of  a  funded  debt  and  of  loans,  and  that 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  629 

immediately,  I  will  begin  this  lecture  by  a  few  observations  on  the 
subject,  and  by  securing  your  minds,  as  far  as  I  am  able,  from  some 
of  those  mistakes  and  misapprehensions  that  are  to  be  met  with  in 
conversation,  and  even  in  books  and  pamphlets  which  undertake  to 
instruct  the  public.  I  shall  be  well  employed  indeed,  if  I  thus  ap- 
prise you  of  the  importance  of  what  may  be  considered  as  a  new  sci- 
ence in  the  world,  the  science  of  political  economy.  I  will  begin 
with  the  most  common  misapprehension  of  all. 

Property  in  the  stocks  being  continually  bought  and  sold,  and 
passed  from  one  to  another,  a  continual  circulation,  as  it  is  called,  of 
money  is  kept  up ;  and  by  the  practice  of  funding  it  is  supposed  that 
we  have,  in  fact,  fabricated  to  ourselves  a  species  of  fictitious  wealth, 
which  answers  all  the  purposes,  and  procures  to  us  all  the  advantages, 
of  so  much  real  wealth. 

The  easiest  reply  I  can  make  to  this  popular  error  is  by  shortly 
stating  what  the  nature  of  the  funds  really  is.  The  whole  mystery  is 
no  more  than  this :  —  A  minister  wishes  to  borrow  a  million,  we  will 
say,  for  the  equipment  of  an  armament ;  he  borrows  it,  therefore, 
from  those  who  have  the  money  unoccupied,  and  he  engages  that  the 
nation  shall  give  them  a  proper  interest  for  their  money  for  ever : 
their  names  are  therefore  written  in  public  books,  with  the  sums 
they  have  lent ;  and  these  records  of  the  transactions  are  the  funds. 
The  books  are  kept  at  the  bank,  where  the  interest  is  paid  by  the 
government ;  and  these  records  give  each  person  who  belongs  to  them 
a  right  to  receive  such  and  such  sums  of  interest  from  the  public  for 
ever.  And  these  records  may  be  broken  into  pieces,  and  transferred 
from  one  to  another:  but  this,  and  nothing  more,  is  done,  when 
stock,  as  it  is  called,  is  bought  or  sold. 

Money  is  brought  out  of  society,  if  I  may  so  speak,  and  given  by 
the  person  who  buys  stock  to  the  person  who  holds  it,  that  is,  who 
holds  one  of  these  rights  or  records ;  and  he,  after  parting  with  his 
record,  returns  with  the  money  into  society :  and  so  far  the  money 
has  circulated,  —  it  has  been  given  from  one  man  to  another ;  but 
there  is  no  fabrication*" of  money,  or  of  fictitious  wealth.  The  funds 
are  not  money ^  they  only  represent  money,  —  they  represent  money 
that  has  been  long  ago  spent ;  but,  being  the  records  of  these  original 
loans,  and  therefore  giving  to  their  owners  a  claim  on  the  nation  to 
receive  interest  for  ever,  they  have,  no  doubt,  in  themselves  a  value, 
and  may  therefore  be  continually  bought  and  sold  ;  and  this  has  given 
occasion  to  all  the  mystery  and  confusion  that  have  been  noticed. 

A  more  dangerous  error  is  this :  —  It  is  continually  afiirmed  that 
the  greatest  part  of  the  money  which  is  borrowed  for  a  war  is  paid 
away  to  our  artisans,  our  soldiers,  and  sailors,  at  our  dock-yards,  or 
manufactories,  head-quarters,  &c.,  &c. ;  that  it  never  travels  out  of 
the  island ;  that  it  is  never  lost  by  the  state ;  that  it  only  passes  from 
one  hand  to  another ;  and  that,  except  when  the  money  is  paid  out  of 
67  SS 


530  LECTURE  XXX. 

the  kingdom  to  our  soldiers  abroad,  or  our  allies,  we  are  as  rich  as 
before.  This  mistake,  indeed,  the  writers  on  political  economy  will 
enable  you  to  avoid  ;  for  you  will  see  them  make  a  distinction  between 
productive  laborers  and  non-productive  laborers,  which  you  will  of 
course  have  to  consider.  There  are  certain  difficulties  introduced 
into  this  part  of  the  subject  by  a  particular  school  of  reasoners  ;  but 
the  distinction  is  sufficiently  sound  for  our  present  purpose,  and  for 
all  intelligible  purposes.     I  shall  proceed  upon  it. 

Suppose  we  were  all  soldiers  and  sailors,  that  is,  non-productive 
laborers,  there  would  evidently  be  no  one  to  feed  and  clothe  us.  To 
this  preposterous  state  of  ruin  we  therefore  approach,  the  more  sailors 
and  soldiers  we  raise.  The  money  that  is  given  to  them  and  for  them 
is  only  the  medium  by  means  of  which  food  and  clothing,  arms  and 
accoutrements,  are  transferred  to  them  from  those  who  produce  these 
articles.  It  is  not  meant  to  say  that  soldiers  and  sailors  are  useless, 
for  they  defend  us ;  or  that  they  deserve  not  what  they  receive,  for 
they  receive  but  little.  All  that  is  urged  is,  that  they  can  produce 
nothing  themselves,  and  that  they  must  necessarily  consume  part  of 
the  produce  of  those  who  do ;  and  that,  consequently,  the  more  of 
them  we  are  obliged  to  maintain  for  any  purpose,  whether  of  offence 
or  defence,  the  poorer  we  shall  be,  and  the  less  able  to  become  rich. 
It  is  not  true,  therefore,  because  the  money  is  paid  away  to  our 
soldiers,  sailors,  public  officers,  &c.,  and  never  goes  out  of  the  island, 
that  therefore  we  are  not  the  poorer.  And  in  the  former  case,  that 
of  subsidies,  loans,  &c.,  when  the  money  obviously  does  go  out  of 
the  island,  then,  indeed,  it  is  allowed  by  all  that  we  are  poorer.  In 
these  two  cases,  therefore,  the  matter  is  clear,  and  I  shall  dismiss 
them. 

Still,  some  further  explanation  must  be  given  of  the  manner  in 
which  we  bear  our  extraordinary  loads  of  taxation.  Certainly  there 
must  be  some  truth  in  the  popular  notion,  however  vague,  that  the 
money  raised  by  taxes  never  goes  out  of  the  kingdom,  and  that  there- 
fore we  are  not  poorer. 

I  must,  therefore,  now  propose  to  your  thoughts  a  distinction  which 
you  must  recollect ;  it  is  this :  the  money  originally  lent  from  Wipe  to 
time  by  different  moneyed  men  to  government  is  always  to  be  ;'&rc- 
fully  set  apart  in  your  minds  from  the  money  that  is  afterwards  paid 
every  year  by  the  nation  as  the  interest  of  it.  The  money  originally 
lent,  which  the  funds  are  the  records  of,  is  money  that  has  been  taken 
from  the  capital  of  the  country  ;  all  this  is,  therefore,  positive  loss ; 
it  has  been  spent ;  the  soldier  and  his  ammunition,  the  sailor  and  his 
ship  of  war,  have  at  length  disappeared  and  are  annihilated.  These 
were  what  the  money  produced ;  they  are  gone.  The  money  has 
been  spent,  therefore  ;  we  have  it  not :  and  if  it  had  not  been  so 
spent,  we  should  have  had  it ;  it  would  have  been  left  in  society  to 
bo  added  to  our  capital,  and  thus  left  to  increase  our  means  of  pro- 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  531 

duction  or  gratification.  Here  is,  therefore,  a  distinct  loss,  continu- 
ally measured  and  exhibited  by  the  amount  of  the  national  debt.  The 
only  good  that  remains  is  the  existence  and  affluence  of  those  manu- 
facturers that  have  been  employed  in  furnishing  our  soldiers  and 
sailors  with  their  food,  clothing,  and  implements  of  war ;  all  the  rest 
is  loss.  But  the  same  cannot  be  said  of  the  interest  that  is  every 
year  paid  in  consequence  of  it. 

You  must  now  consider  by  whom  this  interest  is  paid,  and  to  whom. 
It  is  paid,  more  or  less,  by  every  man  in  the  kingdom  to  the  an- 
nuitants or  shareholders  who  originally  lent  the  principal.  The  inter- 
est, then,  is  paid  by  one  part  of  society  to  another  part  of  the  same 
society.  We  have  not  here  an  annihilation  and  total  destruction  of 
any  thing  purchased,  as  in  the  former  case.  The  money  is  not  spent 
in  soldiers  and  sailors,  in  gunpowder  and  implements  of  war,  in  pro- 
visions for  their  support  in  foreign  countries  ;  it  is  not  spent  on  objects 
which  immediately  perish  without  producing  any  thing  but  our  de- 
fence. The  money  is  now  given  by  society  to  certain  annuitants,  and 
this  money  may  be  said  not  to  travel  out  of  the  island,  and  in  that 
sense  not  to  make  us  poorer.  The  very  annuitants  themselves  pay 
their  full  share  to  the  taxes  ;  that  is,  they  themselves  pay  a  part  of 
that  money  which  they  are  afterwards  themselves  again  to  receive 
back  as  their  interest,  receive  in  their  dividends  at  the  bank. 

All  this  is  true,  and  may  contribute  to  explain  to  you  the  •  manner 
in  which  we  pay  so  much  every  year,  and  yet  survive  our  expenses. 
But  you  are  by  no  means  to  suppose  that  the  quantity  of  our  taxation 
is  a  matter  of  little  or  no  consequence.  You  are  not  to  conceive,  as 
is  generally  done,  that,  because  the  interest  does  not  go  out  of  the 
island,  it  is,  therefore,  of  no  consequence  how  much  is  drawn  from 
the  public.  It  is  still  a  matter  of  great  importance  what  quanti- 
ty of  money  is  every  year  levied ;  for,  to  drop  for  the  present  our 
former  language  of  productive  and  unproductive  laborers,  and  to 
adopt  language  of  the  most  ordinary  nature,  what  is  the  case  before 
us  ?  The  money  is  taken  from  one  person  and  given  to  another. 
Now  I  may  take  the  money  from  one  person  and  give  it  to  another, 
and  the  money  may  never  go  out  of  the  island ;  but  it  is  of  great 
consequence  who  is  the  person  I  take  it  from,  and  who  is  the  person 
I  give  it  to.  The  person  I  take  it  from  may,  and  indeed  must  be,  in 
the  main,  one  who  lives  by  his  industry ;  I  must  therefore  be  very 
careful  what  I  take  from  him,  though  I  give  it  to  his  neighbour  and 
fellow-citizen  ;  for  otherwise  I  may  materially  affect  his  prosperity,  • — 
that  is,  as  he  is  an  industrious  man,  the  prosperity  of  the  country. 
The  quantity  taken  is  a  most  material  point.  I  may  require  from 
him  so  much,  that  I  may  injure,  dispirit,  distress,  and  at  length  ruin 
him  ;  and  all  this,  though  the  money  never  goes  out  of  the  island,  and 
13  only  paid  from  one  to  another. 

This  leads  me  to  say  one  word  on  the  subject  of  taxes.     The  most 


532  LECTURE  XXX. 

useful  observation  which  I  can  make  to  jou  is  this :  that  all  taxes  are 
paid  by  men  out  of  their  income  ;  and  therefore,  whether  a  person  be 
a  rich  man  or  a  poor  man,  but  more  especially  in  the  latter  case,  his 
situation  may  be  made,  by  taxation,  to  vary  downwards  from  cheer- 
fulness and  affluence  to  uncomfortableness  and  privations,  then  to 
penury  and  ill-humor,  and  at  last  to  wretchedness  and  sedition.  A 
system  of  taxation  may  be  prevented,  by  different  causes,  from  visibly 
producing  these  very  ruinous  effects ;  but  it  always  tends  to  produce 
them,  and  always  does  produce  injury  to  a  certain  extent.  Though 
its  full  operation  be  concealed,  the  weight  is  not  the  less  in  one  scale 
because  it  is  overbalanced  by  opposing  weights  in  the  other.  The 
prosperity  of  a  nation  under  a  great  system  of  taxation  may  be  very 
striking  and  very  progressive,  yet  that  progress  is  not,  in  the  mean 
time,  the  less  restrained  and  retarded  by  the  secret  operation  of  the 
load  which  it  drags  after  it. 

But  to  conclude  :  as  you  read  the  history  from  the  Revolution,  you 
will  indeed  see  the  national  debt  continually  increasing ;  and  you  wiU 
observe,  in  the  debates  in  Parliament,  repeated  prophecies,  that  the 
debt  must  soon  destroy  us,  that  the  practice  of  borrowing  cannot  go 
on,  that  the  taxes  are  already  intolerable,  &c.,  &c.  As  no  such  ef- 
fect has  taken  place,  you  may  be  tempted  to  despise  all  such  prophe- 
cies and  their  authors,  and  will  then  have  to  despise  the  first  patriots 
and  statesmen  that  our  country  has  produced,  and  such  a  writer  on 
political  economy  as  Hume. 

You  will  therefore  observe,  that,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  the  moneyed 
interest  who  lend  money  to  a  government,  —  those  who  have  money, 
for  which  they  are  satisfied  to  receive  no  more  than  the  interest. 
This  description  of  men,  if  I  may  use  so  violent  a  metaphor,  is  con- 
tinually from  time  to  time  thrown  off  from  the  great  circulating  wheel 
of  the  national  prosperity^  —  of  the  national  prosperity,  you  will  ob- 
serve ;  and  therefore,  if  the  national  prosperity  declines,  they  will  not 
be  found. 

In  the  second  place,  you  will  observe  that  it  is  from  the  produce 
of  the  land  and  labor  of  the  community  that  the  interest  is  to  be  paid. 
This  interest,  therefore,  depends  also  upon  the  prosperity  of  the  coun- 
try. If,  therefore,  as  before,  that  prosperity  declines,  the  interest 
cannot  be  paid  as  it  has  been  before,  —  not  without  greater  injury 
and  distress. 

It  happens  that  the  prosperity  of  England  since  the  Revolution  nas 
never  ceased  to  be  progressive,  and  this  for  many  reasons  which  could 
not  have  been  foreseen,  and  therefore  to  an  extent  which  could  not 
have  been  expected.  Loans,  on  this  account,  have  been  continually 
made,  and  the  interest  continually  paid.  Yet  neither  are  our  states- 
men nor  our  philosophers  to  be  accused  of  mistaken  principles.  It 
does  not  follow,  because  a  loan  was  made  last  year,  that  it  can  be 
made  this  year  nor  the  contrary.     The  whole  is  a  question  of  pros 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  533 

perity,  and  therefore  not  a  little  of  mere  fact  and  experiment  at  the 
time  when  the  loan  is  wanted,  and  the  interest  to  be  paid ;  whether 
there  exist  at  the  time  those  who  have  money  to  lend,  —  whether 
they  have  arisen  in  society  in  consequence  of  their  successful  indus-. 
try ;  and  again,  whether  there  exist  a  sufficient  number  of  individu- 
als in  society  who  can  pay  fresh  taxes  out  of  their  income,  —  that  is, 
whether  the  new  interest  wanted  can  be  paid. 

The  canker,  how^ever,  of  a  state  is  taxation.  We  may  remember, 
therefore,  what  Swift  says  to  those  who  were  continually  looking  for 
his  death :  — 

"  My  good  companions,  never  fear ; 
For  though  you  may  mistake  a  year, 
Though  your  prognostics  run  too  fast, 
They  must  be  verified  at  last." 

And  if  Hume  were  still  alive  (who  is  always  referred  to  as  a  false 
prophet),  he  would  probably  not  be  induced,  by  any  thing  that  has 
happened  since  he  wrote,  either  in  France  or  this  country,  to  Avith- 
draw  his  observation,  his  sally  of  melancholy  pleasantry,  —  that 
"  princes  and  states,  fighting  and  quarrelhng  amidst  their  debts, 
funds,  and  public  mortgages,"  reminded  him  of  nothing  but  "  a 
match  of  cudgel-playing  fought  in  a  chinarshop." 

At  the  close  of  the  late  lecture,  we  arrived,  as  I  have  observed,  at 
the  accession  of  George  the  Third  to  the  throne,  and  at  the  unexpeci> 
ed  dismission  of  the  great  war  minister,  Mr.  Pitt,  to  make  room  for  a 
nobleman  at  that  time  far  less  known  either  in  Europe  or  in  England, 
the  Earl  of  Bute. 

The  reign  has  been  in  part  written  by  Mr.  Adolphus,  I  am  given 
to  understand,  upon  much  better  sources  of  information  than  any 
other  writer  has  yet  enjoyed.  No  reign  can  be  properly  w^ritten  till 
the  sovereign  is  no  more,  and  it  is  possible  that  important  materials 
for  the  future  historian  will  hereafter  be  produced.  But  in  the  mean 
time  the  History  of  Adolphus  will  naturally  be  received  into  your 
studies,  and  must  be  mentioned  and  even  recommended  by  me  ;  and 
it  therefore  became  my  duty  to  direct  my  own  perusal  to  this  History, 
and  ascertain  whether  it  was  necessary  to  accompany  my  recom- 
mendation with  any  particular  remarks. 

I  had  not  proceeded  far,  before  I  met  with  the  paragraph  which  I 
shall  now  read  to  you.  You  will  be  so  good  as  to  mark  well  every 
word  it  contains.  You  will  find  it  a  solution  of  all  the  material  phe- 
nomena relative  to  cabinets  and  ministers  that  have  distinguished  this 
memorable  reign.     The  passage  in  Adolphus  is  this :  — 

"  The  last  two  monarchs,  being  foreigners,  and  opposed  by  a  native 
prince,  who  had  numerous  adherents,  as  well  among  the  people  as  in 
some  of  the  most  illustrious  houses,  confided  a  large  portion  of  their 
power  to  a  few  distinguished  families,  in  order  to  secure  possession 
Df  the  crown.     These  families,  strengthened  by  union  and  exclusive  in- 

s  s* 


534  LECTURE  XXX. 

fluence,  became  not  only  independent  of,  but  in  many  respects  su- 
perior to,  the  throne.  Swayed  by  a  predilection  for  their  Continen- 
tal dominions,  the  first  two  sovereigns  of  the  house  of  Hanover  incur- 
red severe  animadversions  from  the  members  of  opposition ;  and  the 
necessity  of  frequent  justifications,  rendering  them  still  more  depend- 
ent on  the  leaders  of  the  ministerial  party,  reduced  them  almost  to  a 
state  of  pupilage. 

"  But  the  new  king  [George  the  Third] ,  being  exempt  from  foreign 
partialities,  ascending  the  throne  at  a  period  when  the  claims  of  the 
exiled  family  were  fallen  into  contempt,  was  enabled  to  emancipate 
himself  from  the  restraint  to  which  his  ancestors  had  submitted.  The 
Earl  of  Bute  formed  the  plan  of  breaking  the  phalanx  which  consti- 
tuted and  supported  the  ministry,  and  of  securing  the  independence 
of  the  crown,  by  a  moderate  exertion  of  the  constitutional  prerogative. 
This  plan  in  itself  was  well  conceived  and  necessary,  but  the  Earl  of 
Bute  was  not  a  proper  person  to  carry  it  into  effect.  He  was  not 
connected,  either  by  blood  or  by  familiar  intercourse,  with  the  leading 
families  in  England ;  he  was  not  versed  in  the  arts  of  popularity,  or 
used  to  the  struggles  of  Parliamentary  opposition ;  and  his  manners 
were  cold,  reserved,  and  unconciliating.  Prejudices  were  easily  ex- 
cited against  him  as  a  native  of  Scotland,  and  he  could  only  oppose 
to  a  popular  and  triumphant  administration,  and  a  long-established 
system,  such  friends  as  hope  or  interest  might  supply,  and  the  per- 
sonal esteem  of  the  king,  which  was  rendered  less  valuable  by  the 
odium  attached  to  the  name  of  favorite." 

I  must  confess  that  it  was  with  some  pain  that  I  first  read  this  re- 
markable paragraph,  and  not  without  some  surprise.  That  the  sys- 
tem here  described  had  been  really  the  system  of  the  reign,  I  had  al- 
ways, indeed,  conceived  ;  and  that  it  had  been  so  represented  by  Mr. 
Burke,  so  early  as  the  year  1770,  I  was  well  aware.  But  certainly 
I  had  not  expected  to  see  the  system  avowed  by  any  one,  writing,  as 
it  is  understood,  on  the  very  best  authorities,  —  still  less  defended  by 
one  who  proposed  to  himself  the  character  of  an  historian  of  England. 
Yet  such  is  the  fact. 

I  cannot  assent  to  the  propriety  of  the  opinions  and  principles  of 
this  writer,  and  yet  I  have  no  other  history,  —  at  least,  this  is  the 
most  regular  history  that  I  have  to  offer  you  for  your  future  study. 
The  History  of  Belsham  is  a  work,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  of 
more  merit  than  would  at  first  sight  be  supposed.  But  in  the  year 
1793,  after  the  breaking  out  of  the  French  war,  it  loses  the  character 
of  history,  and  becomes  little  more  than  a  political  pamphlet ;  and 
through  the  whole  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  it  is  so  written, 
that  it  must  be  considered  as  a  statement,  whether  just  or  not,  but 
certainly  Duly  as  a  statement,  on  one  side  of  the  question,  and  mus* 
therefore,  at  all  events,  be  compared  with  the  statement  on  the  other 
side,  tha/:  is,  witli  the  History  of  Adolphus.     On  every  account,  there- 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  535 

fore,  I  must  present  to  you  the  work  of  Adolphus,  and  leave  it  to  its 
influence  on  your  minds. 

But  if  this,  which  I  have  just  read,  be  the  paragraph  with  which  it 
opens,  if  these  be  the  principles  on  which  it  is  written,  and  if  the  sys- 
tem just  described  be  one  which  he  conceives  was  reasonably  recom- 
mended to  the  sovereign,  I  have  no  alternative  but  to  state  what  I 
apprehend  to  be  very  serious  objections  to  these  principles  and  to 
this  system ;  and  I  must  do  so,  however  disagreeable  may  be  the  dis- 
cussion (as  it  certainly  is)  into  which  I  must  thus  be  drawn.  The 
leading  transactions  of  the  reign,  prior  to  the  dispute  with  the  Ameri- 
can colonies,  could  furnish  me,  indeed,  with  no  reflections  of  a  more 
pleasing  nature  than  can  this  paragraph  of  Adolphus.  You  will  read 
them  in  the  history ;  and  you  must  be  left  to  read  them,  not  hear 
them  from  me ;  they  scarcely  fall  within  my  province.  But  the 
principles  of  the  system  on  which  this  or  any  other  reign  is  conduct- 
ed really  come  within  the  description  of  the  more  appropriate  topics 
of  a  lecturer  on  history ;  and  I  shall  therefore,  on  the  whole,  make 
the  ensuing  lecture  a  mere  comment  on  the  paragraph  I  have  read. 
And  I  have  only  further  to  observe,  that,  while  you  are  considering 
such  points  as  will  necessarily  pass  in  review  before  us,  you  will  in 
reality  be  considering  the  most  delicate,  curious,  and  critical  ques- 
tions that  belong  to  the  English  constitution. 

To  return,  therefore,  to  the  paragraph  I  have  just  read.  In  the 
first  place,  I  should  hope  that  there  is  a  certain  air  about  the  plan 
itself,  as  described  by  Adolphus,  a  certain  want  of  proper  sentiment, 
that  would,  to  youthful  minds  like  yours,  be  not  very  congenial.  I 
will  speak  of  the  necessity  of  it  hereafter ;  but  in  limine,  and  on  the 
first  view  of  it,  what  is  it  ? 

The  first  two  monarchs  of  the  Brunswick  line,  it  seems,  "  confided 
a  large  portion  of  their  power  to  a  few  distinguished  families.'*  But 
why?  "  In  order  to  secure  possession  of  the  crown."  A  very  ade- 
quate reason,  no  doubt ;  and  if  they  in  consequence  succeeded  in 
their  wishes,  neither  the  people  of  England,  nor  any  princes  of  that 
Brunswick  line,  should  readily  forget  their  obligation. 

Again, —  "  Swayed,"  it  seems,  "  by  a  predilection  for  their  Con- 
tinental dominions,  the  first  two  sovereigns  of  the  house  of  Hanover 
incurred  severe  animadversions  from  the  members  of  opposition ;  and 
the  necessity  of  frequent  justifications,  rendering  them  still  more  de- 
pendent on  the  leaders  of  the  ministerial  party,  reduced  then^  almost 
to  a  state  of  pupilage  "  :  that  is,  I  fear,  the  leaders  of  this  ministerial 
(then  the  Whig)  party  not  only  supported  their  sovereigns,  but  did 
so  considerably  at  the  hazard  of  their  good  name,  —  supported  them 
not  only  as  sovereigns  of  England,  but  as  electors  of  Hanover,  —  in- 
dulged them  even  in  their  predilections  for  their  Continental  domin- 
ions, and  had  such  merit  with  their  sovereigns,  in  consequence  of 
the  sacrifices  they  thus  made,  that  these  sovereigns  could  not  avoid 


536  LECTURE  XXX. 

acceding  to  any  wishes  they  expressed  and  any  measures  they  pro- 
posed. 

■  This  may  be,  indeed,  the  case ;  but  if  it  be,  it  is  no  very  good 
preparation  for  the  statement  which  Adolphus  immediately  subjoins. 
'•  The  new  king,"  says  he,  "  being  exempt  from  foreign  partialities, 
ascending  the  throne  at  a  period  when  the  claims  of  the  exiled  family 
were  fallen  into  contempt,  was  enabled  to  emancipate  , himself  from 
the  restraint  to  which  his  ancestors  had  submitted.  The  Earl  of 
Bute  formed  the  plan  of  breaking  the  phalanx,"  &c.,  &c.  The  new 
king  might  be  enabled  by  these  circumstances,  no  doubt ;  but  was  the 
Earl  of  Bute  therefore  justified  in  advising  him  thus  to  emancipate 
himself?  So  much  for  the  original  conception  of  the  plan,  which  Mr. 
Adolphus  has  thought  well  conceived.  But  was,  indeed,  this  plan  so 
necessary  as  he  states  it  to  have  been  ?  You  must  consider  this  for 
yourselves. 

You  are  supposed  to  be  now  reading  that  part  of  the  history  of 
England  which  bears  upon  this  particular  point.  What  was  the 
pupilage  to  which  George  the  First  was  reduced  ?  Did  the  Whig 
families  presume  to  thwart  him  in  his  expensive  treaties  and  en 
tangled  intrigues  to  secure  the  great  objects  of  his  policy,  the  posses- 
sion of  Bremen  and  Verdun,  —  that  is,  as  he  thought,  the  prosperity 
of  his  electoral  dominions?  Far  from  it.  Did  not  they  consider 
their  acquiescence  as  the  price  of  his  favor,  or  rather  as  the  price 
that  was  to  be  paid  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Stuarts  and  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1G88  ?  Did  not  the  Whig  ministers  and  their  sovereigns 
think  the  power  and  prosperity  of  each  necessary  to  the  best  inter- 
ests of  the  other  ?  Was  there  more  of  pupilage  and  dependence  in 
this  connection  than  are  always  to  be  found  in  the  connection  of  men 
who  are  bound  to  each  other  by  an  interchange  of  benefits  in  support 
of  laudable  objects  ?  What  are  we  to  say  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  ? 
Is  not  the  great  fault  of  Sir  Robert  at  all  times  a  too  great  anxiety 
for  the  personal  favor  of  his  sovereign,  —  a  too  great  readiness  to 
make  sacrifices  to  obtain  it,  —  an  almost  puerile  terror  of  losing  his 
place,  when  George  the  Second  began  to  reign,  and  had  dismissed 
him  with  an  intcntioil  of  making  Sir  Stephen  Compton  *  minister,  — 
an  unwillingness  to  lose  it  to  the  last  moment  of  his  administration, 
when  Pulteney  became  triumphant  ? 

George  the  First  seems  to  have  had  no  difficulty  in  keeping  his 
favorite  mhiister.  Lord  Stanhope,  in  power.  His  courtier,  the  Earl  of 
Sunderland,  was  always  of  far  more  consequence  in  the  state  than  he 
deserved.  Sir  Robert  Walpole  obtained  not  the  superiority  which 
he  always  merited,  till  his  rivals  were  dead,  or  had  been  disgraced 
by  the  South-Sea  Scheme.  Sir  Robert  was,  from  the  mere  appre- 
hension of  losing  his  place,  obliged  to  suffer  his  ovfn  personal  enemy, 

*  A  mistake  for  Sir  Spencer  Compton.  See  Coxe's  Memoirs  of  Sir  Robert  "Wal 
pole,  (London,  1816,)  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  32,  p.  288.  — N. 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  537 

and  the  enemy  of  his  king  and  country,  Lord  Bohngbroke,  to  return. 
All  the  terms  he  could  make  with  the  sovereign  and  his  mistress  were, 
that  this  dangerous  man  should  not  appear  again  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  What  is  there  here  of  pupilage  in  the  sovereign  ?  The  in- 
fluence of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  arose  from  his  own  personal  merit,  — 
first,  with  the  House  of  Commons,  —  and,  secondly,  w^ith  Queen 
Caroline,  who  assisted  him ;  not  in  managing  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  thereby  controlling  the  king,  —  but  in  managing  the  king,  and 
therefore  in  appearing  to  that  house  as  the  man  who  was  honored 
with  his  confidence  and  favor. 

The  only  two  instances  in  which  the  wishes  of  the  sovereign  were 
thwarted  were  when  the  Pelhams  overpowered  Lord  Carteret,  though 
the  avowed  favorite  of  his  master,  and  when  Mr.  Pitt  was  admitted 
into  office,  though  personally  disliked  by  the  king.  In  the  former  of 
these  instances,  the  Pelhams  were  more  approved  of  by  the  country 
than  their  rival.  Lord  Carteret ;  they  were  known  to  be  less  ready 
than  he  to  go  every  length  which  the  king  might  wish  in  the  politics 
of  the  Continent.  That  they  afterwards  made  too  great  sacrifices  to 
him  in  these  points,  —  particularly  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  —  more 
than  they  could  well  justify  to  themselves,  only  serves  to  show  how 
important  they  thought  the  king's  favor,  and  how  necessary  to  their 
continuance  in  ofiice.  In  the  last  instance,  of  Mr.  Pitt,  was  not  the 
real  objection  to  him  the  superiority  of  his  merit  ?  that  he  was  con- 
scious of  his  high  talents,  and  had  not  the  servility  of  those  who  have 
nothing  but  servility  to  depend  upon  ?  Yet,  in  the  event,  did  not 
even  Mr.  Pitt  submit  to  the  German  system  of  politics,  when  he  be- 
came himself  a  minister  ?  Contrary  to  all  his  former  opinions,  re- 
peatedly avowed  with  all  the  fervor  of  his  eloquence,  did  he  not  de- 
clare that  this  system  was  a  millstone  round  his  neck,  with  which  he 
entered  into  office  ?  For  what  reason  did  he  suffer  it  to  remain  there, 
but  because  he  found  the  court  too  powerful  ? 

You  will  therefore  consider,  as  you  read  the  history,  how  far  the 
"Whig  famihes  or  ministers  did  become,  as  Adolphus  insists,  "  not  only 
independent  of,  but  in  many  respects  superior  to,  the  throne  "  ;  and, 
again,  even  admitting  the  fact,  how  far  they  were  likely  to  continue 
so,  at  the  accession  of  his  present  Majesty. 

The  plan,  however,  of  Lord  Bute  for  their  subjugation,  as  it  would 
have  been  called,  when  once  conceived,  was  without  much  difficulty 
carried  into  execution.  Mr.  Pitt's  power  was  founded  on  his  superi- 
or abilities,  and  the  high  opinion  of  the  public ;  that  of  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  on  liis  family  and  pohtical  connections.  Both  were  attach- 
ed to  the  principles  of  Whiggism ;  but  Mr.  Pitt  despised  the  duke, 
and  the  duke  hated  and  feared  Mr.  Pitt.  Mr.  Pitt  was,  unfortunate- 
ly, too  conscious  of  his  own  superior  talents ;  overbearing  and  unac- 
commodating, even  to  his  distinguished  relative.  Lord  Temple.  It 
was  no  difficult  matter,  therefore,  for  the  king,  first,  to  drive  Mr. 
68 


538  LECTURE  XXX. 

Pitt  from  office,  —  then  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  —  then  Lord  Rock 
ingham,  who  came  in  as  a  Whig  minister,  without  Mr.  Pitt,  —  then 
Mr.  Pitt,  who  came  in  as  a  Whig  minister,  without  Lord  Rocking- 
ham ;  and  so  to  manage  the  mistakes,  the  feelings,  and  the  virtues 
of  all  concerned,  as  to  destroy  the  confidence  of  all  parties  in  them- 
selves and  in  each  other,  and,  by  the  aid  of  such  men  of  talents  as 
were  ambitious,  and  of  such  men  of  property  and  connection  as  were 
inclined  to  the  court,  to  continue,  for  ten  or  twelve  years,  a  sort  of 
running  fight  with  the  Whigs  and  their  principles,  till  the  ministry 
of  Lord  North  was  found  sufficiently  stable  and  accommodating  to 
serve  all  the  purposes  and  gratify  all  the  wishes  of  the  patrons  of  the 
new  system.  And  it  was  not  necessary  to  proceed  farther  in  the 
way  of  experimental  administrations,  to  determine  the  least  possible 
quantity  of  Whiggism  by  which  the  business  of  the  country  could  be 
conducted.  But  are  these  proceedings,  the  consequences  of  this  new 
system,  in  reality  deserving  of  the  approbation  of  any  intelligent  his- 
torian of  England  ? 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  new  system  was  much  relished  by 
the  nation,  at  that  time  sufficiently  near  the  Revolution  and  the  Re- 
belHon  of  1745  to  be  fond  of  Whiggism,  —  or  at  all  rehshed,  more 
particularly,  by  the  metropoHs,  always  the  most  enlightened  part  of 
every  community.  The  young  monarch  and  his  court  became  sud- 
denly unpopular ;  his  levees  were  disturbed  by  petitions  that  talked 
of  the  principles  that  had  seated  his  family  on  the  throne ;  and 
the  mob  delivered  their  particular  sentiments,  on  every  occasion, 
after  their  own  violent  and  tumultuous  manner.  I  do  not  enter  into 
the  detail  of  these  occurrences  that  so  unhappily  marked  the  opening 
years  of  his  Majesty's  administration.  But  it  is  necessary  to  say, 
in  a  word,  that  they  did  no  credit  to  the  new  system,  or  to  its  ad- 
visers. 

It  is  easy  to  talk  of  sedition  and  faction,  the  licentiousness  of  the 
people,  the  ignorance  and  the  brutality  of  the  mob  of  a  metropoUs. 
They  who  see  a  monarch,  amiable  and  respectable  in  his  nature,  in 
the  full  exercise  of  every  private  and  domestic  virtue,  ascend  his 
throne  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  amid  the  shouts  and  applauses  of  his 
subjects,  and  then,  without  any  national  calamity,  or  rather  amid  the 
highest  national  prosperity,  suddenly  cease  to  be  the  object  of  admira- 
tion, find  his  palaces  resounding  with  complaints,  his  courts  of  justice 
with  prosecutions  for  libels,  and  his  highways  with  uproar,  —  they  who 
can  think  that  such  general  terms  as  "  faction,"  *'  sedition,"  ''licen- 
tiousness," are  a  sufficient  solution  of  such  phenomena,  may  pride 
themselves,  if  they  please,  on  their  loyalty,  as  they  might,  with  equal 
reason,  on  their  sagacity.  But  philosophers  and  statesmen  are  not 
likely  to  acquiesce  in  reasons  so  superficial,  and  will  not  be  quite  so 
ready  to  suppose,  that,  m  a  time  of  pubhc  and  exterior  prosperity, 
every  thing  can  be  going  wrong  in  the  intmor  of  a  community,  uu- 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  639 

less  some  mistakes  of  a  very  unfortunate  nature  have  been  made  hy 
those  who  are  intrusted  with  the  management  of  its  concerns. 

But  to  return  to  the  new  system,  and  to  the  original  necessity  on 
account  of  which  it  was  adopted.  One  final  illustration  of  this  neces- 
sity may  be  offered  in  a  few  words.  "  The  Earl  of  Bute,"  to  use  the 
words  of  the  historian,  "  was  not  a  proper  person  to  carry  this  plan 
into  effect ;  not  connected,  either  by  blood  or  by  familiar  intercourse, 
with  the  leading  families  in  England ;  not  versed  in  the  arts  of  popu- 
larity, and  not  used  to  Parliamentary  opposition  ;  a  native  of  Scotland, 
with  nothing  to  oppose  to  a  popular  and  triumphant  administration, 
but  such  friends  as  hope  or  interest  might  supply,  and  the  personal 
esteem  of  the  king."  These  are  the  words  of  the  historian  :  but  what 
has  been  the  result  ?  Such  has  proved  to  be  the  influence  of  the 
crown,  that  is,  so  totally  unnecessary  has  been  this  new  plan  of  gov- 
ernment, that  his  royal  pupil  has  never  found  it  necessary  to  submit 
to  the  calamity  of  a  Whig  ministry  but  for  three  short  years  (strictly 
speaking,  not  so  often),  at  three  different  intervals,  during  a  reign  of 
half  a  century. 

But  to  dwell  a  little  longer  on  the  necessity  of  the  case.  Lord 
Bute  must  be  supposed  to  have  understood  the  records  of  the  past 
very  differently  from  what  they  can  now  be  understood.  Had  there 
ever  appeared  in  these  Whig  families,  in  the  Walpoles,  in  the  Towns- 
hends,  and  the  Pelhams,  any  opinions  inconsistent  with  the  reverence 
that  was  due  to  their  sovereign,  any  improper  disregard  of  the  inter- 
ests of  the  prerogative,  any  idle  ebullitions  of  unqualified  democracy, 
that  could  disquiet  or  displease  a  monarch  of  the  Brunswick  race  ? 
The  more  ardent  friends  of  the  popular  part  of  the  constitution  may, 
indeed,  think,  that,  with  all  their  merits,  the  Whig  families  have  had 
their  faults ;  that  they  first  made,  and  never  afterwards  repealed  or 
modified,  the  Septennial  Bill ;  that  they  sacrificed  the  interests  of 
England  to  those  of  Hanover,  as  their  sovereigns  required ;  that  at 
all  times  they  were  quietists  rather  than  reformers.  These  accusa- 
tions may  be  preferred  against  them  by  the  more  ardent  friends  of 
the  popular  part  of  our  constitution  ;  but  the  friends  of  the  monarchi- 
cal part  had  no  accusation  to  offer.  Their  only  semblance  of  com- 
plaint was  this,  that  the  sovereign  could  not  comfortably  rule  but  by 
means  of  the  Whig  families  ;  that  is,  could  not  be  independent.  Lord 
Bute  should  have  considered  how  exaggerated  was  this  sort  of  state- 
ment ;  should  have  reflected  well  on  the  nature  of  a  limited  monarchy ; 
whether  the  existence  of  some  restraint  was  not  implied  in  the  very 
notion  of  it.  What  restraint,  if  the  facts  were  coolly  examined, 
could  be  supposed  less  than  that  to  which,  through  the  medium  of 
the  Whig  families,  the  monarchs  of  the  Brunswick  line  had  been  ex- 
posed ?  —  what  restraint  more  easy  to  the  monarch  ?  —  what  more 
creditable  to  the  nobility  ?  —  what  restraint  on  the  monarch  less  like- 
ly to  debauch  the  minds  of  the  people  by  filling  them  with  any  unrea* 


640  LECTURE  XXX. 

sonable  notions  of  their  own  importance  ?  —  what  more  safe  and  salu 
tary  to  all  concerned  ? 

The  truth  is,  that  there  was,  on  the  whole,  no  necessity  for  this 
plan  of  Lord  Bute  ;  —  much  the  contrary ;  and  there  was  a  very  seri- 
ous preliminary  objection  to  it  on  the  grounds  of  sentiment  and  feel- 
ing ;  and  on  the  whole,  I  see  not  how  any  one  who  has  meditated  on- 
subjects  of  government  can  survey  the  adoption  of  this  new  system 
with  any  other  sentiments  than  those  of  the  most  distinct  pain  and 
unequivocal  regret. 

For  it  is  always  to  be  remembered  that  it  is  the  spirit  with  which 
a  constitution  is  in  practice  administered  that  is  the  great  point  of 
consequence,  far  more  than  the  letter  of  the  law.  It  was,  therefore, 
very  properly  specified  by  Greorge  the  Second,  in  his  speech  at  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Rebellion  in  1745,  that  "  the  maxims  of  the  con- 
stitution should  ever  be  the  rules  of  his  conduct."  That  sort  of  dis- 
cretionary power,  which  must  at  every  turn  be  lodged  somewhere  or 
other,  becomes  the  safeguard  or  the  enemy  of  the  civil  freedom  of 
the  community,  just  as  it  is,  or  is  not,  exercised  in  a  constitutional 
manner,  in  favor  of  the  subject.  What,  then,  is  to  be  ther  conse- 
quence, if  every  thing  is  to  be  administered  in  that  spirit  which  would 
be  approved  of  by  a  monarch  and  his  courtiers,  such  as  monarchs 
and  courtiers,  without  the  sUghtest  disrespect  to  them,  may  generally 
be  expected,  on  the  common  principles  of  our  common  nature,  to  be 
found,  and  gifted  with  whatever  measure  you  please  of  natural  good 
sense  and  benevolence  ?  What  is  to  be  the  consequence,  (as  every 
topic  that  respects  either  the  polity  or  the  affairs  of  a  nation  admits 
at  least  of  a  debate,)  if  in  every  question  the  king  and  his  friends  are 
to  give  the  tone,  and  if  they  who  differ  from  the  court  side  of  the 
question  are  to  be  esteemed  no  longer  the  friends  of  their  king,  and 
are  to  be  set  apart  from  their  fellow-subjects  as  those  who  are  the  last 
to  be  honored  with  the  royal  favor,  —  that  is,  according  to  the  new 
system  of  government,  the  last  who  are  to  appear  in  the  cabinet,  or 
the  great  offices  of  state,  or  are  to  become  king's  counsel,  or  post 
captains,  or^  officers  of  excise  or  customs,  or  rise  in  the  army,  or  re- 
ceive ecclesiastical  patronage,  or  have  chancellors'  livings,  or  be  ele- 
vated to  the  bench,  —  to  be  the  last,  themselves,  who  are  to  be  so  pro- 
moted, and  to  find  the  same  system  of  silent  discountenance  extended 
to  their  relations  and  dependants,  their  friends  and  connections  ? 

In  the  mean  time,  no  complaint  can  be  made,  and  there  is  no 
one  to  accuse.  The  king  has  a  right  to  appoint  his  own  ministers 
and  his  own  officers,  through  every  department  of  the  state  ;  one  man 
can  discharge  an  office  as  well  as  another ;  reasons  of  preference  may 
exist,  but  of  these  the  constitution  has  left  the  king  the  sole  judge. 
We  may  say  that  he  is  ill-advised  ;  that  the  men  preferred  are  not  the 
best ;  that  they  have  won  their  situations  not  so  much  by  their  known 
merits  as  by  their  known  servility :  all  this  we  may  say,  and  say  truly, 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  641 

and  the  only  answer  returned  will  be,  that  we  want  the  office  for  our- 
selves, and  perhaps  that  we  are  factious  and  disloyal.  In  the  mean 
time,  while  the  country  becomes  more  and  more  civilized,  it  becomes 
more  and  more  difficult  for  every  man  to  provide  for  a  family  with- 
out sinking  his  rank  in  society.  Professions  are  more  and  more 
preferred  for  the  younger  branches.  The  candidates  for  patronage 
continually  increase  ;  and  if  no  patronage  is  to  descend  but  through 
the  medium  of  the  king's  friends,  if  none  is  to  be  gained  but  by  those 
who  profess  and  support  high  maxims  of  government  on  every  oc- 
casion, what  is  to  be  the  result  ? 

Perhaps  a  word  may  not  be  uttered  all  this  time  by  the  court,  or 
its  friends,  or  its  partisans,  apparently  unfavorable  to  the  constitution 
of  the  country  ;  certainly  not  a  word  contradictory  to  the  letter  of  its 
laws,  or  the  form  of  its  institutions.  Government  must  be  supported  ; 
who  can  doubt  it  ?  The  crown  must  have  its  weight  in  the  system, 
assuredly,  —  if  not  by  prerogative,  as  in  former  times,  by  influence, 
by  posts,  places,  and  even  sinecures.  The  friends  o^  a  limited  mon- 
archy are  not  very  well  prepared  to  deny  this,  and  speak  rather  of 
the  measure  of  these  things  than  of  the  things  themselves ;  and  thus 
it  happens,  that  well-meaning,  independent,  and  even  sensible  men 
either  adopt  or  do  not  oppose  the  new  system,  and  do  not  perceive 
that  the  vital  principle  by  which  the  constitution  of  these  kingdoms, 
though  always  in  its  letter  a  strong  arbitrary  monarchy,  was  hereto- 
fore in  its  practice  rendered  a  benign  limited  monarchy,  and  to  all 
essential  purposes  a  free  government ;  that  this  vital  principle  is,  in 
truth,  endangered  to  the  utmost ;  that  it  must  gradually  decline,  as 
the  new  system  grows  up  in  strength  and  maturity,  and  the  event 
ultimately  be  the  appearance  in  our  own  government  of  that  torpor 
and  general  servility  which  mark  a  government  more  or  less  arbitrary, 
like  the  old  government  of  France,  under  Louis  the  Fourteenth :  all 
this,  or  some  recoil  of  a  furious  nature  directly  the  reverse,  from  the 
supposed  peril  and  despair  of  the  case. 

Extremes  can  be  right  on  no  side.  The  king  is  not  to  be  a  cipher 
in  the  state  ;  he  is  to  select  his  ministers  and  servants  from  the  public 
men  whom  the  country  supplies.  But  it  is  the  proper  exercise  of  this 
discretionary  power  that  is  the  question  before  us ;  and  this  should 
become  the  subject  of  your  reflections,  as  you  read  the  history  of  this 
country  from  the  Revolution  downwards ;  for  it  is  this  that  is  the 
hinge  (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression)  on  which  the  constitution 
of  the  country  really  turns,  —  this  proper  exercise  of  the  discretion- 
ary power  lodged  by  the  constitution  in  the  great  executive  magis- 
trate to  choose  his  ministers  and  servants.  And  as  it  would  be  one 
extreme,  to  leave  him  no  exercise  of  his  judgment,  or  no  powers  of 
choice,  on  the  one  hand ;  so  is  it,  on  the  other  hand,  another  extreme, 
to  lay  down,  and  have  it  avowed  as  a  system,  that  the  government 
shall  always  be  carried  on  by  those  whom  he  or  the  court  thinks 
proper  to  denominate  his  friends. 


5^  LECTURE  XXX. 

Times  and  circumstances,  the  nature  and  characters  of  public  men, 
must  teach  their  own  lessons  ;  a  subject  of  this  singular,  delicate,  and 
impalpable  nature  cannot  be  marked  out  by  the  line  and  the  rule ; 
but  we  may  say,  and  cannot  say  it  too  often,  that,  if  the  only  road  to 
honors  and  power  is  the  mere  personal  favor  of  the  sovereign,  then 
those  men  alone  will  be  found  from  time  to  time  possessed  of  honors 
and  power  who  are  favorable  to  the  maxims  of  prerogative,  to  the 
principles  of  harsh  government,  —  who  are  very  indulgent  critics  of 
the  measures  of  ministers,  —  who  are  very  careless  auditors  of  the 
pubUc  expense,  —  who  are  not  made  very  uneasy  by  sinecures,  jobs, 
and  pensions,  -—  who  are  not  very  ready  to  try  or  punish  public  de- 
faulters, unless,  indeed,  they  be  the  writers  of  libels,  —  who  are,  in 
a  word,  always  unwilling  to  assist,  or  rather  who  are  always  willing 
to  impede,  in  its  operations  the  democratic  part  of  our  mixed  consti- 
tution. Whether  it  be  by  such  men  and  such  principles  that  the 
constitution  of  these  kingdoms  has  been  saved,  (not  to  speak  of  our 
Plantagenets,  o<ir  Tudors,  and  our  Charleses,  —  but  saved  from 
James  the  Second,  from  Lord  Bolingbroke,  from  the  Jacobites  of 
1715  and  1745,  and,  above  all,  from  that  silent  tendency  to  de- 
terioration which  belongs  to  every  thing  valuable  among  mankind,) 
whether  it  is  to  such  men  and  such  principles  that  we  are  to  ascribe 
the  freedom  of  this  country  at  this  moment,  must  be  left  to  the  con- 
flideration  of  those  who  can  push  their  inquiries  beyond  the  forms  of 
things  into  their  principles  and  essence,  and  who  will  soon  perceive, 
that,  however  necessary  to  every  civil  polity  must  be  its  ranks  and 
establishments,  its  officers  and  magistrates,  and,  above  all,  its  great 
magistrate,  the  king,  as  supreme,  all  this  is  but  an  inferior  and  even 
(if  I  may  use  such  an  expression)  but  a  vulgar  part  of  the  whole,  for 
it  is  what  has  been  accompHshed  by  France  and  Austria,  and  every 
other  monarchy  in  Europe,  —  and  that  the  real  and  rare,  and  above 
all  price  inestimable,  pecuHarity  of  our  constitution  is  that  democratic 
principle  which  can  pervade  and  influence  the  whole,  and  yet  not 
produce  (its  more  natural  fruits)  confusion,  disorder,  and  folly,  but 
act  in  perfect  consistence  with  the  peace  and  best  interests  of  the 
state,  —  and  which,  whenever  it  becomes  extinct,  and  can  no  longer 
thus  influence  and  pervade  the  whole  (from  whatever  cause  the  ex- 
tinction may  take  place,  —  a  new  system  that  has  betrayed  the  con- 
stitution, the  necessities  of  the  times  which  have  destroyed  its  maxims, 
either  or  both),  —  whatever  be  the  cause  or  the  s^^stcm  that,  in  a 
word,  leaves  men  of  talents  and  property  without  popular  motives  of 
action,  it  will  assuredly,  sooner  or  later,  leave  this  great  kingdom  no 
longer  to  be  distinguished  from  others  that  do  or  have  existed,  on  the 
Continent  or  elsewhere,  —  its  lower  orders  without  spirit,  its  middle 
ranks  without  opinions,  its  public  assemblies  without  weight,  and  its 
kings  without  a  people. 

Before  the  Revolution,  the  favorites  of  our  monarchs  were  often 


GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  543 

driven  away  from  the  sovereign,  fined,  imprisoned,  or  execute  i ;  and 
the  democratic  part  of  our  constitution,  on  these  occasions,  rushed 
forth  (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression)  to  teach  the  monarchical 
part  its  proper  duties  in  its  own  rude  and  unceremonious  manner. 
but  these  were,  in  fact,  more  or  less,  revolutions  in  the  government. 
It  is  not  thus  that  we  can  wish,  in  our  own  times,  the  personal  char- 
acter of  our  sovereign  to  be  humbled,  or  the  faults  and  failings  that 
may  be  more  or  less  inseparable  from  any  hereditary  wearer  of  a 
crown  to  be  brought  before  the  tribunal  and  visited  by  the  direct 
censure  of  the  community.  To  set  in  array  democracy  against  mon- 
archy, and  merely  to  leave  the  one  to  correct  the  mistakes  and  pun- 
ish the  offences  of  the  other,  is  no  very  refined  or  rational  expedient 
for  the  management  of  a  state.  It  is  every  thing  the  reverse.  It 
may  have  been  resorted  to  by  men  who  were  hurried  on  by  the  tor- 
rent of  circumstances,  like  our  ancestors  in  the  time  of  Charles  the 
First,  or  the  patriots  of  Greece  and  Rome,  who  conceived  they  had 
no  other  resource  against  tyranny  and  oppression ;  but  the  politicians 
of  a  highly  civilized  and  inteUigent  country  will  always  consider  any 
open  coUision  in  the  state  as  the  greatest  of  all  calamities,  unless  it 
be  the  absence  of  civil  freedom  itself ;  and  they  will  therefore  look 
round  very  carefully,  to  find,  if  possible,  some  expedient  for  the 
proper  management  of  a  community  under  a  mixed  monarchical  sys- 
tem of  government,  the  representative  assembly  having  the  power  of 
taxation,  and  the  king  the  power  of  dissolving  them. 

Now  to  those  who  are  meditating  the  subject  of  a  good  constitution 
of  government  in  this  elementary  manner,  an  aristocracy  would  first 
present  itself;  and  at  length  an  aristocracy  with  popular  feelings 
would  appear,  as  I  conceive,  the  great  desideratum.  From  such  an 
aristocracy  men  might  be  chosen  who  might  be  ministers,  not  favor- 
ites ;  who  could  sympathize  with  the  democratic  part  of  the  constitu- 
tion, yet  be  naturally  attached  to  the  office  and  prerogative  of  the 
sovereign,  —  might  be  themselves  objects  of  love  and  respect  to  the 
one,  and  of  kindness  and  esteem  to  the  other,  —  of  confidence  to 
both. 

But  how  is  such  an  aristocracy,  an  aristocracy  with  popular  feel- 
ings, to  be  found  ?  It  could  not  well  be  generated  by  mere  institu- 
tion ;  none  such  has  ever  appeared  in  the  world.  A  monarch  may 
be  easily  created ;  the  people  we  have  already ;  but  where  is  to  be 
found  such  a  cement  of  the  two  as  an  aristocracy  with  popular  feel- 
ings ?  Set  an  order  of  men  apart,  give  them  privileges  and  titles  of 
honor,  and  you  raise  up  a  nobihty ;  but  it  will  only  be  to  leave  them 
to  unite  with  the  sovereign  at  all  times  against  the  public,  to  render 
them  insolent  and  unfeeling  to  their  inferiors.  The  patricians  of 
Rome,  the  nobles  of  Venice,  even  the  feudal  nobihty  of  Germany 
and  France,  none  of  these  are  the  exact  description  of  men  we  wisb 
for. 


644  LECTURE  XXX. 

Now  I  must  confess  it  appears  to  me  that  we  were  furnished  very 
tolerably  with  what  we  could  desire,  when  we  had  the  aristocracy  of 
England  such  as  it  existed  during  the  reigns  of  George  the  First  and 
George  the  Second.  Consider  it  in  all  its  functions,  relations,  opin- 
ions, feelings  :  a  nobility  who  were  graced  with  privileges  and  honors, 
armed  with  property  and  power ;  who  had  placed  the  reigning  family 
on  the  throne,  but  who  had  done  this  on  popular  principles ;  who 
were  thus  bound  to  the  king,  but  were  also  pledged  to  the  people ; 
who  were  connected  with  the  sovereign  by  the  enjoyment  and  expec- 
tation of  titles  and  offices,  and  yet  united  to  the  people,  first,  by  a 
common  resistance  to  an  arbitrary  power,  then  by  common  laws,  com- 
mon maxims  and  opinions,  religious  and  political,  mutual  respect, 
common  interests  of  property  and  security  ;  and  were  even  alhod  and 
interwoven  into  the  mass  of  their  fellow-citizens  by  mingling,  through 
the  medium  of  their  dearest  relations,  in  the  democratic  branch  of  the 
legislature.  A  more  favorable  situation  of  things  could  not  well  be 
supposed  by  the  most  sanguine  speculator  on  the  social  union  of  man- 
kind. The  misfortune  would  undoubtedly  be,  that  even  this  aris- 
tocracy might  not  be  sufficiently  jealous  of  the  prerogative  of  the 
crown,  not  sufficiently  alive  to  the  claims  and  rights  of  the  subject. 
But,  on  the  whole,  a  considerable  approach  would  be  made  to  secure, 
in  a  peaceful  and  steady  manner,  the  main  interests  of  all  the  constitu- 
ent parts  of  the  community. 

Here  we  must  come  to  a  pause.  It  is  now  that  the  new  system 
of  Lord  Bute  presents  itself.  It  was  the  very  end  and  aim  of  this 
new  system  to  destroy  this  very  aristocracy,  at  least  that  part  of  this 
aristocracy  with  which  we  are  at  present  concerned,  —  that  part 
more  particularly  distinguished  for  its  more  popular  principles,  re- 
ceiving confidence  alike  from  the  favor  of  the  sovereign  and  the  ap- 
probation and  gratitude  of  the  people.  Far  from  turning  it  to  the 
great  purposes  to  which  it  might  have  been  applied,  far  from  bringing 
it  forward  to  the  discharge  of  all  the  high  and  healing  offices  of  which 
it  was  capable,  it  was  the  immediate  effect  of  the  r,ew  system  to 
counteract  all  such  purposes,  to  disregard  all  such  offices,  to  enter- 
tain far  other  views  of  the  constitution  of  England,  or  of  the  benefits 
to  be  derived  from  any  constitution  of  government,  —  to  provide  in  a 
manner  totally  different  for  the  dignity  and  happiness  of  the  sovereign, 
for  the  respectability  of  the  aristocracy,  and  for  the  welfare  of  the 
people. 

According  to  the  new  system,  the  king  was  to  be  as  independent 
of  his  aristocracy,  and  not  as  intermingled  as  possible  in  all  their  in- 
terests and  sympathies,  —  to  be  rescued  from  the  necessity  of  shar- 
ing his  consequence  with  any  order,  or  any  individuals  of  that  order. 
He  was  to  rule  by  men  who  looked  only  to  the  throne,  —  not  by  the 
Whig  families  who  had  some  respect  for  themselves,  as  well  as  rever- 
ence for  the  monarch,  and  who  looked  also  to  the  people.     He  was 


«  GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  545 

to  choose  Ills  ministers,  and  that  entirely  as  his  own  partialities  di- 
rected him :  that  is,  "  favorites,"  under  the  title  of  friends,  were  to 
be  preferred,  as  fit  objects  of  his  confidence,  to  men  who  had  charac- 
ters and  opinions  of  their  own,  and  who  therefore  could  operate  with 
a  salutary  influence  on  his.  But  this  was  not  all.  Great  efforts 
were  to  be  made  to  accomplish  this  destruction  of  the  political  influ- 
ence and  popular  feelings  of  the  Whig  families ;  a  miserable  system 
of  intrigue  was  to  be  entered  upon.  The  least  honorable  men  of  each 
knot  and  division  of  the  aristocracy  were  to  be  brought  over  to  the 
court  party,  the  better  to  destroy  all  confidence  and  union  among 
those  who  remained ;  to  divide,  and  therefore  rule,  to  degrade,  and 
therefore  render  insignificant,  was  the  very  scheme  and  essence  of 
the  plan,  involved  in  the  very  supposition  of  it.  And  these  new  con- 
verts, these  deserters  and  stragglers  from  their  family  and  party  at- 
tachments, from  the  notions  of  their  ancestors,  from  the  popular 
sympathies  by  which  they  had  hitherto  been  so  honorably  distinguish- 
ed, thes^  were  the  men  who  were  to  be  associated  as  friends  and 
familiars  to  the  bosom  of  their  sovereign.  The  people  in  the  mean 
time  were  to  lose  their  former  respect  for  public  men,  whom  they  were 
now  to  see  mutually  betraying  and  accusing  each  other,  —  and  even 
for  the  sovereign  himself,  whom  they  were  also  to  see,  as  far  as  they 
could  judge,  practising  upon  the  mean  and  selfish  passions  of  his 
aristocracy. 

I  confess  that  it  appears  to  me  a  more  unhappy  expedient  than  the 
new  system  could  not  well  have  been  devised,  for  procuring  the  ex- 
tinction of  every  thing  rare  and  precious  in  the  constitution  of  our 
government,  for  destrojdng  the  British  patriotism  of  the  monarch,  the 
British  spirit  of  the  nobility,  the  British  loyalty  of  the  people.  Pre- 
rogative was  to  remain,  and  privilege  was  to  remain,  and  obedience 
was  to  remain  ;  but  all  these  necessary  elements  of  government  were 
to  lose  their  former  sympathies,  limits,  and  nature :  they  were  no 
longei-  to  be  what  they  were  made  by  the  Revolution  of  1688. 

The  maxims  of  a  court  are  not  the  security  of  a  court ;  servility  is 
not  loyalty  ;  and  attachment  to  civil  freedom  not  republicanism.  It 
may  answer  well  to  the  designing  on  each  side,  to  confound  principles 
and  characters,  in  themselves  distinct.  But  when  proper  allowance 
has  been  made,  and  pardon  extended  to  the  unavoidable  faults  and 
mistakes  of  public  men  and  private  men  of  every  description,  of  par- 
fies  and  of  their  leaders,  it  will  always  be  competent  for  any  one  who 
really  understands  the  mixed  and  free  constitution  of  this  country,  if 
he  pleases,  to  distinguish  from  each  other  those  who  think  too  ex- 
clusively of  the  king,  those  who  think  too  exclusively  of  the  people, 
and  those  who  are  not  only  virtuous,  but  wise  enough  to  think  of  the 
best  interests  of  both.  I  condescend  not  to  speak  of  those  who  think 
only  of  themselves,  who  have  no  political  principle  at  all,  who  mean 
only  to  get  place  or  preferment  in  their  profession. 

69  TT* 


546  LECTURE  XXX.  # 

Here  I  had  been  accustomed  to  end  the  lecture,  after  T  had  refer- 
red my  hearers  to  Burke's  Thoughts  on  the  Cause  of  the  Present 
Discontents,  to  other  pamphlets  of  the  time,  and  to  the  general 
principles  of  Lord  Bohngbroke's  writings,  as  contrasted  with  those 
of  Mr.  Burke ;  but  in  the  year  1823  I  had  been  struck  with  certain 
appearances  that  I  had  observed  in  and  out  of  Parliament,  and  I 
from  that  time  always  ended  the  lecture  by  subjoining  what  I  shall 
now  read,  —  written,  you  will  remember,  in  the  year  1823. 

This  new  system  had  a  tendency  to  increase  servility  in  the  nation, 
in  the  way  I  have  suggested ;  but  it  did  not  follow,  though  it  should 
succeed,  as  it  did  succeed,  in  a  most  unfortunate  manner,  still  it  did 
not  follow,  that  it  should  extinguish,  in  a  country  like  this,  the  spirit 
of  freedom,  —  the  spirit  that  naturally  belongs  to  the  commercial  and 
manufacturing  classes,  as  they  rise  into  affluence  and  importance. 
But  in  this  case  it  will  have,  undoubtedly,  an  effect  in  giving  to  this 
spirit,  as  exhibited  in  these  classes,  a  more  republican  tone  and  feeling. 
The  new  system  has  gone  far  to  destroy  the  Whig  families  and  their 
influence.  It  is  possible,  also,  that  the  great  events  of  modern  times, 
that  mistakes  of  the  Whigs  themselves,  that  the  fickle  nature  of  hu- 
man opinions,  that  all  or  any  of  these,  may  have  contributed  to  the 
same  effect.  But  any  change  of  this  kind  will  be,  to  all  who  love  the 
constitution  of  their  country,  and  who,  I  must  presume  to  add,  have 
examined  and  understand  it,  a  circumstance  deeply  to  be  lamented. 
For  a  fearful  void,  an  arena  that  may  very  easily  be  covered  with 
tumult  and  bloodshed,  is  immediately  disclosed,  when  the  monarch  is 
set  on  one  side,  and  the  people  on  the  other,  and  an  aristocracy  with 
popular  feelings  is  withdrawn  from  between  them.  It  can  never  have 
been  the  interest  of  the  people,  still  less  of  the  crown,  to  have  any 
alteration  like  this  in  our  political  system.  What  may  not  be  the 
fortunes  of  our  constitution,  and  the  experiments  to  which  it  may  be 
exposed,  if  the  ancient  friends  of  liberty,  the  friends  of  liberty  upon 
the  ancient  and  tried  model,  are  no  longer  to  be  treated  with  confi- 
dence and  respect  ? 

When  Mr.  Burke  had  to  defend  his  country,  as  he  conceived,  from 
the  democratic  principles  of  France,  it  was  to  the  Wliigs  and  their 
principles,  and  the  lievolution  of  1688,  that  he  appealed.  Mr. 
Sheridan,  in  like  manner,  with  directly  opposite  opinions,  did  the 
same  ;  and  it  was  for  the  people  of  England  to  decide  between  them. 
Nothing  could  be  more  valuable  to  a  community  than  to  have,  at  any 
crisis  like  this,  a  common  test  and  standard  to  which  they  could  re- 
fer. Nothing  can  be  so  important  to  a  nation  already  possessed  of 
prosperity  and  freedom  to  so  remarkable  a  degree,  —  nothing  so  im- 
portant, as  a  ready  means,  like  this,  of  protecting  themselves  from 
the  heats  and  delusions  of  particular  seasons,  as  a  ready  means,  at 
all  times,  of  distinguishing  from  each  other  the  man  of  speculation 
and  the  man  of  sense. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  547 

In  a  word,  tliey  who  have  proposed  and  patronized  the  new  system 
have  been  preparing  the  people  of  England,  more  or  less,  for  that 
species  of  monarchy  which  has  been  represented  by  Hume  as  the 
euthanasia,  the  natural  and  tranquil  death,  of  the  British  constitu- 
tion ;  or  they  have  been  preparing  us,  on  the  other  hand,  for  the  in- 
fluence of  those  who  are  desirous  to  refer  every  thing  to  the  people, 
to  their  public  meetings,  their  resolutions  and  addresses,  their  will, 
in  short,  and  their  wisdom,  when  enUghtened  by  the  press,  to  be  pro- 
duced on  every  occasion,  and  to  be  considered  as  a  specific  for  every 
political  disease  that  can  approach  us.  But  such  an  order  of  things 
is  republicanism,  under  whatever  name  it  may  be  disguised.  Such  a 
government  may  be  better  for  America :  by  some  it  may  be  thought 
better  for  England ;  but  it  is  not  the  constitution  of  England,  and  on 
this  head,  at  least,  let  no  mistakes  be  made. 

Any  effect  of  the  kind  now  described  might  be  little  in  the  con- 
templation of  Lord  Bute,  of  those  who  first  advised  the  new  system, 
of  those  who  have  since,  or  those  who,  even  now,  venture  to  maintain 
it ;  but  it  is  no  uncommon  occurrence  in  the  history  of  human  affairs, 
to  see  men,  while  they  are  escaping  from  one  uneasiness  or  restraint, 
mcur  evils  of  an  opposite  nature,  far  more  disagreeable  in  themselves, 
and  far  more  destructive  in  their  consequences. 


LECTURE     XXXI 


AMERICAN  WAR. 


I  HAVE  in  my  last  lecture  alluded  to  the  opening  of  the  present 
reign,  and  to  the  new  system  of  government  which  was  then  adopted. 
I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  enter  into  the  discussion  of  such  events 
as  took  place.  I  have  proposed  to  your  consideration  such  observa- 
tions and  principles  as  will  enable  you,  I  conceive,  both  to  explain 
and  judge  of  them.  The  narrative  and  details,  to  which  you  are  to 
apply  them,  you  must  yourselves  study. 

I  hasten  to  the  subject  which  I  always  proposed  to  myself  as  the 
proper  termination  of  these  lectures,  —  the  American  "War. 

Prior  to  the  French  Revolution,  this  subject  could  not  have  been 
well  presented  to  you;  for  the  passions  that  it  had  excited  could 
scarcely  have  been  said  to  have  properly  subsided.  But  at  the  very 
name  and  sound  of  the  French  Revolution,  every  other  revolution  and 
event  loses  its  first  and  even  proper  interest ;  and  we  now  discuss  th« 


648  LECTURE  XXXI. 

measures  and  administration  of  Lord  North,  or  the  conduct  of  the 
American  Congress,  the  claim  of  the  right  of  taxation  on  the  one  part, 
and  the  resistance  to  that  claim  on  the  other,  almost  with  the  same 
impartiality  which  would  be  felt  by  the  reasoners  of  after  ages. 
Such  sentiments,  therefore,  as  occur  to  me,  and  as  occur  to  others, 
I  shall  lay  before  you  in  the  most  unreserved  manner ;  considering 
the  whole  as  now  become  entirely  a  portion  of  history,  which  I  may 
fairly  attempt  to  convert,  as  I  would  any  other,  to  the  proper  purposes 
of  your  instruction. 

The  American  war  must  immediately  appear  to  you  a  subject  of 
historical  curiosity.  By  the  event  of  that  war,  an  independent  em- 
pire has  arisen,  boundless  in  extent,  and  removed  from  the  reach  of 
the  arms,  secure  at  least  from  the  invasions,  of  Europe  ;  beginning  its 
career  with  such  advantages  as  our  communities  in  the  Old  World 
never  possessed  ;  beginning  almost  from  the  point  to  which  they  have 
but  arrived  in  the  progress  of  nearly  two  thousand  years.  It  is  even 
possible  that  what  England  once  was  may  have  to  be  traced  out  here- 
after, by  the  philosophers  of  distant  ages,  from  the  language,  the 
customs,  the  manners,  the  political  feelings  of  men  inhabiting  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi,  or  enjoying  the  benefits  of  society  amid  what 
may  be  now  a  wilderness,  inaccessible  to  the  footsteps  of  every  hu- 
man being. 

Such  is  the  American  war,  as  a  subject  of  historical  curiosity  to 
the  readers  of  whatever  clime  or  nation.  But  to  ourselves  it  is  even 
more  attractive  and  important.  One  half  of  our  empire  has  been  vio- 
lently  rent  from  the  other.  We  no  longer,  in  case  of  a  war,  shut  out 
that  long  line  of  harbours  from  the  ships  and  fleets  of  our  enemies ; 
we  no  longer  let  loose  the  privateers  of  America  upon  their  trade ; 
we  no  longer  man  our  fleets  with  her  strong  and  skilful  seamen :  all 
these  advantages  are  no  longer  exclusively  our  own ;  they  may  even 
be  turned  against  us.  Great  Britain  seems  no  longer  to  overshadow 
the  globe,  the  West  as  well  as  the  East,  with  the  image  of  her  great- 
ness. Assuredly,  at  the  peace  of  1763,  the  power  and  empire  of 
this  country  seemed  to  the  nations,  and  might  have  appeared  even  to 
the  philosophers  of  Europe,  above  all  ancient,  and  above  all  modern 
fame.  To  what  extent  that  power  and  empire  might  have  been  car- 
ried by  the  interchange  of  the  natural  productions  of  America  with 
the  manufactures  of  Britain,  by  the  proper  application  and  sympathy 
of  youthful  and  matured  strength,  it  is  indeed  difiicult  for  us  to  de- 
termine ;  but  the  subject  of  the  possible  greatness  of  Great  Britain 
did  not  a  little  disquiet,  as  it  appears,  the  speculations  of  our  ene- 
mies, whether  feeling  for  their  posterity,  or  attentive  to  their  cwn 
advantages. 

How,  then,  was  it,  or  why,  that  this  promising  appearance  of 
things  was,  on  a  sudden,  to  cease  ?  How  was  it  that  this  great  em- 
pire was  to  be  torn  asunder?   that  France,  and  other  unfriendly 


AMERICAN  WAR.  549 

powers  on  the  Continent,  had  no  longer  to  dread  the  united  strength 
of  England  and  America ;  but  could  even  please  themselves,  like  Ta- 
citus of  old  while  in  terror  of  the  enemies  of  Rome,  with  the  specta- 
cle of  a  civil  war,  and  employ  themselves  in  turning  the  force  of  the 
one  to  the  destruction  of  the  other  ? 

You  may  be  told,  indeed,  in  a  word,  that  Great  Britain  wished  to 
tax  America,  and  that  America  successfully  resisted.  But  how,  may 
you  reasonably  think,  could  such  things  be  ?  Could  not  a  dispute 
about  revenue  have  been  composed  without  an  open  rupture  and  a 
separation,  —  without  the  shedding  of  blood,  —  without  the  horrors 
and  calamities  of  a  civil  war  ?  And  again,  if  arms  were  to  be  re- 
sorted to,  how  could  it  happen  that  Great  Britain  should  fail  in  the 
contest  ?  that  the  same  power  which  had  just  humbled  the  house  of 
Bourbon  should  not  be  a  match  for  her  own  colonies,  —  should  not 
be  able,  after  overpowering  the  fleets  and  armies  of  the  first  nations 
of  Europe,  immediately  to  discomfit  the  farmers  and  merchants  of 
America  ?  How  are  such  events  to  be  explained  ?  What  demon  of 
folly  got  possession  of  our  councils  ?  What  maUgnant  star  shed  its 
influence  on  our  arms  ?  Where  were  our  statesmen,  and  where  were 
our  generals  ? 

I  conceive,  therefore,  that  there  is  now  before  you  a  very  striking 
subject  of  historical  interest,  if  you  can  but  abstract  yourselves,  as 
you  must  always  endeavour  to  do,  from  your  present  knowledge  of 
the  event,  and  set  yourselves  to  consider  what  were  the  principles 
in  action  at  the  time,  and  what  it  was  natural  to  expect  would  be  the 
consequences :  comparing,  as  you  proceed  in  the  history,  these  ex- 
pected consequences  with  the  real  events  ;  reading,  indeed,  the  nar- 
rative, but  stopping  from  time  to  time  to  gather  up  the  instruction. 
which  the  facts,  thus  reviewed,  are  fitted  to  afford  you. 

I  will  now,  therefore,  mention  the  books  which  you  may  consult.  — 
The  history  of  the  American  Revolution  has  not  yet  been  written  by 
any  of  the  great  masters  of  literature ;  and  since  the  appearance  of 
the  French  Revolution,  I  know  not  that  any  writer  of  this  description 
would  be  properly  rewarded  by  any  attention  which  the  public  would 
pay  to  his  work,  whatever  might  be  its  merit.  Another  circum- 
stance is  also  to  be  mentioned :  he  would  not  find  the  precise  materi- 
als he  might  expect.  The  American  patriots,  when  they  met  in 
Congress  to  deliberate  on  the  resistance  to  be  made  to  Great  Britain, 
debated  with  closed  doors,  and  what  passed  cannot  now  be  known ; 
yet  the  feelings  and  reasonings  of  such  men,  on  such  an  occasion, 
would  have  constituted  the  most  instructive  portion  of  the  whole  dis- 
pute. The  same,  nearly,  may  be  said  of  the  debates  in  our  own 
Parliament,  which  could  only  have  been  second  in  interest  to  the  for- 
mer. But  the  report  of  these  debates  will  extremely  disappoint  you  ; 
it  is  meagre  and  imperfect.  Access  to  our  House  of  Commons  was 
sometimes  altogether  denied,  and  was  always  rendered,  as  it  appeara 


550  LECTURE  XXXI. 

from  passages  in  the  debates  themselves,  a  matter  of  some  difficulty 
The  consequence  was  very  unfortunate,  —  not,  indeed,  to  the  same  ex 
tent  as  in  the  form^  case,  but  still  to  a  degree  much  to  be  lamented. 
Some  idea  may  inaeed  be  formed,  from  these  debates,  of  the  talents 
of  Colonel  Barrd,  Sir  George  Savile,  and  even  of  Burke  ;  some,  per- 
haps, though  a  most  inadequate  one,  of  the  powers  of  Fox ;  and,  on 
the  whole,  a  general  notion  of  the  sort  of  opposition  that  was  made  in 
Parliament  to  the  scheme  of  coercing  America.  But  no  idea  what- 
ever, I  am  satisfied,  can  be  formed  of  the  powers  of  Lord  North,  or 
even  of  Thurlow  and  Wedderburn,  —  in  short,  of  the  pleasantry,  the 
arguments,  and  the  eloquence  by  which  the  ministerial  system  was 
recommended  (and  successfully)  to  the  approbation  of  the  country 
gentlemen  and  the  independent  members  of  the  lower  house  of  Par- 
liament. I  do  not  say  that  we  have  no  debates  left,  and  that  we 
have  no  opportunities  of  instructing  ourselves  amid  the  reasoning  of 
our  statesmen  and  legislators  ;  but  I  say  that  they  are  not  at  all  what 
we  might  have  expected,  and  not  at  all  what  they  should  have  been 
in  a  civilized  nation  and  under  a  free  government  like  ours.  We 
must  make,  indeed,  the  best  of  our  materials  ;  and  I  shall  endeavour 
to  do  so  immediately.  But  I  thought  it  necessary  to  apprise  you  of 
what  I  have  felt  a  most  disagreeable  disappointment  when  looking 
round  for  information  myself. 

But  to  proceed  with  regard  to  the  books  you  may  have  recourse 
to.  ^  The  first  great  magazine  of  information  which  may  be  mention- 
ed is  the  Remembrancer,  a  work  of  twenty  volumes,*  comprehending 
all  the  documents  relative  to  the  American  contest  that  could  be  col- 
lected at  the  time  by  a  London  bookseller,  Almon.  Almon,  however, 
was  an  opposition  bookseller ;  the  Remembrancer  therefore  remembers 
chiefly  such  letters,  speeches,  and  publications  as  serve  to  display  the 
injustice  of  the  designs  and  the  folly  of  the  councils  of  Great  Britain. 
The  whole  must  be  examined  thoroughly  by  all  who  are  to  write 
upon  the  subject  of  the  American  war ;  but  as  there  is  an  index  of 
contents,  I  would  rather  advise  the  student  to  have  recourse  to  the 
work  when  other  works  have  been  considered,  and  when  he  has  be- 
come a  judge  of  what  is  or  is  not  important.  What  he  should  look 
for  is  such  local  and  appropriate  information  from  America  as  cannot 
find  a  place  in  the  regular  histories  he  reads.  The  first  volume,  con- 
taining what  are  called  Prior  Documents,  froM  1764  to  1775,  should 
be  examined ;  though  most  of  them  will  have  occurred  in  other  places, 
there  are  some  that  would  not  readily  be  met  with  elsewhere.  The 
earlier  parts  of  a  contest  are  always  the  most  instructive. 

The  History  of  Gordon,  in  four  thick  octavo  volumes,  will,  in  like 
manner,  be  consulted  with  best  effect  when  other  accounts  have  been 

*  "  In  all,  seventeen  volumes ;  to  which  should  be  added  the  Prior  Documents,  pub- 
lished in  1777,"  in  one  volume.    Rich's  Bibliotheca  Americana  Nova,  (London,  1835,) 


AMERICAN  WAR.  651 

perused.  The  author  appears  to  have  had  access  to  good  sources  of 
information ;  and  the  work  is  an  immense  assemblage  of  facts,  pre- 
sented to  the  reader  with  little  or  no  comment,  and  with  great  im- 
partiality. In  this  instance,  as  in  the  former,  I  would  advise  you  to 
select  from  the  index  such  parts  as  may  be  important,  and  you  will 
sometimes  be  rewarded,  though  you  will  often  think  the  account  given 
very  short  and  inadequate  to  its  subject.  The  first  volume  is  the 
most  curious,  as  entering  more  minutely  into  all  the  views  and  rea- 
sonings of  the  American  patriots,  —  into  all  the  local  politics,  con- 
tests with  the  governors,  and  petty,  but  serious,  irritations  which 
took  place  in  America  prior  to  the  commencement  of  hostilities. 
The  work,  too,  is  valuable  as  confirming,  by  its  simple  and  plain 
statements,  the  conclusions  which  would  be  drawn  from  other  and 
better  histories  respecting  very  important  points,  —  the  distresses  of 
Washington,  the  injurious  effects  of  the  depreciation  of  the  paper 
money,  the  vain  attempts  of  Congress  to  encounter  them  by  the 
operation  of  laws,  &c.,  &c.  On  the  whole,  Gordon's  appears  to  me 
a  history  that  has  been  made  much  use  of,  though  it  is  in  fact  super- 
seded by  the  superior  and  more  concise  History  of  Ramsay. 

Jefferson's  History  of  Virginia  is  always  recommended,  but  it  is 
merely  what  might  be  expected  from  its  title,  and  is  little  to  our  pres- 
ent purpose. 

Morse's  Geography  will  supply  you  with  information  respecting  the 
particular  States  of  America,  their  history,  more  appropriate  ad- 
vantages, and  separate  constitutions.  It  is  a  common  book,  and  will 
be  of  use. 

Franklin's  Works  will  be  found  very  entertaining  and  instructive, 
particularly  part  of  his  Life,  written  by  himself,  and  every  thing  that 
relates  to  America  and  the  subjects  of  political  economy :  for  example, 
his  Letters  to  Governor  Shirley,  which  contain  the  first  predictions 
on  the  subject  of  American  taxation,  so  early  as  1754  ;  and  a  remark- 
able paper  printed  in  January,  1768,  where  the  American  case  is 
calmly  and  well  stated,  much  upon  the  same  principles  and  in  the 
same  spirit  with  Burke's  celebrated  speeches ;  and  a  letter,  not  less 
reasonable,  of  an  earher  date,  and  therefore  more  important,  in  Janu- 
ary, 1766.  This  letter  was  intended  to  show  that  the  Stamp  Act 
should  be  repealed,  &c.,  &c.  Franklin's  very  remarkable  examina- 
tion, in  February,  1766,  before  the  British  ParUament,  so  creditable 
to  him,  may  be  found  also  in  these  volumes,  with  other  curious  docu- 
ments which  I  have  not  now  time  even  to  enumerate.  The  powerful 
understanding  of  Frankjin,  in  the  very  peculiar  circumstances  of 
America,  made  him  a  person  of  such  consequence,  that  every  thing 
relating  either  to  him  or  his  publications  becomes  a  subject  of  history. 
The  editor  of  the  present  work  intimates  that  writings  of  his  have 
been  prevented  from  seeing  the  light  by  the  management  of  particular 
persons  in  this  country.     Since  I  drew  up  these  lectures,  a  quarto 


552  LECTURE  XXXi. 

volume  of  his  correspondence  has  been  published ;  another  is  expect- 
ed* It  was  agreeable  to  me  to  find  that  his  entertaining  and  instruct- 
ive letters,  as  far  as  our  present  subject  was  concerned,  onlj  confirm- 
ed what  I  had  already  written. 

You  will  sometimes  see  the  work  of  Chalmers  referred  to.  It  is 
an  immense,  heavy,  tedious  book,  to  explain  the  legal  history  of  the 
different  colonies  of  America.  It  should  be  consulted  on  all  such 
points.  It  goes  down  to  the  Revolution  of  1688.  But  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  read  it.  The  leaves,  however,  should  be  turned  over,  for  curi- 
ous particulars  often  occur,  and  the  nature  of  the  first  settlement  and 
original  laws  of  each  colony  should  be  known.  The  last  chapter,  in- 
deed, ought  to  be  read.  The  right  to  tax  the  colonies  became  a 
great  point  of  dispute.  Chalmers  means  to  show  that  the  sovereign- 
ty of  the  British  Parliament  existed  over  America,  because  the 
settlers,  though  emigrants,  were  still  English  subjects,  and  members 
of  the  empire. 

Such  are  the  books  that  may  be  consulted^  as  in  themselves  im- 
portant and  connected  with  the  general  subject.  I  now  proceed  to 
propose  to  you  such  a  course  of  reading  as  may  be  gone  through,  — 
first,  on  a  larger  scale,  next,  on  a  smaller. 

In  the  first  place,  the  debates  in  Parliament  may  be  looked  at. 
Many  important  documents  are  there  to  be  met  with ;  and  these,  and 
some  of  the  speeches  of  the  celebrated  men  on  each  side  of  the  House 
should  be  read.  The  protest,  for  instance,  in  the  Lords,  on  the  re- 
peal of  the  Stamp  Act,  is  the  best  statement  I  have  seen  of  the 
views  and  reasonings  of  those  who  supported  the  system  of  American 
taxation. 

Secondly,  there  is  a  History  of  the  American  War  by  Stedman. 
Stedman  served  in  the  British  army  during  the  war. 

Thirdly,  there  is  a  history  of  the  American  contest  by  Dr.  Ram 
say,  who  was  liimself  a  member  of  Congress. 

Fourthly,  some  of  the  letters  of  Washington  to  Congress  wero 
pubUshed. 

Fifthly,  a  Life  of  Washington,  by  Marshall. 

These  I  select  as  books  that  contain  original  information,  and 
stiould  be  read. 

From  the  pamphlets  that  have  appeared,  I  select,  in  like  manner, 
Paine's  Common  Sense,  —  the  Tracts  of  Dean  Tucker,  —  two  pamph- 
lets by  Robinson,  afterwards  Lord  Rokeby,  —  the  speeches  printed  by 
Burke,  —  and  the  pamphlet  of  Dr.  Johnson,  Taxation  no  Tyranny. 

They  who  are  not  at  leisure  to  examine  these  books  and  pamphlets 
will  find  the  volumes  of  the  Annual  Register  an  excellent  substitute 
for  them  all.  They  contain,  in  the  most  concise  form,  the  most  able, 
impartiid,  and  authentic  history  of  the  dispute  which  can  be  found. 
The  account  is  understood  to  have  been  drawn  up  by  Burke,  and  if 
so,  (and  there  is  no  doubt  of  it,)  the  arguments  on  each  side  are  dis- 
played with  an  impartiality  that  is  quite  admirable. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  553 

Lastly,  from  these  works  and  from  others  have  been  drawn  up  the 
histories  of  Adolphus  and  Belsham.  These  histories  may  be  read  by 
those  who  can  read  no  more,  but  they  must  neither  of  them  be  read 
separately  or  without  the  other.  They  are  drawn  up  on  very  differ 
ent  principles :  —  Belsham  conceiving  that  the  Americans  were  right 
in  their  resistance  ;  Adolphus  thinking,  certainly  wishing  his  readers 
to  think,  that  they  were  entirely  wrong :  the  one  written  on  what  are 
called  Whig,  and  the  other  on  Tory,  principles  of  government.  The 
one  is,  I  conceive,  sometimes  too  indulgent  to  the  Congress ;  the 
other  always  so  to  the  Enghsh  ministry.  Belsham  I  consider  as  by 
far  the  most  reasonable  of  the  two  in  every  thing  that  is  laid  down 
respecting  the  American  war.  The  objectionable  passages  in  Adol- 
phus I  found  so  many,  that,  after  taking  notes  for  the  purpose,  I  saw 
them  swell  to  such  a  size,  that  all  comment  of  this  kind  appeared  to 
me  in  a  lecture  quite  impossible,  and  you  must  learn  to  comment 
upon  them  yourselves,  as  I  have  done,  by  the  perusal  of  better  writ- 
ers. The  merit  of  Adolphus  is,  that  he  puts  the  reader  very  fairly 
in  possession  of  the  views  and  arguments  of  Lord  Chatham  and  others, 
who  opposed  the  system  that,  in  defiance  of  them,  he  himself  es- 
pouses. 

I  should  expect,  then,  on  the  whole,  that  these  two,  Belsham  and 
Adolphus,  and  the  particular  parts  of  the  Annual  Register,  would  at 
least  be  read  by  every  one  who  hears  me.  Ramsay  should  next  be 
added,  —  his  History  is  short,  —  and,  if  possible,  much  of  the  fourth 
and  fifth  volumes  of  Marshall.  Burke's  speeches  will  of  course  be 
read ;  and  any  pamphlet  that  was  written  by  such  a  man  as  Dr.  John- 
son. Lord  Chatham  was  so  considerable  a  personage  during  this 
period,  that  the  Ufe  of  him  which  has  been  published,  which  is  at  least 
the  best  account  of  him  and  his  speeches  that  we  have,  should  by  no 
means  be  overlooked. 

And  here  I  might,  perhaps,  leave  the  subject,  having  endeavoured 
to  excite  your  curiosity,  and  pointed  out  the  best  means  I  know  of 
gratifying  it.  Aware,  too,  that  all  proper  instruction  will  be  offered 
to  you  by  the  works  I  have  mentioned,  the  rest  must  be  labor  and 
reflection  on  your  part ;  and  you  must  become  wiser  and  better,  on 
this  occasion,  as  on  others,  (a  sentiment,  this,  I  have  often  expressed 
to  you,)  by  the  faithful  exertion  and  virtuous  use  of  the  talents  and 
opportunities  intrusted  to  your  disposal.  I  am,  however,  not  satisfied 
without  attempting  to  do  more  than  I  have  yet  done,  —  mthout  at- 
tempting to  assist  you  in  shaping  out  this  instruction  into  a  few  dis- 
tinct and  palpable  masses.  Many  of  you  Avho  hear  me  may  be  des- 
tined to  have  influence  hereafter  ;  as  men  of  education,  you  can  none 
of  you  be  entirely  without  it ;  and  neither  the  world  nor  our  own 
island  is  in  a  state,  as  I  have  before  intimgbted,  to  admit  of  any  indo- 
lence or  ignorance  on  pohtical  subjects  in  those  who  ought  tc  be  the 
efl&cient  members  of  the  community. 

70  uu 


554  LECTURE  XXXI. 

I  shall  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  comment  upon  the  principles 
and  measures  of  the  supporters  of  the  American  war  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic ;  then,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  ;  next,  on  the  con 
duct  of  the  war  itself;  in  the  last  place,  on  the  people  of  America. 
Many  lessons  may,  no  doubt,  be  drawn  from  each ;  many  more  than 
have  occurred  to  me  ;  many  more  than  I  can  here  conveniently  lay 
before  you :  what,  however,  appear  to  me  of  the  most  importance  I 
will  select  and  state  to  you. 

North  America,  as  you  know,  was  peopled  and  civilized  chiefly  by 
adventurers  from  this  country ;  that  is,  in  a  word,  England  was  the 
parent,  and  America  the  dependent  state.  I  have  already  made  ob- 
servations on  the  connections  of  different  states  with  each  other ;  I 
did  so  in  my  lecture  on  the  Union  with  Scotland.  These  observations 
it  would  be  very  convenient  to  me,  if  I  could  on  this  occasion  recall 
to  your  recollection.  The  sum  and  substance,  however,  of  them  was, 
that,  in  such  a  case  as  this  before  us,  in  the  case  of  a  mother  country 
and  colonies,  an  ultimate  separation  of  the  two  was  the  result  to 
which  the  progress  of  the  prosperity  of  the  dependent  state  naturally 
tended ;  that,  as  in  the  relation  of  parent  and  child,  helplessness  is  to 
be  succeeded  by  strength,  strength  by  maturity,  maturity  by  inde- 
pendence, so  in  states  and  empires  issuing  from  each  other,  new 
sentiments  and  new  duties  are  to  arise  from  the  changing  situation 
of  the  parties  ;  and  that  it  is  the  business  and  the  wisdom  of  the  par- 
ent state,  more  particularly,  to  conform  without  a  murmur  to  those 
eternal  laws  which  have  ordained  a  constant  progress  in  all  things, 
and  which  have  decreed  that  nations,  like  individuals,  are  no  longer 
to  require  from  youth  and  from  manhood  the  blind  and  unconditional 
submission  which  is  connected  with  the  imbecility  and  inexperience 
of  the  infant  and  the  child ;  that  by  skill  and  forbearance  this  ulti- 
mate separation  may  be  protracted  to  the  benefit  of  the  mother  coun- 
try, but  that  the  separation  itself  must  always  be  kept  in  view  as  an 
issue  at  length  inevitable ;  and  that  the  euthanasia  of  the  connection 
is  an  affectionate  intercourse  of  good  offices,  an  alliance  of  more  than 
ordinary  sympathy  and  sincerity,  and  a  gradual  transmutation  of  the 
notions  of  protection  and  submission,  of  supremacy  and  allegiance, 
into  those  of  interchanged  regard  and  respect,  into  those  of  a  sense 
of  common  interest  in  the  friendship  and  kindness  and  growing  pros- 
perity of  each  other.  Such  must  always  be  the  philosophy  of  the 
case  when  the  colonies  can  ever,  by  their  extent  and  natural  fertility, 
be  advanced  into  any  situation  imitating  that  of  the  son  to  the  father 
in  the  relations  of  social  life.  In  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  much 
unhappiness  may  be  caused,  much  injury  may  arise,  both  to  the  parent 
and  to  the  child,  by  a  want  of  good  temper  and  compliance  with  the 
ordinances  of  nature  ;  but,  the  wisdom  which  these  ordinances  point 
out  is  at  all  times  the  same,  equally  obvious  and  indispensable. 

Now  the  case  of  America  and  England  was  one  precisely  of  tliis 


AMERICAN  WAR.  655 

nature.  America  in  extent  boundless,  in  natural  advantages  unex- 
ampled, removed  to  a  distance  from  the  mother  country,  how  was  it 
possible  that  the  natural  tendency  of  things,  in  all  other  cases,  should, 
in  this  particular  case  of  America  and  England,  cease  to  operate  ? 
To  what  end,  indeed,  or  purpose,  as  far  as  the  best  interests  of  either, 
or  the  great  interests  of  humanity  and  the  world,  were  concerned  ? 
"Why  was  a  great  continent,  a  country  of  lakes  into  which  our  island 
might  be  thrown  and  buried,  of  forests  which  might  overshadoAV  our 
principalities  and  kingdoms,  of  falls  and  cataracts  which  might  sweep 
away  our  cities,  and  of  descending  seas  to  which  our  noblest  streams 
might  in  comparison  be  thought  but  rivulets  and  brooks,  —  why  was 
such  a  country,  which  the  God  of  nature  had  clothed  with  all  his 
highest  forms  of  magnificence  and  grandeur,  —  why  was  such  a  coun- 
try, though,  in  the  mysterious  dispensations  of  his  providence,  it  was 
to  be  raised  into  existence  by  an  island  in  the  Old  World,  —  why 
was  it  to  be  impeded  in  its  career  by  the  manacles  that  were  to  be 
thrown  over  its  giant  limbs  by  the  selfishness  of  its  parent  ?  —  why  pre- 
vented from  rushing  on  in  its  destined  race,  to  become  itself  the  new 
world,  as  Europe  had  been  the  old,  teeming  with  the  life  and  glowing 
with  the  business  of  human  society,  and  doubling,  trebling,  multiply- 
ing to  an  indefinite  extent  the  number  of  sentient  beings  to  which  our 
planet  may  give  support  ?  —  why  prevented  from  journeying  on  with  all 
the  accumulating  resources  of  its  independent  strength,  till  the  same 
progress  of  things  which  had  thus  ripened  the  colony  into  a  kingdom, 
and  a  kingdom  into  the  new  Europe  of  the  western  hemisphere, 
should  have  advanced  the  planet  itself  to  its  final  consummation,  and 
the  labors  and  the  grandeur  and  the  happiness  of  man,  on  this  side 
the  grave,  should  be  no  more  ? 

There  surely  could  be  no  reason,  either  on  any  general  system  of 
benevolence  or  on  any  practical  scheme  of  human  policy,  why  these 
great  laws  of  our  particular  portion  of  the  universe  should  not  be 
cheerfully  acquiesced  in  by  any  intelligent  statesman,  —  should  not 
be  patiently  submitted  to,  as  a  matter  of  necessity,  by  every  practical 
politician  in  the  parent  state.  What  other  hope,  what  possible  alter- 
native, presented  itself?  Stay  the  sun  in  his  course,  because  he  has 
warmed  the  nations  of  the  Atlantic  till  they  are  no  longer  dependent 
on  our  bounty  !  —  arrest  the  principles  of  increase  and  decay,  because 
they  no  longer  appear  to  operate  to  our  particular  aggrandizement ! 
Vain  and  hopeless  efforts !  Rather  turn  the  opportunities  and  indul- 
gences of  nature  which  yet  remain  to  their  best  advantage  ;  far  better 
to  be  grateful  to  the  Author  of  all  good  for  blessings  past  and  to 
come  ;  and  not,  from  a  blind,  preposterous,  unschooled,  and  irreverent 
ambition,  fret  and  struggle  where  it  is  in  vain  to  contend,  and  per- 
haps hurry  on,  a  century  or  two  before  their  time,  all  those  evils  of 
comparative  decline  and  decreasing  power  which  are  now  terrifying 
your  imagination,  and  interrupting  all  the  regular  conclusions  of  the 


556  LECTURE  XXAi. 

understanding.  Protract,  if  you  please,  by  all  the  expedients  of  mild 
government,  the  day  of  separation ;  but  to  endeavour  to  adjourn  it 
for  ever,  and  that  by  force,  is  ridiculous,  for  it  is  in  the  very  nature 
of  things  impossible. 

"Views  of  this  kind  should  certainly  have  presented  themselves  to 
our  statesmen  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  It  was  not 
necessary  that  they  should  be  displayed  in  their  speeches  in  Parlia- 
ment, or  in  their  conversation  in  private  society.  But,  assuredly, 
they  should  have  been  present  to  their  minds  when  they  came  to 
speculate  in  their  closets,  and  still  more  when  they  came  to  advise 
their  sovereign  in  his  cabinet.  Great  caution,  and  a  most  concilia- 
tory system  of  government  from  England  to  America,  would,  no 
doubt,  have  been  the  result ;  no  high  assertions  of  authority  either  in 
theory  or  in  practice ;  no  search  into  dormant  claims ;  no  statements 
and  adjustments  of  rights  and  duties,  before  uncertain  and  undefined ; 
no  agitation  of  perilous  questions  of  supremacy  and  obedience ;  no 
experiments  of  legislation  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of  the  parent  state  ; 
in  short,  nothing  that  should  disturb  that  general  tendency  which 
may  be  observed  in  mankind  to  retain  their  habits  of  thinking  and 
acting  (all  these  would  have  been  in  favor  of  the  mother  country) 
long  after  the  reasons  in  which  they  originatecf  have  ceased  to  exist. 

Had  sentiments  of  this  kind  influenced  the  councils  of  Great  Brit- 
ain soon  after  the  accession  of  his  present  Majesty  to  the  throne,  it  is 
impossible  to  say  how  long  the  two  countries  might  have  slumbered 
on  in  a  long-established  system  of  generous  superintendence  on  the 
one  side,  and  habitual  confidence  and  duty  on  the  other.  Many 
think  the  French  Revolution  would  not  have  happened,  had  not  the 
American  preceded  it ;  but,  at  all  events,  the  connection  between 
England  and  her  colonies  might  have  been  long  protracted  by  a 
philosophic  policy  of  the  kind  I  have  described;  we  should  at  least 
have  avoided  the  folly  of  an  opposite  system,  and  of  producing  before 
its  time  the  event  we  dreaded. 

But  we  must  now  turn  aside  from  those  general  views  and  great 
laws  and  principles  of  nature,  which  statesmen,  amid  their  humbler 
details  and  more  minute  contrivances  for  the  interest  of  their  com- 
munities, ought  never  to  lose  sight  of,  and  we  must  descend  all  at 
once  to  the  miserable,  mortifying,  melancholy  facts  of  our  dispute 
with  America.     I  will  describe  this  dispute  in  a  few  sentences. 

We  conclude  a  triumphant  peace  with  the  house  of  Bourbon  in 
1763.  The  French  are  obHged  to  abandon  America,  and  all  Europe 
is  jealous  of  our  present  and  apprehensive  of  our  future  prosperity ; 
and  this  happy  state  of  things  no  sooner  takes  place,  America  and 
ourselves  are  no  sooner  in  a  situation  to  enjoy  and  urge  to  the  utmost 
the  prosperity  of  each  other,  than  what  is  the  consequence  ?  Acts 
are  drawn  up  by  the  British  Parliament  to  enforce  restrictions  on  the 
trade  of  the  colonies,  —  to  put  an  end  to  what  was  denominated  their 


AMERICAN  WAR.  557 

smuggling  trade.  The  greatest  irritation  and  considerable  injury  are 
thus  occasioned ;  the  mother  country  appears  no  longer  the  protec- 
tress and  nurse  of  their  prosperity.  This  is  the  first  specimen  I  have 
to  mention  of  our  statesmen,  and  the  next  is  this :  —  a  resolution  is 
actually  formed  to  draw  a  revenue  from  America  by  the  authority 
of  the  British  Parliament,  which  revenue,  however  small  on  its  first 
introduction,  might  afterwards,  when  the  precedent  was  once  estab- 
lished, be  increased,  as  it  was  very  obvious,  to  any  extent  which  the 
same  British  Parliament  might  think  proper.  This  is  the  second 
specimen ;  the  rest  is  in  due  order.  When  this  measure  is  resisted 
by  America,  as  might  have  been  expected,  troops  are  sent  from  Eng- 
land to  insist  upon  obedience.  The  sword  is  actually  drawn ;  from 
year  to  year  the  contest,  is  maintained ;  our  rivals  and  enemies  at 
length  openly  join  the  cause  of  the  Americans  ;  and  the  result  of  the 
whole  is,  that,  after  a  bloody  and  most  perilous  struggle,  we  are 
obliged  to  acknowledge  the  independence  of  our  colonies,  and  be  very 
well  satisfied  that  we  have  been  able  to  maintain  our  mm  inde- 
pendence and  support  our  own  national  consequence  against  the 
world. 

But  what  a  drama,  what  a  tragedy,  what  a  long  spectacle  of  im- 
policy, is  thus  in  a  few  words  described !  What  solution  are  we  to 
produce  for  such  miserable  infatuation  in  the  most  enlightened  nation 
on  earth,  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  ? 

"  The  whole  of  your  political  conduct,"  said  Lord  Chatham,  when 
addressing  the  ministers  of  the  country  in  February,  1775,  "  has 
been  one  continued  series  of  weakness,  temerity,  despotism,  igno* 
ranee,  futility,  negligence,  blundering,  and  the  most  notorious  servili- 
ty, incapacity,  and  corruption." 

"  These  ministers,"  said  his  son,  the  late  Mr.  Pitt,  at  a  subsequent 
period,  "  will  destroy  the  empire  they  are  called  upon  to  save,  be- 
fore the  indignation  of  a  great  and  suffering  people  can  fall  upon  their 
heads  in  the  punishment  which  they  deserve.  —  I  affirm  the  war  to 
have  been  a  most  accursed,  wicked,  barbarous,  cruel,  unnatural,  un- 
just, and  diabolical  war." 

Yet  were  these  ministers,  the  advisers  and  supporters  cf  this  war, 
as  individuals,  men  of  education  and  ability.  Lord  North  was  the 
delight  of  every  private  society  which  he  honored  with  his  presence, 
and  in  the  senate  appeared  in  every  respect  fitted  for  his  situation, 
as  far  as  natural  talents  were  concerned ;  second  to  none  in  the 
powers  of  conducting  a  debate,  unrivalled  in  the  possession  of  a  most' 
inexhaustible  fund  of  elegant  pleasantry,  and  of  a  temper  that  was 
always  the  last  to  be  rufiled  and  the  first  to  be  appeased.  In  both 
houses,  they  who  resisted  the  impolitic  system  of  American  coercion 
were  for  several  years  left  on  every  occasion  in  the  most  insignificant 
mmorities,  and  the  war  was  supported  by  a  clear  and  ardent  majority 
of  every  division  of  the  community,  —  with,  perhaps,  the  exception, 


5S8  LECTURE  XXXI. 

for  some  time,  of  a  part  of  the  manufacturers  and  merchants,  those 
who  found  their  trade  mterrupted,  and  were  afraid  of  losing  what 
thoj  had  lent  to  the  American  merchants. 

Now  this,  on  the  whole,  appears  to  me  a  case  well  fitted  to  excite 
your  inquiries.  What  are  the  causes  that  can  be  mentioned  as  hav- 
ing produced  such  unhappy  effects  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  ?  I 
will  offer  to  your  consideration  such  as  have  occurred  to  me.  I  will 
mention  first  those  that  were  natural  and  not  discreditable  to  us,  then 
those  that  were  discreditable. 

Of  the  first  kind,  then,  was  a  general  notion  in  the  English  people 
that  their  cause  was  just.  The  sovereignty  was  supposed  to  be  in 
the  parent  state  ;  in  the  rights  of  sovereignty  were  included  the  rights 
of  taxation:  England,  too,  was  considered  as  having  protected  the 
Americans  from  the  French  in  the  war  that  had  been  lately  conclud- 
ed. The  Americans,  therefore,  when  they  resisted  the  mother  coun- 
try in  her  attempt  to  tax  them,  were  considered  on  the  first  account 
as  rebellrous,  and  on  the  second  as  ungrateful. 

The  sentiment,  then,  of  the  contest,  as  far  as  it  was  honorable  to 
the  inhabitants  of  this  country,  originated  in  the  considerations  just 
mentioned.  But  this  sentiment  would  have  produced  no  such  effect 
as  the  American  war,  had  it  not  been  excited  and  exasperated  by 
other  considerations,  which  I  shall  now  lay  before  you,  and  which 
were  not  creditable  to  us.  These  I  shall  endeavour  to  illustrate  in 
the  ensuing  lectures,  because  they  were  such  as  I  think  you  may 
yourselves  be  exposed  to  the  influence  of,  hereafter,  and  their  opera- 
tion can  never  be  favorable  to  the  interests  of  your  country.  Of  the 
first  which  I  have  mentioned,  the  supposed  right  of  taxation,  I  shall 
now  say  no  more,  but  shall  allude  finally  to  it  before  I  advert  to  the 
conduct  of  the  war.  The  ministers  and  people  of  England  might 
neither  mean  to  be,  nor  5e,  the  tyrants  and  oppressors  which  they 
were  thought  by  the  people  of  America ;  but  whether  they  were  as 
reasonable  and  prudent,  or  even  as  well  justified,  in  their  measures 
of  taxation,  much  less  of  coercion,  as  they  supposed,  is  quite  another 
question.  It  is  this  last  part  of  the  general  subject,  that  which  is 
discreditable  to  us,  that  I  shall  for  some  time  more  particularly  place 
in  your  view.  I  may  thus  appear  to  some  only  an  advocate  for  the 
American  cause.  I  am  not  so  ;  but  I  am  anxious  to  show  you  the 
unpardonable  mistakes  that  were  made  by  the  statesmen  and  people 
of  Great  Britain,  that  you  may  be  the  better  able  to  avoid  such  mis- 
takes yourselves. 

Turning,  then,  at  present,  from  the  causes  first  mentioned,  an 
opinion  in  the  people  of  England  that  the  Americans  were  rebelHous 
and  ungrateful,  and  alluding  to  the  causes  that  were  less  honorable 
in  the  sentiment,  and  that  were  discreditable  to  us,  and  that  operated 
so  fatally  to  the  reduction  and  exasperation  of  the  American  contest, 
the  first  was,  I  think,  a  deplorable  ignorance  of  or  inattention  to  the 


AMERICAN  WAR.  659 

great  leading  principles  of  political  economy.  The  result  of  this 
ignorance  or  inattention  was  an  indisposition  to  listen  to  the  argu- 
ments of  those  who  laid  down,  from  time  to  time,  and  explained  the 
proper  manner  in  which  colonies  might  become  sources  of  revenue  to 
the  mother  country,  —  not  by  means  of  taxes  and  taxgatherers,  but 
by  the  interchange  of  their  appropriate  products,  and  by  the  exer- 
tions of  the  real  revenue  officers  of  every  country,  the  merchants, 
farmers,  and  manufacturers.  This  was  one  of  what  I  consider  as  the 
discreditable  causes  of  the  war  on  our  part. 

Secondly,  A  very  blind  and  indeed  disgraceful  selfishness,  in  tho 
mere  matter  of  money  and  payment  of  taxes  ;  this  was  another.  It 
was  hence  that  the  country  gentlemen  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
the  landed  interest  of  England,  had  actually  the  egregious  folly  to 
support  ministers  in  their  scheme  of  coercing  America,  from  an  ex- 
pectation that  their  own  burdens,  their  land-tax,  for  instance,  might 
be  made  hghter,  or  at  least  prevented  from  becoming  heavier. 
•  Thirdly,  An.  overweening  national  pride,  not  operating  in  its  more 
honorable  direction  to  beat  off  invaders,  or  repel  the  approach  of  in- 
sult or  injustice,  but  in  making  us  despise  our  enemy,  vihfy  the 
American  character,  and  suppose  that  nothing  could  stand  opposed 
to  our  own  good  pleasure,  or  resist  the  valor  of  our  fleets  and 
armies. 

Fourthly,  Very  high  principles  of  government:  a  disposition  to 
push  too  far  the  rights  of  authority,  —  to  insist  too  sternly  on  the  ex- 
pediency of  control,  —  to  expect  the  duty  of  submission  to  laws  with- 
out much  inquiry  into  the  exact  reasonableness  of  their  enactments. 
These  high  principles  of  government  operated  very  fatally,  when  the 
question  was,  whether  Great  Britain  could  not  only  claim,  but  actual- 
ly exercise,  sovereignty  over  the  colonies  of  America ;  whether  the 
people  of  America  could  be  constitutionally  taxed  by  the  Parliament 
of  Great  Britain,  a  Parliament  in  which  it  could  have  no  representa- 
tives. 

Fifthly,  A  certain  vulgarity  of  thinking  on  political  subjects,  —  nar^ 
row,  and  what  will  commonly  be  found  popular,  notions  in  national 
concerns.  In  these  last  few  words  I  might,  perhaps,  at  once  com- 
prehend all  the  causes  I  have  already  mentioned.  It  was  thus  that 
men  like  Mr.  Burke,  who  drew  their  reasonings  from  philosophic 
principles  of  a  general  nature,  were  not  comprehended  or  were  disre- 
garded, while  the  most  commonplace  declaimer  was  applauded,  and 
decided  the  different  issues  of  the  dispute. 

Such  were,  I  think,  the  causes,  discreditable  to  us,  which,  without 
entering  into  any  metaphysical  niceties,  may  be  said  in  a  general 
manner  to  have  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  British  empire  in  Ameri- 
ca, as  far  as  the  legislators  and  people  of  England  were  concerned. 
I  will  recapitulate  them,  because  I  mean  to  illustrate  them  in  the  en- 
suing lectures,  on  account  of  what  I  fancy  to  be  their  importance ; 


660  LECTURE  XXXI. 

and  I  shall  illustrate  them,  not  by  selecting  and  endeavouring  to  dis- 
cuss and  decide  upon  the  diflferent  arguments  and  events  that  this 
contest  produced,  —  this  you  must  do  yourselves,  —  but  by  reading 
passages  from  speeches  and  pamphlets,  so  as  to  give  you,  if  possible, 
in  a  very  short  compass,  the  spirit  of  the  whole  ;  but  you  must  have 
the  causes  I  have  mentioned  well  infixed  in  your  memory,  that  you 
may  continually  see  the  application  of  what  I  am  reading,  for  I  can- 
not stay  to  point  it  out.  The  causes,  then,  that  I  have  mentioned 
were  (those  that  were  discreditable  to  us,  I  mean)  an  ignorance  of 
political  economy ;  a  mere  blind,  disgraceful  money  selfishness ;  an 
overweening  national  pride ;  high  principles  of  government ;  and  a 
certain  vulgarity  of  thinking  on  political  subjects. 

Before  I  proceed,  I  must  stop  to  observe  that  it  would  now  be  very 
convenient  to  me,  if  I  could  consider  you  as  already  acquainted  with 
the  facts  of  this  American  dispute ;  but  as  I  know  not  that  I  can  ex- 
actly presume  upon  this,  you  will  be  pleased  to  remember  the  follow- 
ing points,  which  I  mention  to  render  more  intelligible  the  illustra- 
tions I  am  going  to  give  of  the  positions  I  have  laid  down. 

First,  then,  Mr.  George  Grenville  proposed  to  tax  America  in 
March,  1764,  and  in  February,  1765,  carried  his  measure  to  that 
eifect,  the  famous  Stamp  Act.  A  great  sensation  was  occasioned  in 
America ;  but  in  June,  1765,  Mr.  Grenville  went  out  of  office,  and 
the  Rockingham  administration  came  in.  They  repealed  the  Stamp 
Act  early  in  the  year  1766  ;  but  they  passed  at  the  same  time  a  de- 
claratory bill,  to  assert  the  right  of  Great  Britain  to  bind  the  colonies 
in  all  cases  whatsoever. 

Here  the  dispute  might  to  all  appearance  have  terminated,  but  this 
ministry,  being  a  Whig  ministry,  was,  as  Charles  Townshend  observ 
ed,  but  a  lutestring  administration,  and  destined  only  to  last  through 
the  spring.^  In  July,  1766,  as  he  had  predicted,  they  were  dismiss- 
ed. He  himself  came  into  office,  and  on  some  account  or  other  re- 
vived the  idea  of  the  taxation  of  America. 

During  the  illness  and  inefficiency  of  Lord  Chatham,  who  was  the 
apparent  head  of  the  administration,  certain  duties  were  laid  upon 
tea,  among  other  articles :  this  happened  in  the  year  1767.  The 
Buke  of  Grafton  and  others  then  in  the  cabinet  were  guilty,  not  of 
advising  these  measures,  but,  what  is  the  same  thing  on  very  impor- 
tant occasions,  were  guilty  of  not  throwing  up  their  places,  when  their 
opinions  were  overruled.  America  was  again  greatly  agitated.  In 
1770,  Lord  North  brought  in  his  bill  to  repeal  these  duties ;  but  he 
retained  the  duty  on  tea,  that  he  might  thus  practically  assert  the 
right  which  Great  Britain  unfortunately  continued  to  claim,  the  right 
of  taxing  America. 

^  Disturbances  followed  in  the  province  of  Massachusetts,  —  violent 
disturbances ;  and  General  Gage,  with  a  strong  military  force,  was  sta- 
tioned at  Boston,  where  the  resistance  had  been  the  most  outrageous : 


AMERICAN  WAR.  561 

at  length  Boston  was  shut  up  as  a  port.  This  happened  in  1774. 
The  Americans  hovered  round  General  Gage ;  the  note  of  preparation 
of  war,  as  he  thought,  sounded  in  his  ears.  •  He  sent  a  detachment 
into  the  interior,  to  seize  or  destroy  some  military  stores,  and  the 
first  blood  was  shed  in  the  affair  at  Lexington,  in  April,  1775. 

In  June,  1775,  the  American  intrenchment  on  Bunker's  or  Breed's 
Hill  was  forced,  but  not  till  half  the  detachment  sent  on  the  service 
lay  killed  or  wounded  on  the  field.  Boston  was  afterwards  evacuated. 
In  1776,  General  Howe  took  possession  of  New  York  ;  and  at  one 
interval,  the  American  General  Washington  seemed  scarcely  able  to 
maintain  before  him  the  appearance  of  a  regular  army.  But  in  the 
autumn  of  1777,  General  Burgoyne  and  a  royal  army  were  totally 
captured,  and  this  event  induced  the  French  to  join  the  Americans 
early  in  1778.  Another  royal  army  under  Lord  CornwaUis  was  in 
consequence  captured  also,  in  October,  1781.  All  idea  of  conquering 
America  was  then,  in  fact,  abandoned,  the  ministry  was  at  length 
changed,  the  peace  was  made,  and  the  American  States  were  ac- 
knowledged independent  in  1783. 

On  the  part  of  the  Americans,  you  will  observe  that  the  first 
meeting  of  Congress  was  in  September,  1774.  They  issued  declara- 
tions ;  drew  up  addresses  to  the  king,  the  people  of  Great  Britain, 
and  the  people  of  Canada ;  then  adjourned,  and  again  met  in  May, 
1775.  •  In  July,  1776,  they  declared  themselves  independent. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  leading  facts  of  this  memorable  contest. 

I  will  now  endeavour  to  exemplify  what  I  have  been  laying  down. 
I  turn  first  to  the  debates  of  Parliament. 

It  is  remarkable  enough,  that  the  first  mention  of  the  Americans 
which  occurs  after  the  accession  of  his  Majesty  appears  in  a  message 
from  the  king,  recommending  a  proper  compensation  to  be  made  to 
them  for  their  expenses  during  the  great  war  of  1756,  expenses 
which  must  therefore  have  been  thought  more  than  proportionate  to 
their  natural  ability,  —  a  message  highly  creditable  both  to  the  par- 
ent state  and  to  the  colonies.  A  few  pages  intervene,  and  then  ap- 
pear among  the  ways  and  means  of  the  session  the  unfortunate  reso- 
lutions of  Mr.  George  Grenville,  in  March,  1764,  which  laid  the" 
foundation  for  the  subsequent  civil  war.  In  a  few  words  was  contain- 
ed the  fatal  resolve  that  tore  asunder  the  empire  of  Great  Britain,  — 
"  That  towards  further  defraying  the  said  expenses,  it  may  be  proper 
to  charge  certain  stamp  duties  in  the  said  colonies  and  plantations." 
Memorable  words  1  This  was  in  1764  ;  and  in  a  year  after,  in  the 
spring  of  1765,  this  resolution  was  formed  into  a  law,  which  was  call- 
ed the  Stamp  Act.  In  his  Majesty's  speech  at  the  end  of  the  same 
year,  in  1765,  almost  the  first  words  that  occur  are  these,  —  "  Mat- 
ters of  importance  have  lately  occurred  in  some  of  my  colonies  in 
America."  Matters  of  importance,  no  doubt!  America  had  re 
sisted. 

71 


562  LECTURE  XXXI. 

Mr.  Grenville,  the  original  mover  of  the  taxation  of  America,  wag 
now  no  longer  in  power ;  but  his  speech  in  defence  of  the  measure, 
and  of  his  system,  still  remains  ;  so  does  that  of  the  first  Mr.  Pitt,  in 
opposition  to  both.  I  shall  quote  largely  from  these  two ;  for  they 
contain  all  the  important  arguments,  and  may  serve  as  specimens  of 
the  whole  subject,  and  certainly  of  the  reasonings  that  were  then 
urged  on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other.  The  success  of  Mr.  Gren- 
ville's  reasonings  illustrates,  as  I  conceive,  the  positions  I  have  laid 
down.  It  had  been  contended,  you  will  observe,  that  taxes  might  be 
laid  externally  by  Great  Britain,  to  regulate  trade,  —  duties,  for  in- 
stance, on  imports  and  exports,  —  but  not  internally,  to  raise  revenue. 

"  I  cannot  understand,"  said  Mr.  Grenville,  "  the  diiference  be- 
tween external  and  internal  taxes ;  they  are  the  same  in  eifect,  and 
only  diifer  in  name.  That  this  kingdom  has  the  sovereign,  the  su- 
preme, legislative  power  over  America  is  granted ;  it  cannot  be  de- 
nied :  and  taxation  is  a  part  of  that  sovereign  power.  It  is  one 
branch  of  the  legislation.  It  is,  it  has  been,  exercised  over  those 
who  are  not,  who  were  never,  represented.  It  is  exercised  over  the 
India  Company,  the  merchants  of  London,  the  proprietors  of  the 
stocks,  and  over  many  great  manufacturing  towns.  It  was  exercised 
over  the  palatinate  of  Chester,  and  the  bishopric  of  Durham,  before 

they  sent  any  representatives  to  Parliament Great  Britain 

protects  America ;  America  is  bound  to  yield  obedience.     If  not,  tell 

me  when  the  Americans  were  emancipated The  nation  has 

run  itself  into  an  immense  debt  to  give  them  their  protection ;  and 
now  they  are  called  upon  to  contribute  a  small  share  towards  the 
public  expense,  an  expense  arising  from  themselves,  they  renounce 
your  authority,  insult  your  officers,  and  break  out,  I  might  almost 
say,  into  open  rebellion.  The  seditious  spirit  of  the  colonies  owes 
its  birth  to  the  factions  in  this  house.  Gentlemen  are  careless 
of  the  consequences  of  what  they  say,  provided  it  answers  the  pur- 
poses of  opposition I  have  been   abused  in  all  the  public 

papers  as  an  enemy  to  the  trade  of  America I  discouraged 

no  trade  but  what  was  ilUcit,  what  was  prohibited  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment." 

The  great  orator  of  England  rose  in  reply.  "  I  have  been  charg- 
ed," said  Mr.  Pitt,  "  with  giving  birth  to  sedition  in  America 

Sorry  I  am  to  hear  the  liberty  of  speech  in  this  house  imputed  as  a 
crime  ;  but  the  imputation  shall  not  discourage  me.  It  is  a  liberty  I 
mean  to  exercise ;  no  gentleman  ought  to  be  afraid  to  exercise  it. 
It  is  a  liberty  by  which  the  gentleman  who  calumniates  it  might  have 
profited ;  he  ought  to  have  profited ;  he  ought  to  have  desisted  from 
his  project. 

"  The  gentleman  tells  us,  America  is  obstinate,  America  is  almost 
in  open  rebeUion.  I  rejoice  that  America  has  resisted.  Three  millions 
of  people  so  dead  to  all  the  feelings  of  liberty  as  voluntarily  to  submit 


AMERICAN  WAR.  563 

to  be  slaves  would  have  been  fit  instruments  to  make  slaves  of  the 
rest 

"  Why  did  the  gentleman  confine  himself  to  Chester  and  Durham  ? 
He  might  have  taken  a  higher  example  in  Wales,  —  Wales,  that 

never  was  taxed  by  Parliament  till  it  was  incorporated ,  The 

gentleman  tells  us  of  many  who  are  taxed,  and  are  not  represented,  — 
the  India  Company,  merchants,  stockholders,  manufacturers.  Surely, 
many  of  these  are  represented  in  other  capacities,  as  OAvners  of  land,  or 
as  freemen  of  boroughs.  It  is  a  misfortune  that  more  are  not  actual- 
ly represented ;  but  they  are  all  inhabitants,  and,  as  such,  are  virtu- 
ally represented.  Many  have  it  in  their  option  to  be  actually  repre- 
sented ;  they  have  connections  with  those  that  elect,  and  they  have 
influence  over  them 

"  The  gentleman  boasts  of  his  bounties  to  America !  Are  not  those 
bounties  intended  finally  for  the  benefit  of  this  kingdom  ? 

"  If  the  gentleman  does  not  understand  the  difference  between  in- 
ternal and  external  taxes,  I  cannot  help  it ;  but  there  is  a  plain  dis- 
tinction between  taxes  levied  for  the  purposes  of  raising  a  revenue, 
and  duties  imposed  for  the  regulation  of  trade,  for  the  accommodation 
of  the  subject ;  although,  in  the  consequences,  some  revenue  might 
incidentally  arise  from  the  latter. 

"  The  gentleman  asks.  When  were  the  colonies  emancipated  ?     But 

I  desire  to  know  when  they  were  made  slaves The  profits  to 

Grq».t  Britain  from  the  trade  of  the  colonies,  through  all  its  branches, 

is  two  millions  a  year This  is  the  price  that  America  pays 

you  for  her  protection.  And  shall  a  miserable  financier  come  with  a 
boast  that  he  can  fetch  a  peppercorn  into  the  exchequer^  to  the  loss 
of  millions  to  the  nation  ? 

"  The  whole  commercial  system  of  America  may  be  altered  to  ad- 
vantage  You  have  but  two  nations  to  trade  with  in  America  ; 

would  you  had  twenty  !  Let  acts  of  Parliament  in  consequence  of 
treaties  remain ;  but  let  not  an  English  minister  become  a  custom- 
house officer  for  Spain,  or  for  any  foreign  power 

"  In  a  good  cause,  on  a  sound  bottom,  the  force  of  this  country  can 
crush  America  to  atoms.    I  know  the  valor  of  your  troops ;  I  know  the 

skill  of  your  officers But  on  this  ground,  on  the  Stamp  Act, 

when  so  many  here  will  think  it  a  crying  injustice,  I  am  one  who  will 
lift  up  my  hands  against  it.  In  such  a  cause  your  success  would  be 
hazardous.  America,  if  she  fell,  would  fall  like  the  strong  man ;  she 
would  embrace  the  pillars  of  the  state,  and  pull  down  the  constitu- 
tion along  with  her 

"  The  Americans  have  not  acted  in  all  things  with  prudence  and 
temper.  They  have  been  wronged  ;  they  have  been  driven  to  mad- 
ness by  injustice.  Will  you  punish  them  for  the  madness  you  have 
occasioned  ?  Rather  let  prudence  and  temper  come  first  from  this 
side ;  I  will  uniertake  for  America  that  she  will  follow  the  ex- 
ample  


664  LECTURE  XXXI. 

"'Be  to  her  faults  a  little  blind; 
Be  to  her  virtues  very  kind.' 

"  Upon  the  whole,  I  will  beg  leave  to  tell  the  House  what  is  leally 
my  opinion.  It  is,  that  the  Stamp  Act  be  repealed,  absolutely,  total 
ly,  aitd  immediately ;  that  the  reason  for  the  repeal  be  assigned,  be- 
cause it  was  founded  on  an  erroneous  principle.  At  the  same  time, 
let  the  sovereign  authority  of  this  country  over  the  colonies  be  assert- 
ed in  as  strong  terms  as  can  be  devised,  and  be  made  to  extend  to 
every  point  of  legislation  whatsoever :  that  we  may  bind  their  trade, 
confine  their  manufactures,  and  exercise  every  power  whatsoever,  ex- 
cept that  of  taking  their  money  out  of  their  pockets  without  their 
consent." 

Such  is  a  slight  outline  of  what  the  greatest  of  our  orators  is  under- 
stood to  have  delivered  on  this  critical  occasion.  Now  the  sentiments 
tha^;  were  popular,  and  the  opinions  that  were  thought  wise,  were  not 
those  of  INIr.  Pitt,  but  of  Mr.  Grenville  :  and  it  is  on  this  account  that 
I  have  thought  it  necessary  to  endeavour  to  explain  the  small  views 
and  mercenary,  unworthy,  and  unconstitutional  feelings  of  the  English 
people  and  their  statesmen  at  this  particular  time ;  holding  them  up 
as  a  warning  to  ourselves,  from  a  very  strong  suspicion,  which,  I 
must  confess,  I  entertain,  that,  on  any  similar  occasion,  our  own  views 
and  feelings  would  be  equally  wanting  in  true  philosophy,  and  in 
proper  sympathy  with  the  genuine  doctrines  even  of  our  own  constitu- 
tional liberty.  % 

The  positions  I  have  laid  down  are  still  further  illustrated,  because 
it  must  be  observed,  that  the  ministers  and  people  of  England  had 
sufficient  information  and  sufficient  warning  from  a  few  of  the  more 
enlightened  members  of  both  houses,  and  from  other  sources. 

"  When  the  resolution,"  says  Mr.  Pitt,  so  early  as  December, 
1765,*  "  was  taken  in  the  House  to  tax  America,  I  was  ill  in  bed.  If 
I  could  have  endured  to  have  been  carried  in  my  bed,  so  great  was 
the  agitation  of  my  mind  for  the  consequences,  I  would  have  solicited 
some  kind  hand  to  have  laid  me  down  on  this  floor,  to  have  borne  my 
testimony  against  it." 

This  was  said  by  Lord  Chatham,  I  must  repeat,  so  early  as  Decem- 
ber, 1765,* — not  1775,  when  the  troubles  had  broken  out :  and  so  early 
as  February,  1766,  ten  years  before  the  declaration  of  independence, 
Dr.  Franklin  was  examined  at  the  bar  of  the  House,  and  he  declared 
(I  quote  from  his  answers)  that  the  authority  of  Parliament  was  al- 
lowed to  be  valid  in  all  laws,  except  such  as  should  lay  internal  taxes  : 
that  it  was  never  disputed  in  laying  duties  to  regulate  commerce : 
that  the  Americans  would  never  submit  to  the  Stamp  Act,  or  to  any 
other  tax  on  the  same  principle  :  that  North  America  would  contribute 
to  the  support  of  Great  Britain,  if  engaged  in  a  war  in  Europe.      • 

The  whole  of  this   examination  is  worth  reading.     The  Doctor 

*  Jan.  14,  1766.    See  Hansard's  Parliamentary  History,  xvi.  98.  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  565 

seems  to  have  judged  accurately,  and  to  have  given  the  House  very 
seasonable  advice  on  all  the  critical  points  which  could  then  have 
divided  the  opinions  of  his  hearers  ;  but  the  advice  was  vain,  and  this, 
I  conceive,  from  the  causes  which  I  have  enumerated. 

In  1766,  the  Stamp  Act  was  repealed  by  the  Rockingham  adminis- 
tration, —  the  Whig  administration,  —  and  the  dispute,  in  truth,  put 
an  end  to  ;  they  were  therefore  dismissed ;  and  when  the  idea  of  tax- 
ing America  was  revived  by  Charles  Townshend,  so  early  as  May, 
1767,  Governor  Pownall  declared,  that  "  it  was  a  fact  which  the 
House  ought  to  be  apprised  of  in  all  its  extent,  that  the  people  of 
America,  universally,  unitedly,  and  unalterably,  were  resolved  not  to 
submit  to  any  internal  tax  imposed  upon  them,  by  any  legislature  in 
which  they  had  not  a  share  by  representatives  of  their  own  election.'^ 
*'  Does  ministry,''  said  he,  "  mean  to  propose  the  measure  of  impos- 
ing taxes  on  the  colonies,  and  to  force  into  execution  the  collection 
of  them?  The  whole  system  of  the  state  government  and  inter- 
woven interest  of  the  colonies  is  gone  too  far  for  that  to  be  practica- 
hie We  must  reestabhsh  our  system  on  its  old  basis."  Gov- 
ernor Pownall,  it  must  be  observed,  had  been  a  governor  in  America, 
and  always  spoke  from  personal  knowledge. 

"I  prophesied,"  says  Colonel  Barr^,  "  on  passing  the  Stamp  Act, 
[in  1765,]  what  would  happen  thereon;  and  I  now,  [in  March, 
1769,]  I  now  fear  I  can  prophesy  further  troubles ;  that,  if  the  peo- 
ple are  made  desperate,  finding  no  remedy  from  Parliament,  the 
whole  continent  will  be  in  arms  immediately,  and  perhaps  those  prov- 
inces lost  to  England  for  ever."  This  was  in  March,  1769,  and  cer- 
tainly a  very  remarkable  prediction. 

In  February,  1769,  "The  Americans,"  said  Governor  Pownall, 
"  do  universally,  invariably,  and  unalterably  declare,  that  they  ought 
not  to  submit  to  any  internal  taxes  imposed  upon  them  by  any  legis- 
lature wherein  they  have  not  representatives  of  their  own  election." 
"  The  slightest  circumstance,"  he  continued,  "  would,  in  a  moment, 
throw  every  thing  into  confusion  and  bloodshed ;  and  if  some  mode 
of  policy  does  not  interpose  to  remove  this  exertion  of  military 
power,  the  union  between  Great  Britain  and  North  America  is 
broken  for  ever;  unless,  what  is  worse,  both  are  united  in  one  com- 
mon ruin No  military  force  can  assess  or  collect ;  it  may 

raise  a  contribution  by  military  execution,  —  but  that  is  not  govern- 
ment, it  is  war."  And  again,  "  If  you  attempt  to  force  taxes  against 
the  spirit  of  the  people  there,  you  will  find,  when  perhaps  it  is  too 
late,  that  they  are  of  a  spirit  which  will  resist  all  force,  which  will 
grow  stronger  by  being  forced,  will  prove  superior  to  all  force,  and 
ever  has  been  unconquerable That  spirit,  which  led  their  an- 
cestors to  break  ofi"  from  every  thing  which  is  near  and  dear  to  the 

human  heart, has  but  a  slight  and  trifling  sacrifice  to  make  at 

this  time :  they  have  not  to  quit  their  native  country,  but  to  defend 

V  V 


566  LECTURE  XXXI. 

it ;  they  have  not  to  forsake  their  friends  and  relations,  but  to  unite 

with  and  to  stand  bj  them  in  one  common  union They  will 

abominate  as  sincerely  as  they  now  love  you In  one  word,  if 

this  spirit  of  fanaticism  should  once  arise  upon  the  idea  of  persecu- 
tion, those  people,  whom  Great  Britain  hath  to  this  hour  drawn  as  it 
were  with  a  thread,  and  whom  it  has  governed  with  a  little  paper 
and  packthread,  you  will  not  for  the  future  be  able  to  govern  it  with 
a  rDd  of  iron ;  and  every  benefit  which  this  country  haS  derived  from 
that  country  will  be  stopped  at  every  source.  If  it  be  not  the  humor 
of  the  House  to  believe  this  at  present,  I  only  beg  they  will  remember 
it  has  been  said,  and  that  they  are  forewarned  of  it." 

The  House  was  impatient,  it  seems,  (what  are  we  to  say  of  the 
folly  of  such  impatience  ?)  while  this  member  of  their  body,  with  the 
wisdom  of  a  statesman,  and  the  spirit  of  a  prophet,  proceeded  to 
warn  them  of  their  mistakes,  and  represent  to  them  the  conduct 
which  they  were  bound  in  justice  and  in  policy  to  pursue.  It  was  in 
vain  that  he  concluded  with  these  memorable  words :  —  "  Resume 

again  the  spirit  of  your  old  policy Do  nothing  which  may  bring 

into  discussion  questions  of  right Go  into  no  innovations  in 

practice,  and  suffer  no  encroachments  on  government.  Extend  not 
the  power  which  you  have  of  imposing  taxes  to  the  laying  internal 
taxes  on  the  colonies.  Continue  to  exercise  the  power  which  you 
have  already  exercised,  of  laying  subsidies,  imposts,  and  duties ;  but 
exercise  this,  as  you  have  always  hitherto  done,  with  prudence  and 

moderation,  and  directed  by  the  spirit  of  commercial  wisdom 

Exert  the  spirit  of  policy,  that  you  may  not  ruin  the  colonies  and 
yourselves  by  exerting  force." 

Mr.  Pitt  spoke  to  the  same  effect,  and  denied  the  right  of  the 
mother  country  to  tax  America. 

"  There  is  no  medium  to  be  observed,"  said  George  Grenville  (this 
was  in  March,  1769) ;  "  we  must  either  resolve  strictly  to  execute 
the  revenue  laws  in  America,  or  else  with  a  good  grace  give  up  our 
right  entirely."  —  "There  is  a  proper  medium,"  said  Mr.  Burke; 
*'  we  have  an  undoubted  right  to  tax  them,  but  the  expediency  of 
putting  that  right  in  execution  should  be  very  evident  before  any 
tiling  of  that  sort  be  passed." 

In  May,*  1769,  Governor  Pownall  most  wisely  moved  to  repeal  the 
revenue  acts  in  North  America.  He  insisted  on  the  wisdom  of  the 
old  system,  the  folly  of  the  experiment  of  the  new  one,  that  of  inter- 
nal taxation.  ."  Matters,"  said  he,  "  are  now  brought  to  a  crisis  at 
which  they  never  will  be  again ;  if  this  occasion  is  now  lost,  it  is  lost 
for  ever.  If  this  session  elapses  with  Parliament's  doing  nothing, 
American  affairs  will  perhaps  be  impracticable  for  ever  after."  —  This 
was  in  May,*  1769.  —  "  You  may  exert  power  over,  but  you  can  never 

*  Hansard  (Pari.  Hist.)  leaves  the  date  uncertain ;  but  an  entry  in  the  Comfiaons 
Journals  (xxxii.  421),  apparently  referring  to  this  matter,  places  it  on  the  19th  of 


AMERICAN  WAR.  667 

govern,  an  unwilling  people  ;  they  will  be  able  to  obstruct  and  pervert 
every  effort  of  your  policy.  —  Their  obedience  is  now,  at  this  crisis, 
at  the  very  lowest  point  that  it  ever  will  be.  On  the  other  hand,  your 
power  is  now  at  its  height.  —  If  you  endeavour  to  press  them  down 
but  one  hair's  breadth  lower,  like  a  spring  they  will  fly  all  to  pieces, 
and  they  will  never  be  brought  to  the  same  point  again."  He  ar- 
gued in  vain,  —  for,  though  the  House  seemed  affected  by  his  reason- 
ings, the  ministers  talked  of  the  late  time  of  the  session,  and  the  gov- 
ernor's motion  was  put  off. 

In  1770,  Lord  North  moved  the  repeal  of  several  offensive  duties; 
but  retained  the  tea  tax,  to  evidence  the  right.  It  was  in  vain  that 
Governor  Pownall  and  others  remonstrated  that  this  would  leave  the 
merchants  of  America  still  in  a  state  of  hostility,  with  us,  resorting  to 
their  non-importation  associations  ;  that  the  right  of  taxation,  not  the 
quantity  of  the  tax,  was  the  point  of  interest  to  them.  ''  The  mer- 
chants," he  said,  "  in  America  and  in  England  are  the  links  of  the 

chain  that  binds  both  countries  together Whatever  opinion 

we  may  superficially  entertain  of  the  operation  and  effect  of  our 
sovereign  government,  commerce^  and  intercommunion  of  our  mutual 
wants  and  supplies,  is  the  real  power  and  spirit  of  attraction  which 
keeps  us  united.  The  operation  of  this  has  been  and  is  at  present 
suspended.  The  repeal  of  the  whole  of  this  act,  which  relates  to  the 
laying  duties  for  the  purpose  therein  specified,  will  alone  take  off  this 
suspension,  and  cement  again  our  union  by  the  best  and  surest  princi 
pie.  The  getting  back  to  this  intercommunion  will  give  us  grounds 
of  agreement,  and  may,  upon  those  grounds,  lead  again  to  that  happy 
spirit  of  government,  under  which  the  people  knew  no  bounds  to  their 
confidence,  no  scruples  in  their  obedience,  and  under  which  govern- 
ment led  the  people  almost  by  enchantment." 

But  in  whatever  point  of  view  this  subject  could  be  placed,  and  on 
every  different  occasion,  the  effect  was  the  same.  It  was  determined 
to  insist  on  the  taxation  of  America. 

In  April,  1774,  "  I  know,"  said  Colonel  Barr^,  "  the  vast  superi 
ority  of  your  disciplined  troops  over  the  provincials ;  but  beware  how 

you  supply  the  want  of  discipline  by  desperation Ask  their 

aid  in  a  constitutional  manner,  and  they  will  give  it  to  the  utmost  of 

their  ability ;  they  never  yet  refused  it,  when  properly  required 

What  madness  is  it  that  prompts  you  to  attempt  obtaining  that  by 
force  which  you  may  more  certainly  procure  by  requisition  ?  They 
may  be  flattered  into  any  thing,  but  they  are  too  much  like  yourselves 
to  be  driven.  Have  some  indulgence  for  your  own  likeness ;  respect 
their  sturdy  English  virtue  ;  retract  your  odious  exertions  of  authori- 

April ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  a  passage  in  a  letter  from  Dr.  Franklin  to  Dr.  Cooper, 

of  Boston,  dated  London,  27  April,  1769  :  —  "  Your  late  governor,  Mr.  Pownall, 

moved  last  week  for  a  repeal  of  the  acts,  .....  but  did  not  succeed.  A  friend  has 
favored  me  with  a  copy  of  the  notes  taken  of  Mr.  Pownall's  speech."  Works,  ed. 
Sparks,  vii.  438-442.  —N. 


dli9  LECTURE  XXXI. 

ty ;  and  remember  that  the  first  step  towards  making  them  contribute 
to  your  wants  is  to  reconcile  them  to  your  government." 

Mr.  Fox,  then  a  young  man,  observed,  that,  if  the  tax  was  per- 
sisted in,  the  country  would  be  forced  into  open  rebellion.  Lord 
North,  on  the  contrary,  that  we  had  only  to  be  firm  and  resolved, 
and  obedience  would  be  the  result.  The  tea  duty  was  therefore  in- 
sisted upon  by  one  hundred  and  eighty-two  to  forty-nine.  It  was  in 
sisted  upon  for  the  purposes  of  sovereignty  and  revenue,  —  and  both 
sovereignty  and  revenue  were  from  that  moment  gone  for  ever. 

Injustice  produces  resistance,  and  one  coercive  measure  is  sure  to 
be  followed  by  another ;  the  usual  progress  of  harsh  government. 
The  province  of  Massachusetts  had  resisted,  and  therefore,  in  the 
April  of  1774,  Lord  North  brought  in  his  bill  for  taking  away  the 
charter,  and  introducing  a  less  popular  form  of  government.  "  The 
Americans,"  said  he,  "  have  tarred  and  feathered  your  subjects, 
plundered  your  merchants,  burnt  your  ships,  denied  all  obedience  to 
your  laws  and  authority;  yet  so  clement  and  so  long-forbearing 
has  our  conduct  been,  that  it  is  incumbent  on  us  now  to  take  a 
different  course."  But  on  the  contrary,  said  Governor  Pownall  in 
reply,  (observe  how  prophetic  was  this  reply,)  "  I  told  this  house 
(it  is  now  four  years  past)  that  the  people  of  America  would  resist 
the  tax  which  lay  then  upon  them;  that  they  would  not  oppose 
power  to  your  power,  but  that  they  would  become  impracticable. 
Have  they  not  been  so  from  that  time  to  this  very  hour  ?  I  tell 
you   now,  that  they  will   resist   the   measures  now  pursued   in   a 

more  vigorous  way The  committees  of  correspondence  in  the 

different  provinces  are  in  constant  communication They  will 

next  hold  a  conference ;  and  to  what  these  committees,  thus  met  in 
congress,  will  grow  up,  I  will  not  say.  Should  matters  ever  come 
to  arms,  you  will  hear  of  other  officers  than  those  appointed  by  your 
governors.  When  matters  once  come  to  that,  it  will  be,  as  it  was  in 
•the  late  civil  wars  of  this  country,  of  little  consequence  to  dispute 
who  were  the  aggressors  ;  that  will  be  merely  matter  of  opinion.  It 
is  of  more  consequence,  at  this  moment,  so  to  act,  to  take  such  meas- 
ures, that  no  such  misfortune  may  come  into  event." 

"  My  lords,"  said  Lord  Chatham,  ih  1774,  "  this  country  is  little 
obliged  to  the  framers  and  promoters  of  this  tea  tax.  The  Ameri- 
cans had  almost  forgot,  in  their  excess  of  gratitude  for  the  repeal  of 

the  Stamp  Act,  any  interest  but  that  of  the  mother  country 

This  temper  would  have  continued,  had  it  not  been  interrupted  by 

your  fruitless  endeavours  to  tax  them  without  their  consent 

I  am  an  old  man,  and  would  advise  the  noble  lords  in  office  to  adopt 

a  more  gentle  mode  of  governing  America Such  proceedings 

will  never  meet  their  wished-for  success Instead  of  those 

harsh  and  severe  proceedings,  pass  an  amnesty  on  all  their  youthftd 
errors ;  clasp  them  once  more  in  your  fond  and  affectionate  arms ; 


AMERICAN  WAR.  669 

and  I  win  venture  to  affirm,  you  will  find  them  children  worthy  of 
their  sire.  But  should  their  turbulence  exist  after  your  proffered 
terms  of  forgiveness,  which  I  hope  and  expect  this  house  will  immedi- 
ately adopt,  I  will  be  among  the  foremost  of  your  lordships  to  move 
for  such  measures  as  will  effectually  prevent  a  future  relapse,  and 
make  them  feel  what  it  is  to  provoke  a  fond  and  forgiving  parent,  — 
a  parent,  my  lords,  whose  welfare  has  ever  been  my  greatest  and 
most  pleasing  consolation.  This  declaration  may  seem  unnecessary  ; 
but  I  will  venture  to  declare,  the  period  is  not  far  distant  when  she 
will  want  the  assistance  of  her  most  distant  friends.  But  should  the 
all-disposing  hand  of  Providence  prevent  me  from  affording  her  my 
poor  assistance,  my  prayers  shall  be  ever  for  her  welfare.  Length 
of  days  be  in  her  right  hand,  and  in  her  left  hand  riches  and  honor ! 
May  her  ways  be  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  her  paths  be  peace  !  " 

But  neither  could  ministers  listen  in  one  house  to  the  excellent 
sensfe  and  local  information  of  Governor  Pownall,  nor  be  moved  in  the 
other  by  these  affecting  appeals  of  Lord  Chatham,  —  by  these  effu- 
sions of  a  generous  and  magnanimous  spirit,  the  true  and  only  source 
t)f  all  eloquence  commanding  as  his. 

I  had  made  many  other  extracts  to  the  same  purport  as  those  now 
given,  but  I  omit  them,  for  my  lecture  is  already  too  long.  You  will 
look  at  the  examination  of  Mr.  Penn,  at  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Wilkes, 
Mr.  Fuller,  and  others,  and  at  the  speech  of  Sergeant  Adair,  in  Oc- 
tober, 1T75.  I  can  only  now  refer  you  to  them  ;  the  notices  I  have 
already  taken  of  the  debates  in  the  houses  are  sufficiently  strong  and 
numerous  to  indicate  how  wise  and  prophetic  was  the  general  strain 
of  those  who  resisted  the  measure  of  coercion  and  taxation,  so  long 
and  so  unhappily  persevered  in  from  the  unfortunate  dismission  of  the 
Hockingham  administration. 

And  why  these  prophecies  were  uttered  in  vain,  and  why  this  sys- 
tem was  either  originally  adopted,  or  afterwards  pursued,  with  the 
general  countenance  of  the  people  of  this  country,  can  only,  I  think, 
be  thoroughly  explained,  first,  by  a  reference  to  the  sentiment  which 
I  first  alluded  to,  —  an  opinion  that  our  cause  was  just,  that  the 
Americans  were  rebellious  and  ungrateful ;  and,  secondly,  very  dis- 
creditably (to  us),  by  a  reference  to  such  causes  as  I  have  enu- 
merated, —  ignorance  of  political  economy,  blind  selfishness,  national 
pride,  high  principles  of  government,  and,  on  the  whole,  a  certain 
vulgarity  of  thinking  on  political  subjects,  which  if  I  could  prepare 
your  minds  hereafter  to  avoid,  I  confess,  I  should  consider  as  one  of 
the  greatest  objects  which  these  lectures  could  accomplish. 


72 


670  LECTURE  XXXIL 


LECTURE     XXXII 


AMERICAN  WAR. 

In  the  lecture  of  yesterday,  I  endeavoured  to  state  to  you,  in  the 
first  place,  the  interest  that  belongs  to  the  subject  of  the  American 
war.  I  next  reminded  you  of  the  general  principles  that  belong  to 
the  subject  of  nations  connected  with  each  other,  —  a  parent  state 
and  colonies,  for  instance  ;  such  general  principles  as  I  had  submitted 
to  your  consideration  when  I  treated  of  the  Union  with  Scotland.  I 
then  enumerated  to  you  the  original  works  which  I  thought  you  might 
consult ;  then  those  which  you  might  read  ;  then  those,  lastly,  which 
must  be  read,  which  are  entirely  indispensable. 

I  then  proceeded  to  state  to  you  what  had  been  the  causes  that,  as 
far  as  the  ministers  and  people  of  England  were  concerned,  had  led 
to  this  important  contest.  The  first  of  these  causes  I  stated  to  be- 
one  not  in  its  sentiment  discreditable  to  us :  a  general  notion  in  the 
Enghsh  nation  that  their  cause  was  just ;  that  the  sovereignty  was  in 
the  parent  state  ;  that  in  this  right  was  included  the  right  of  taxation  ; 
and  that,  as  we  had  protected  &e  Americans  from  France,  they  were 
ungrateful  as  well  as  rebelKous.  But  I  then  proceeded  to  state  that 
this  sentiment  would  never  have  produced  the  American  war,  if  not 
excited  and  exasperated  by  other  considerations.  These  other  re- 
maining causes  of  the  American  war  I  considered  as  very  discreditable 
to  us ;  and  I  first  stated  them,  and  endeavoured  to  illustrate  them  by 
quotations  from  the  different  speeches  of  remarkable  men  at  the  time, 
in  the  debates  of  the  two  houses. 

To-day  I  mean  to  illustrate  them  by  a  reference  to  a  few  of  the 
best  pamphlets  that  appeared.  But  you  will  observe,  that  to-day,  as 
yesterday,  I  cannot  stay  to  weigh  and  contrast  the  relative  merit  and 
value  of  each  argument,  nor  can  I  stay  to  point  out  the  application 
of  what  I  am  reading  to  the  causes  whose  operation  I  am  anxious  to 
illustrate.  This  you  must  do  yourselves.  I  think  it,  therefore,  best 
on  many  accounts,  more  particularly  for  the  accommodation  of  those 
who  might  be  absent  yesterday,  and  at  the  hazard  of  appearing  tedi- 
ous to  many  of  those  who  were  present,  once  more  to  state  what 
those  causes  were.  Those  causes,  I  must  repeat  it  again  and  again, 
were  highly  discreditable  to  the  ministers  and  people  of  this  country. 

I  am  compelled  to  beheve,  that,  if  similar  questions  were  to  come 
before  us  to-morrow,  we  should  be  not  much  better  or  wiser  than 
those  who  went  before  us.  Now  when  we  read  history,  we  do  noth- 
ing, unless  we  convert  it  to  some  purposes  of  moral  discipline.  It 
seems  eternally  forgotten,  that  men,  in  their  collective  capacity  as 


AMERICAN  WAR.  571 

nations,  may  be,  and  often  are,  guilty  of  the  same  follies,  faults,  and 
crimes  that  they  can  commit  as  individuals  in  the  common  relations 
of  social  life  ;  that  they  may  be  just  as  ill-humored,  or  resentful,  or 
unreasonable,  or  ferocious,  or  wicked ;  that  their  good  or  bad  passions 
enter  with  them  into  cabinets,  and  senates,  and  public  meetings,  just 
as  they  do  into  drawing-rooms,  or  studies,  or  their  family  diring- 
rooms.  He  is  not  likely  to  speak  a  language  very  agreeable,  who 
either  in  the  one  case  or  the  other  assumes  the  office  of  a  censor ;  but 
it  is  the  proper  office,  not  unfrequently,  of  a  lecturer  on  history,  for 
it  is  the  great  office  of  history  itself ;  and  therefore  I  shall  now  once 
more  state  (that  you  may  in  this  and  the  succeeding  lectures  see  the 
application  of  what  I  read)  the  causes  which  I  yesterday  mentioned 
as  operating  so  fatally  and  so  disgracefully  to  the  people  of  Great 
Britain  on  this  memorable  occasion.  Stated  in  as  few  words  as  pos- 
sible, they  were  these  :  — 

The  first  cause  was  an  ignorance  of,  or  inattention  to,  the  great 
leading  principles  of  political  economy.  Secondly,  high,  overween- 
ing national  pride.  Thirdly,  a  mean  and  unworthy  money  selfish- 
ness. Fourthly,  high  principles  of  government.  Fifthly,  a  certain 
vulgarity  of  thinking  on  pohtical  subjects. 

I  now  proceed  to  illustrate  the  operation  of  these  causes  by  a 
reference  to  some  of  the  pamphlets  that  appeared  during  this  un- 
happy contest. 

One  of  the  most  celebrated  political  writers  of  the  time  was  Tucker, 
the  Dean  of  Gloucester.  He  comes  not  entirely  within  the  descrip- 
tion I  have  given  of  the  majority  of  the  statesmen  and  people  of  Eng- 
land, for  he  was  far  superior  to  most  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  sci- 
ence of  political  economy.  He  was  a  zealous  advocate  for  the  sys- 
tem of  free  trade,  and  boldly  advised  that  the  Americans  should  be 
left  to  themselves,  saying  very  wisely  (very  foolishly,  as  it  was  then 
thought),  that  we  should  have  the  benefit  of  their  commerce,  whether 
they  were  our  colonies  or  not ;  for  our  skill,  our  industry,  and  our 
capital,  he  insisted,  would  always  give  us  a  preference  in  every  mar- 
ket, and  that  these  were  the  secrets  of  our  commercial  prosperity,  not 
the  bounties  and  drawbacks  of  the  custom-house  or  the  monopolies  of 
colonization ;  that  the  Americans  would  be  our  customers,  whether 
independent  or  not. 

Here,  however,  the  superior  and  the  memorable  wisdom  of  Tucker 
seems  to  me  to  have  ceased.  By  one  of  those  strange  inconsistencies 
of  which  the  human  mind  is  capable,  the  same  man  who  was  pene- 
trating and  liberal,  where  the  riches  of  a  community  were  concerned, 
was  narrow  and  harsh,  without  elevation  and  without  refinement, 
where  the  still  dearer  riches  of  a  community,  the  free  principles  of 
its  government,  were  brought  into  question.  He  would  have  set  free 
the  American  States  on  the  genuine  principles  of  the  free  system  of 
trade,  which  he  had  adopted ;  but  on  the  genuine  principles  of  arbi- 


672  LECTURE  XXXII. 

trary  rule,  which  he  had  also  adopted,  he  would  have  bound  their 
leaders  in  chains,  and  their  patriots  in  links  of  h"on.  Of  his  Tracts, 
which  are  all  worth  reading,  the  Fourth  was  meant  to  show  the  wis- 
dom of  parting  with  the  colonies  entirely,  and  then  making  leagues 
of  friendship  with  them  as  with  so  many  independent  states :  a  bold 
idea  to  be  conceived  so  early  as  1766,*  and  very  happily  contrasted, 
for  the  credit  of  the  dean,  with  th^  paltry  notions  on  government  with 
which  his  works  abound. 

Of  the  Third  Tract,  which  is  full  of  the  notions  I  have  taken  upon 
me  to  censure,  I  will  now  endeavour  to  give  you  a  specimen,  as  more 
immediately  to  our  present  purpose,  and  as  descriptive,  I  have  no 
doubt,  of  the  reasonings  of  most  of  the  people  of  England  at  that 
time.f 

"  What  is  it  you  mean,"  said  the  dean,  addressing  a  supposed 
nephew  in  America,  "  by  repeating  to  me  so  often  in  every  letter, 
The  spirit  of  the  constitution  f  According  to  this  spirit,  an  Ameri- 
can insists  that  he  ought  not  to  be  taxed  without  his  own  consent, 
given  either  by  himself  or  by  a  representative  in  Parhament  chosen 
by  himself.  Why  ought  he  not  ?  And  doth  the  constitution  say,  in 
so  many  words,  that  he  ought  not  ?  or  doth  it  say  that  every  man 
either  hath,  or  ought  to  have,  or  was  intended  to  have,  a  vote 
for  a  member  of  Parliament  ?  No,  by  no  means  ;  the  constitution 
says  no  such  thing.  —  '  But  the  spirit  of  it  doth.'  —  But  observe. 
Magna  Charta  is  the  basis  of  the  English  constitution.  But,  by  the 
spirit  of  Magna  Charta,  all  taxes  laid  on  by  Parliament  are  constitu- 
tional, legal  taxes.  Now  the  late  tax  of  duties  upon  stamps  was  laid 
on  by  Parliament,  and  therefore,  according  to  your  own  way  of  rea- 
Boning,  must  have  been  a  regular,  constitutional,  legal  tax. 

"  Let  us  from  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  come  to  the  constitu- 
tion itself.  The  first  emigrants  who  settled  in  America  were  cer 
tainly  English  subjects,  subject  to  the  laws  and  jurisdiction  of  Parliar 
ment,  and  consequently  to  Parliamentary  taxes,  before  their  emigra- 
tion; and  therefore  subject  afterwards,  unless  some  legal,  consti- 
tutional exemption  can  be  produced.  If  you  have  it,  why  do  not 
you  produce  it  ?  —  *  The  king,'  you  say,  '  hath  granted  charters  of 
exemption  to  the  American  colonies.'  —  Could  he  legally  and  consti- 
tutionally grant  you  such  a  charter  ?  Did  he  ever  so  much  as  at- 
tempt to  do  it  ? 

"  What  is  it  which  you  have  next  to  offer  ?  *  0,  the  unreasonable- 
ness, the  injustice,  and  the  cruelty  of  taxing  a  free  people,  without  per- 

♦  First  printed  in  1774.  The  date  given  in  the  text,  1766,  is  that  of  the  Third 
Tract.    Rich's  Bib.  Amer.  Nova,  p  203.  —  N. 

t  The  quotations  lierc  given  from  Dean  Tucker  are  so  much  in  the  nature  of  a  mere 
analysis  of  his  Tract,  that  any  attempt  to  note  the  breaks  would  greatly  encumber  the 
page,  and  serve  only  to  embarrass  the  reader.  The  same  remark  will  apply  also  to  a 
large  part  of  the  extracts  which  follow  from  other  authors.  It  is  thought  best,  ther^- 
fore,  in  these  cases,  to  dispense  with  the  usual  marks  of  interruption.  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  573 

mitting  them  to  have  representatives  of  their  own  to  answer  for  them, 
and  to  maintain  their  fundamental  rights  and  privileges !  *  —  Strange, 
that,  though  the  British  Parliament  has  been  from  the  beginning  thua 
unreasonable,  thus  unjust  and  cruel  towards  you,  by  levying  taxes  on 
many  commodities  outwards  and  inwards,  —  strange  that  you  did  not 
discover  these  bad  things  before !  And  what  a  pity  it  is  that  you  have 
been  slaves  for  so  many  generations,  and  yet  did  not  know  that  you 
were  slaves  until  now  ! 

"  Pray  what  are  these  constitutional  rights  and  liberties  which  are 
refused  to  you  ?  You  cannot  have  the  face  to  assert,  that,  on  an 
election  day,  any  difference  is  put  between  the  vote  of  a  man  bom 
in  America  and  of  one  born  here  in  England.  But  the  cause  of 
your  complaint  is  this,  —  thai  you  live  at  too  great  a  distance  from 
the  mother  country  to  be  present  at  our  English  elections.  If  you 
yourselves  do  choose  to  make  it  inconvenient  for  you  to  come  and 
vote,  by  retiring  into  distant  countries,  what  is  that  to  us  ?  Grant- 
ing that  the  colonies  are  unrepresented  in  the  British  Parliament ; 
so  are  six  millions,  at  least,  of  the  inhabitants  of  Great  Britain.  Yet 
we  raise  no  commotions,  but  submit  to  be  taxed  without  being  repre- 
sented, and  taxed  too,  let  me  tell  you,  for  your  sakes.  Suppose, 
however,  an  augmentation  to  take  place  in  our  House  of  Commons ; 
our  two  millions  represented  have  five  hundred  and  fifty-eight  mem- 
bers, and  therefore  our  six  miUions  unrepresented  will  require  one 
thousand  six  hundred  and  seventy-four,  and  your  two  millions,  five 
hundred  and  fifty-eight  more  ;  in  all,  two  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
ninety :  a  goodly  number,  truly  !  0  the  decency  and  order  of  such 
an  assembly ! 

"  But  the  complaint  itself  of  "being  unrepresented  is  entirely  false 
and  groundless.  We  are  all  represented.  Every  member  of  Par- 
liament represents  you  and  me,  and  our  public  interests,  in  all 
essential  points,  just  as  much  as  if  we  had  voted  for  him.  But  per- 
haps you  will  say,  he  will  regard  that  most  which  can  best  promote 
his  own  interest.  It  may  be  so.  What  system  can  there  be  de- 
vised but  may  be  attended  with  inconveniences  and  imperfections  in 
some  respect  or  other  ? 

" '  But  the  inexpediency,'  you  say,  *  and  excessiveness  of  such 
a  tax  ! '  —  Excessiveness  depends  upon  the  relative  poverty  and  in- 
abihty  of  those  who  are  to  pay  it.  But  the  fact  is,  that,  when  we 
raise  about  eight  milhons  of  money  annually  upon  eight  millions  of 
persons,  we  expect  that  you  would  contribute  one  hundred  thousand 
pounds  to  be  raised  on  two  millions ;  that  is,  we  pay  twenty  shillings 
per  head,  and  you  one  shilling !     Blush,  blush  for  shame,"  &c.,  &c. 

"  Upon  the  whole,  therefore,  what  is  the  cause  of  such  an  amazing 
outcry  ?  Not  the  stamp  duty  itself ;  this  is  a  mere  sham  and  pre- 
tence. You  are  exasperated  against  the  mother  country  on  account 
of  the  revival  of  certain  restrictions  laid  upon  your  trade.     An 


674  LECTURE  xxxn. 

American  will  ever  complain  and  smuggle,  and  smuggle  and  com- 
plain, till  all  restraints  are  removed.  Any  thing  short  of  this  is  still 
a  grievance,  a  badge  of  slavery,  an  usurpation  on  the  natural  rights 
and  liberties  of  a  free  people,  and  I  know  not  how  many  bad  things 
besides. 

"  Your  second  grievance  is,  that  you  are  sorely  concerned  that  you 
cannot  pay  your  British  debts  with  an  American  sponge.  An  intol- 
erable grievance  this,"  &c.,  &c. 

"  Your  third  grievance  is  the  sovereignty  of  Great  Britain.  For 
you  want  to  be  independent,"  &c.,  &c. 

"  In  short,  the  sword  is  the  only  choice  which  you  will  permit  us 
to  make.  I  do  not  think  that  we  have  any  cause  to  fear  the  event. 
A  British  army  will  hardly  fly  before, an  American  mob.  Yet  I  am 
not  for  having  recourse  to  military  operations. 

*'  If  we  oblige  you  to  pay  your  debts,  and  then  have  no  further 
connection  with  you  as  a  dependent  state  or  colony,  under  the  press- 
ures and  calamities  that  would  ensue,  your  deluded  countrymen  will 
certainly  open  their  eyes  at  last,  will  heartily  wish  and  petition  to  be 
again  united  to  the  mother  country,"  &c.,  &c. 

Such  were  the  reasonings  of  the  Dean  of  Gloucester.  I  will  now 
turn  to  a  pamphlet  of  another  description,  written  by  Robinson,  of 
which  the  expostulations  and  arguments  were,  I  conclude,  thought  at 
the  time  as  idle  and  unreasonable,  by  the  generality  of  men,  as  the 
dean's  were  thought  judicious  and  convincing.  The  author  writes  in 
May,  1774,*  just  at  the  time  when  Lord  North  had  carried  his  Boston 
Port  Bill,  &c.,  &c. 

"  The  opposition  and  disturbances,"  says  he,  "  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  violent  laws,  motions,  and  preparations  on  the  other,  all  un- 
doubtedly proceed  from  our  having  taxed  the  colonies  without  their 
consent.  The  right  itself  of  this  measure  is  in  question,  as  well  as 
the  expediency  of  it. 

"  The  inhabitants  of  the  colonies  have,  by  many  and  various  means, 
acquired  many  and  various  sorts  of  property.  They  have  a  right  to 
freedom  in  their  governments,  and  to  security  in  their  persons  and 
properties  ;  none  are  warranted  to  deprive  or  dispossess  them  of  these 
things.  These  principles  are  with  us  common  and  pubhc  ;  they  were 
the  principles  of  our  ancestors,  and  are  the  principles  which  such  men 
as  Mr.  Locke,  Lord  Molesworth,  and  Mr.  Trenchard  maintained  with 
their  pens,  Mr.  Hampden  and  Lord  John  Russell  with  their  blood, 
and  Mr.  Algernon  Sidney  with  both.  They  are  likewise  the  real 
principles  of  our  present  actual  government,  the  principles  of  the 
Revolution,  and  those  on  which  are  established  the  throne  of  the  king 
and  the  settlement  of  the  illustrious  family  now  reigning  over  us. 

*  The  pamjihlet  referred  to  (entitled  Considerations  on  the  Measures  carrying  on 
with  Respect  to  tlie  British  Colonies  in  North  America)  bears  the  date  of  April,  1774. 
See  also  p.  577,  post.  —  N. 


•  AMERICAN  WAR.  575 

"  Suppose  one  person  to  have  in  his  pocket  an  hundred  pounds,  but 
another  to  have  the  right  to  take  it  from  him  and  to  put  it  into  his 
own  pocket,  or  to  do  with  it  what  he  pleases  ;  to  whom  does  that  money 
belong  ? 

"  But  in  the  case  of  the  Americans,  if  it  is  said  that  the  money 
raised  on  them  is  to  be  employed  for  their  own  benefit,  in  their  civil 
service,  or  military  defence,  let  me  ask,  then.  Who  are  to  determine 
whether  any  money  is  at  all  wanted  for  such  purposes,  —  they  who 
pay  it,  oi*they  who  take  it  ?  They  who  take  it.  Who  are  to  deter- 
mine the  quantity  wanted,  —  how  often  it  is  wanted,  —  whether  it  is 
really  laid  out  in  the  purposes  pretended  ?     Still  they  who  take  it. 

"  Is  this,  then,  on  the  one  hand,  a  reasonable  ground  whereon  to 
throw  the  mother  country  and  her  North  American  colonies  into  the 
most  deadly  feuds,  and  perhaps  a  direct  war  with  one  another  ?  Is 
it  not,  on  the  other  hand,  a  proposition  contrary  to  the  principles 
whereon  our  forefathers  defended,  and  under  the  sanction  of  which 
they  have  deUvered  down  to  us,  the  rights  and  properties  which  Eng- 
lishmen now  enjoy  ? 

"  Our  colonies  are  content  that  we  should  at  our  pleasure  regulate 
their  trade,  but  they  deny  that  we  shall  tax  them.  Why  cannot  we 
content  us  with  the  Hne  drawn  by  themselves  ? 

"  But  may  not  they  in  time  extend  their  objections  to  this  also  ? 
All  the  whole  of  our  colonies  must,  no  doubt,  one  day,  without  force 
or  violence,  fall  off  from  the  parent  state.  But  why  should  we  shake 
the  fruit  unripe  from  the  tree,  because  it  will  of  course  drop  off  when 
it  shall  in  due  season  have  become  fit  and  ripe  for  that  purpose  ? 

"  There  are,  no  doubt,  in  all  governments,  many  most  important 
points  unsettled  and  undetermined.  It  is  very  much  the  part  of 
every  prudent  ruler  to  avoid  with  the  utmost  care  and  solicitude  all 
measures  which  may  possibly  bring  any  such  critical  circumstances 
into  public  debate  and  dispute. 

"  The  present  accursed  question  between  us  and  our  colonies,  how 
long  was  it  unknown  or  unthought  of !  Who  heard  of  it,  from  the 
first  rise  of  those  settlements,  until  a  very  few  years  ago  ?  But  it  is 
now  already  setting  at  work  fleets  and  armies,''  &c.,  &c. 

"  The  claim  of  the  Americans  not  to  be  taxed  by  us  here  in  Eng 
land  rests  on  the  special  constitution  of  Great  Britain,  which  requires 
that  representation  should  go  along  with  taxation.  However,  it 
has  been  said  that  the  Americans  are  in  our  Parliament  virtually 
represented.  How  that  should  be,  when  they  are  not  really  so,  I 
shall  leave  to  be  explained  by  those  who  advance  it.  Arguments 
tending  to  demonstrate  that  the  House  of  Commons  does  not,  in 
its  present  state,  represent  us  inhabiting  here  must  be  most  strange 
ones  to  produce  for  the  proving  that  it  does  represent  our  colonies 
lying  beyond  the  Atlantic  Ocean  ;  such  points  seem  much  more  proper 
to  raise  scruples  among  ourselves  at  home  than  to  satisfy  and  appease 
those  of  people  abroad. 


676  LECTURE  xxxn.  # 

"  But  is  there  any  medium  ?  Must  not  we  either  rigorously  en- 
force obedience  from  our  colonies  or  at  once  generously  declare  them 
free  and  independent  of  all  allegiance  to  the  cro^vn  of  Great  Britain  ? 
To  which  I  answer,  If  there  is  a  medium  between  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  why  may  there  not  be  also  between  Great  Britain  and  North 
America  ? 

"  But  I  may  be  told  that  the  great  do  everywhere  bear  hard  on 
the  little,  the  strong  on  the  weak ;  that  our  debts  are  very  heavy, 
and  our  resources  but  too  nearly  at  an  end ;  that  we  have  yet 
fleets  and  armies,  and  are  determined  to  bend  to  our  will  our  colonies 
of  America,  and  to  make  them  subservient  to  our  wants  and  occa- 
sions. I  answer,  that  you  cannot  force  them.  What  expectation  or 
probability  can  there  be  of  sending  from  hence  armies  capable  to 
conquer  and  subdue  so  great  a  force  of  men,  defending  and  defended 
by  such  a  continent  ?  —  But  are  they  united  among  themselves  ?  In 
the  cause  of  not  being  taxed  by  us,  it  is  well  understood  how  much 
they  are  so.  How  can  we  expect  otherwise  ?  They  are  not  unac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  the  mother  country.  —  But  what  if  one  or 
more  of  the  greatest  powers  in  Europe  should  in  a  most  critical  and 
difficult  moment  declare  war  against  us  ?  Have  France  and  Spain 
forgot  the  loss  of  Canada  and  Georgia  ?  Were  the  cabinets  of  Ver- 
sailles and  Madrid  united  in  council,  what  measure  would  they  diive 
and  push  us  upon  before  this  very  one  which  we  are  now  of  ourselves 
so  fatally  and  so  madly  running  upon  ? 

"  Instead  of  taxing,  give  a  greater  liberty  and  latitude  of  trade, 
both  to  Ireland  and  to  America,  to  America  including  our  West 
India  islands.  The  riches  and  treasure  of  the  more  distant  and  de- 
pendent parts  of  our  empire  cannot  fail  to  flow  in  upon  us.  We 
nave  nothing  to  do  with  little  jealousies  about  this  trade  or  that  manu- 
facture. Freedom  of  trade  is  our  foundation.  This  must  enrich  the 
centre  of  empire,  and  cannot  therefore  likewise  but  increase  its  reve- 
nue. 

"  The  stopping  up  the  port  of  Boston,  the  new  laws  given  to 
Massachusetts  Bay,  will,  no  doubt,  be  received  in  America  as  a 
declaration  of  war,  and  depend  upon  the  same  issue  ;  it  must  be  by 
force  and  conquest,  if  they  submit.  It  is  probably  not  a  month 
or  a  year  that  will  finally  determine  this  affair.  The  authors  of 
these  measures,  no  doubt,  expect  that  the  removal  of  the  custom- 
nouse  and  the  suspension  of  the  trade  of  Boston  will  bring  these  peo- 
ple on  their  knees.  They  may  nevertheless  find  themselves  much 
mistaken  in  the  event. 

"  Some  say  that  all  the  contradiction  and  opposition  of  America 
originates  from  home,  and  that  it  is  only  the  faction  of  England  which 
catches  there.  Nothing,  perhaps,  testifies  a"  greater  ignorance  of 
the  true  state  of  that  country  than  such  a  notion.  Let  any  man 
place  himself  in  America ;  imagine  himself  bom,  bred,  resident,  and 


AMERICAN  WAR.  577 

having  all  his  concerns  and  fortune  there.  Let  then  any  such  man 
candidly  and  fairly  ask  himself  in  his  own  breast,  what  he  should  in 
that  situation  think  of  being  taxed  at  Westminster." 

Such  is  the  general  strain  of  this  pamphlet,  written  in  April,  1774  ; 
and  in  November  of  the  same  year  an  appendix  was  added.  "  Time 
and  events,"  says  the  author,  "  have,  in  the  short  intervening  space 
of  seven  months,  but  too  plainly  and  too  strongly  confirmed  my  opin- 
ions." He  then  goes  on  to  describe  the  fulfilment  of  his  prophecies, 
to  contrast  the  language  that  was  held  by  others  with  the  event,  and 
to  recommend  that  any  propositions  that  might  come  from  Congress 
might  be  made  the  ground  of  a  future  settlement.  He  observed,  that 
"  Charles  the  First  granted  ten  times  more  at  last  than  would  have 
contented  and  have  satisfied  at  first" ;  and  he  predicted  that  France 
and  Spain  would  interfere  against  us,  when  we  were,  he  said,  "  like  a 
fish  in  a  net,  entangled  beyond  the  power  of  getting  free."  These 
reasonings  were  addressed  to  the  public  in  vain. 

I  will  now  give  one  representation  more,  in  addition-  to  Dean 
Tucker's,  of  arguments  on  the  other  side,  such  as  were  probably  in 
the  mouth  of  every  man.  The  celebrated  Dr.  Johnson,  a  writer  to 
whom  the  thoughtful  and  virtuous  part  of  every  community  are  so 
deeply  indebted,  one  into  whose  pages  no  man  ever  looked  for  a 
single  moment  without  seeing  something  either  to  strike  or  improve 
him,  —  Dr.  Johnson  condescended  to  write  a  pamphlet,  as  others  had 
done,  —  Taxation  no  Tyranny,  —  and  his  production  exemplifies,  as 
I  coifceive,  every  position  which  I  have  laid  down.  He  was  not,  in- 
deed, ignorant  of  pohtical  economy,  but  on  this  occasion  he  disre- 
garded all  its  principles ;  and  having  been  originally  a  sort  of  Jaco- 
bite, and  long  habituated  to  lay  down  in  a  boisterous  manner  what  are 
called  Tory  principles  in  church  and  state,  the  present  was  an  occa- 
sion that  could  not  fail  to  call  forth  all  those  particular  opinions  which 
so  unhappily  obscured  and  betrayed  the  great  mind  of  this  most  re- 
spectable defender,  on  every  other  occasion,  of  the  best  interests  of 
mankind. 

The  pamphlet  was  published  in  1775.  After  some  prefatory  re- 
marks, the  Doctor  arrives  at  the  main  point  in  dispute.  "  There  are 
those  who  tell  us  that  to  tax  the  colonies  is  usurpation  and  oppres- 
sion, an  invasion  of  natural  'and  legal  rights,  and  a  violation  of  those 
principles  which  support  the  constitution  of  English  government." 

With  these  positions  of  his  opponents  the  Doctor  struggles  through 
many  pages.  He  affirms,  that  "  to  him  that  considers  the  nature, 
the ,  original,  the  progress,  and  the  constitution  of  the  colonies,  it 
will  not  be  doubted  but  the  Parliament  of  England  has  a  right  to 
bind  them  by  statutes,  and  to  bind  them  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  and 
has  therefore  a  natural  and  constitutional  power,  of  laying  upon  them 
any  tax  or  impost,  whether  external  or  internal,  for  any  end  bene- 
ficial to  the  empire." 

73  WW 


578  LECTURE  XXXII. 

*.*  There  are  some,"  says  he,  "  who  except  the  power  cf  taxation 
from  the  general  dominion  of  Parliament."  "  Of  this  exception," 
says  he,  "  which,  by  a  head  not  fully  impregnated  with  politics,  is 
not  easily  comprehended,  it  is  alleged,  as  an  unanswerable  reason, 
that  the  colonies  send  no  representatives  to  the  House  of  Commons." 
To  this  his  answer  is,  that  the  argument  proves  too  much ;  that  the 
right  of  making  any  other  laws,  civil  or  criminal,  might  be  equally  de- 
nied ;  that  this  last  power  was  never  disputed  ;  and  that  the  reception 
of  any  law  draws  after  it  the  necessity  of  submitting  also  to  taxation. 

"  That  a  free  man  is  governed  by  himself,"  he  continues,  "or  by 
laws  to  which  he  has  consented,  is  a  position  of  mighty  sound ;  but 
every  man  that  utters  it  feels  it  to  be  false.  The  business  of  the 
public  must  be  done  by  delegation.  The  choice  of  delegates  is  made 
by  a  select  number,  and  those  who  are  not  electors  stand  idle  and 
helpless  spectators.  As  all  are  born  the  subjects  of  some  state  or 
other,  we  may  be  said  to  have  been  all  born  consenting  to  some  sys- 
tem of  government.  Other  consent  than  this  the  condition  of  civil 
life  does  not  allow ;  it  is  the  delirious  dream  of  republican  fanaticism. 
He  who  goes  voluntarily  to  America  cannot  complain  of  losing  what 
he  leaves  in  Europe.  He  is  represented,  as  himself  desired,  in  the 
general  representation.  The  colonists  have  not,  by  abandoning  their 
part  in  one  legislature,  obtained  the  power  of  constituting  another. 

"  It  is  urged,"  says  the  Doctor,  "  that  the  Americans  have  not  the 
same  security,  and  that  a  British  legislator  may  wanton  with  tkeir 
property.  Yet  the  Parliament  has  the  same  interest  in  attending  to 
them  as  to  any  other  part  of  the  nation.  We  are  as  secure  against 
intentional  depravations  of  government  as  human  wisdom  can  make 
us,  and  upon  this  security  the  Americans  may  venture  to  repose. 

"  When  they  apply  to  our  compassion,  by  telling  us  that  they  are  to 
be  carried  from  their  own  country,  to  be  tried  for  certain  offences,  we 
are  not  so  ready  to  pity  them  as  to  advise  them  not  to  offend.  While 
they  are  innocent,  they  are  safe. 

"  When  they  tell  of  laws  made  expressly  for  their  punishment,  we 
answer,  that  tumults  and  sedition  were  always  punishable,  and  that 
the  new  law  prescribes  only  the  mode  of  execution. 

"  If  frauds  in  the  imposts  of  Boston  are. tried  by  commission  with- 
out a  jury,  they  are  tried  here  in  the  same  mode.  If  they  are  con- 
demned unheard,  it  is  because  there  is  no  need  of  a  trial ;  the  crime 
is  manifest  and  notorious.  All  trial  is  the  investigation  of  something 
doubtful.  That  the  same  vengeance  involves  the  innocent  and 
.  guilty  is  an  evil  to  be  lamented ;  but  human  caution  cannot  prevent 
it,*  nor  human  power  always  redress  it.  To  bring  misery  on  those 
who  have  not  deserved  it  is  part  of  the  aggregated  guilt  of  rebel- 
lion. 

"  When  subordinate  communities  oppose  the  decrees  of  the  general 
legislature  with  defiance  thus  audacious  and  malignity  thus  acrimdu- 


AMERICAN   WAR.  579 

• 

ous,  nothing  remains  but  to  conquer  or  to  yield,  —  to  allow  their  claim 
of  independence,  or  to  reduce  them  by  force  to  submission  and  allegi- 
ance. Yet  there  have  risen  up,  in  the  face  of  the  public,  men 
who,  by  whatever  corruptions  or  whatever  infatuation,  have  under- 
taken to  defend  the  Americans,  endeavour  to  shelter  them  from  re- 
sentment, and  propose  reconciliation  without  submission. 

"  The  Dean  of  Gloucester  has  proposed,  and  seems  to  propose  it 
seriously,  that  we  should  at  once  release  our  claims,  declare  them 
masters  of  themselves,  and  whistle  them  down  the  wind.  It  is, 
however,  a  little  hard,  that,  having  so  lately  fought  and  conquered 
for  their  safety,  we  should  govern  them  no  longer.  One  wild  pro- 
posal is  best  answered  by  another.  Let  us  restore  to  the  French 
what  we  have  taken  from  them.  We  shall  see  our  colonists  at  our 
feet,  when  they  have  an  enemy  so  near  them. 

"  It  seems  to  be  determined  by  the  legislature  that  force  shall  be 
tried.  I  cannot  forbear  to  wish  that  this  commotion  may  end 
without  bloodshed,  and  that  the  rebels  may  be  subdued  by  terror 
rather  than  by  violence  ;  and  therefore  recommend  such  a  force  as 
may  take  away,  not  only  the.  power,  but  the  hope,  of  resistance. 
If  their  obstinacy  continues  without  actual  hostilities,  it  may  perhaps 
be  mollified  by  turning  out  the  soldiers  to  free  quarters,  forbidding 
any  personal  cruelty  or  hurt.  It  has  been  proposed  that  the  slaves 
should  be  set  free,  —  an  act  which  surely  the  lovers  of  liberty  cannot 
but  commend.  If  they  are  furnished  with  fire-arms  for  defence,  and 
utensils  for  husbandry,  and  settled  in  some  simple  form  of  govern- 
ment w^ithin  the  country,  they  may  be  more  grateful  and  honest 
than  their  masters.  Since  the  Americans  have  made  it  necessary 
tib  subdue  them,  may  they  be  subdued  with  the  least  injury  possible 
to  their  persons  and  their  possessions. 

"  We  are  told  that  the  subjection  of  Americans  may  tend  to  the 
diminution  of  our  own  liberties,  —  an  event  which  none  but  very  per- 
spicacious politicians  are  able  to  foresee.  If  slavery  be  thus  fatally 
contagious,  how  is  it  that  we  hear  the  loudest  yelps  for  liberty  among 
the  drivers  of  negroes  ?  " 

These  few  extracts  from  this  celebrated  pamphlet  may  give  you 
some  idea  of  the  comprehensiveness  of  the  Doctor's  mind  on  such  a 
subject  as  this,  —  of  his  notions  of  government  in  general,  and  more 
especially  of  the  constitution  of  England,  —  and,  when  authority  was 
to  be  enforced,  of  his  humanity  and  of  his  wit.  He  seems  ready  to 
suppose  that  people  were  to  be  mollified  by  having  soldiers  living  at 
free  quarters  among  them,  and  to  be  brought  to  reason  by  seeing 
slaves  let  loose  upon  them  !  Yet  who  can  doubt  that  Johnson  was  a 
inan  of  vigorous  understanding,  —  that  he  was  a  friend  to  his  coun- 
try, —  that  he  was  a  well-wisher  to  the  best  interests  of  the  human 
race,  —  that  he  was  a  man  of  humanity  and  benevolence  ?  Is  not 
he  the  great  moralist  of  our  country,  —  he  who  has  rivalled  his  own 


580  LECTURE  XXXU. 

beautiful  praise  of  Addison,  —  "  has  taught  virtue  not  to  be  ashamed, 
and  even  turned  many  to  righteousness"*?  Yet  such  is  his  pam- 
phlet ;  so  coarse  in  sentiment,  so  unkind  in  spirit,  so  defective  in  wis- 
dom. 

To  those  who  are  capable  of  meditating  upon  the  nature  of  human 
feelings  and  human  faculties,  I  know  of  no  greater  lesson  than  this 
production  affords,  of  the  importance  of  our  political  notions,  —  of  the 
necessity  there  is  that  they  should  be  always  made  to  refer  to,  at  least 
that  they  should  never  lose  sight  of,  the  popular  principles  of  the 
English  constitution,  —  should  be  well  laid  down  and  bottomed,  not 
only  in  respect  for  those  who  govern,  but  in  tenderness  for  those  who 
are  to  be  governed,  —  in  a  deep  sense  of  that  equal  justice  which  is 
to  be  administered  to  all  human  beings,  whether  near  us  or  at  a  dis- 
tance, —  of  that  patience  and  respect  with  which  all  those  are  to  be 
listened  to,  of  whatever  climate  or  condition,  who  speak  the  language 
of  freedom,  or  raise  the  voice  of  complaint. 

Compare  with  Dr.  Johnson  his  friend  Mr.  Burke ;  note  the  language 
of  each  on  the  same  subject,  considering  at  the  same  time  the  very 
eminent  quaUties  that  belonged  to  both,  —  vigor  being  found  in 
the  mind  of  the  one  as  of  the  other,  comprehensiveness,  activity, 
liveliness,  rapidity^  the  powers  of  imagination,  and  all  the  copious- 
ness of  eloquence ;  no  ignorance  in  Mr.  Burke,  any  more  than 
m  Dr.  JohnsoT?^  of  the  necessity  of  obedience,  of  order,  and  of  re- 
spect for  rank  and  authority ;  but  the  one  properly  impressed  at  the 
same  time,  by  whatever  means,  which  the  other  was  not,  with  a  sense 
of  the  paramount  value  of  all  those  great  fundamental  principles 
which  form  the  protection  of  the  liberties  of  England. 

What  were,  then,  the  views  and  reasonings  of  Mr.  Burke  ?  You 
will  see  them  in  the  works  that  are  published,  though  of  many  of  his 
most  brilliant  speeches  in  the  House  of  Commons  no  idea  can  now 
be  formed.  Those  that  are  published  must  be  your  study ;  and  they 
cannot  be  too  much  your  study,  if  you  mean  either  to  understand, 
or  to  maintain  against  its  various  enemies,  open  and  concealed,  de- 
signing and  mistaken,  the  singular  constitution  of  this  fortunate  island. 
As  far  as  the  subject  of  America  is  concerned,  you  should  meditate 
well  the  last  third  of  his  pamphlet  entitled  "  Observations  on  a  Late 
Publication,  intituled,  The  Present  State  of  the  Nation";  then,  I 
think,  his  Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol ;  lastly,  his  two  celebrated 
speeches,  and  particularly  the  documents  on  the  Proposed  Secession, 
the  Address  to  the  King,  &c.,  now  first  regularly  published  in  the 
volumes  that  have  lately  appeared  of  his  works. 

*  "  He  has  restored  virtue  to  its  dignity,  and  taught  innocence  not  to  be  ashamed. 
This  is  an  elevation  of  literary  character,  above  all  Greek,  above  all  Roman  famdt 
No  greater  felicity  can  genius  attain  than  that  of  having  purified  intellectual  pleasure, 
separated  mirth  from  indecency,  and  wit  from  licentiousness ;  of  having  taught  a  suc- 
cession of  wi-iters  to  bring  elegance  and  gaiety  to  the  aid  of  goodness ;  and,  if  I  may 
use  expressions  yet  more  awful,  of  having  turned  many  to  rigliteousnessP  Lives  of  the 
Poets,  Vol.  ii.  p.  379  (London,  1783).  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  581 

But  it  is  to  his  two  speeches  that  you  will  naturally  turn ;  they 
were  very  justly  admired  at  the  time,  and  they  are  fitted  for  ever  to 
remain  the  proper  monuments  of  the  wisdom  as  well  as  eloquence 
of  this  extraordinary  man.  So  early  as  April,  1774,  Mr.  Burke 
made  every  effort  which  could  be  made  by  a  discerning  patriot  and 
an  interesting  orator,  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  American  dispute,  and  to  clear  away,  if  possible,  that 
most  unfortunate  tax  on  tea  which  Lord  North  had  left  standing, 
practically  to  indicate  the  right  of  the  British  Parliament,  and  which 
therefore  served  only  to  keep  the  dispute  still  alive,  and  the  Ameri- 
cans in  a  state  of  irritation ;  for  it  was  the  practical  exercise  of  the 
right,  and  the  consequences  that  might  ensue,  which  were  the  objects 
of  alarm,  not  the  quantity  of  the  tax. 

Mr.  Burke  describes  the  manner  in  which,  at  the  peace,  it  was 
thought  necessary  to  keep  up  no  less  than  twenty  new  regiments,  and 
the  hopes  that  were  held  out  to  the  country  gentlemen  by  Charles 
Townshend,  of  a  revenue  to  be  raised  from  America.  "  Here  began," 
says  he,  "  to  dawn  the  first  gUmmerings  of  this  new  colony  system. 

It  appeared  more  distinctly  afterwards With  the  best  intentions 

in  the  world,  Mr.  George  Grenville  first  brought  this  fatal  scheme  into 

form,  and  established  it  by  act  of  ParUament He  was  bred  to 

the  law,  which  is,  in  my  opinion,  one  of  the  first  and  noblest  of  human 
sciences,  —  a  science  which  does  more  to  quicken  and  invigorate  the 
understanding  than  all  the  other  kinds  of  learning  put  together ;  but  it 
is  not  apt,  except  in  persons  very  happily  bom,  to  open  and  to  liberal- 
ize the  mind  exactly  in  the  same  proportion.  Passing  from  that  study, 
he  did  not  go  very  largely  into  the  world,  but  plunged  into  business, 
—  I  mean  into  the  business  of  office."  "  Men,"  he  adds,  "  too  much 
conversant  in  office  are  rarely  minds  of  remarkable  enlargement."  — 
This  observation  of  Mr.  Burke,  as  well  as  the  former,  is  most  just ; 
and  if  men  of  rank  and  fortune  send  their  sons  into  public  offices,  as 
they  seem  disposed  to  do,  to  become,  as  it  were,  apprentices  to  their 
trade,  adieu  to  the  race  of  statesmen  ;  and  our  great  empire  mil  have 
to  be  governed,  not  by  those  who  are  capable  of  rule,  but  by  those 
who  ought  rather  to  be  their  clerks  and  law  agents. 

I  must  be  indulged  here  with  one  moment  of  digression.  Men 
who  thus  begin  with  the  routine  of  office,  and  who  thus  early  imbibe 
all  the  notions  of  office,  never  afterwards  get  beyond  them.  They 
become  famiUarized  with  corruption,  accustomed  to  petty  tricks  and 
paltry  expedients.  Their  understandings  are  narrowed ;  their  feel- 
ings blunted ;  their  minds  rendered  coarse  and  vulgar ;  the  natural 
sense  of  patriotism,  and  benevolence,  and  honor,  is  weakened  and  de- 
based ;  they  mistake  their  craft  for  sagacity,  their  acquaintance  with 
detail  for  more  profound  wisdom ;  and  it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say, 
that  they  become,  through  the  remainder  of  their  pubhc  Hfe,  the 
B^cret  or  avowed  friends  of  servility,  the  deriders  of  all  pubhc  spirit, 

WW* 


582  LECTURE  XXXn. 

the  enemies  of  all  improvement,  and,  if  any  crisis  of  human  affairs 
occurs,  the  most  fatal  counsellors,  with  or  without  their  intention,  that 
their  king  or  their  country  can  listen  to.  Of  all  spectacles,  one  of 
the  most  melancholy  is  to  see  the  representative  of  a  noble  or  power- 
ful family  thrown  early  into  an  office,  to  be  swaddled  and  bound  up 
by  the  clerks  that  preside  there,  and  made  to  assimilate  himself  in  his 
opinions  and  feehngs  to  those  whom  he  ought,*from  the  privileges 
and  advantages  of  his  birth  and  education,  to  enlighten  and  com- 
mand. 

But  to  return.  Mr.  Burke  then  pursues  the  history  of  the  Ameri- 
can dispute ;  Mr.  Grenville's  Stamp  Act ;  the  repeal  of  it  by  th© 
Whig  administration  of  Lord  Rockingham ;  the  characters  of  Lord 
Chatham  and  Charles  Townshend.  These  passages  in  his  speech  ar© 
well  known,  and  I  need  not  further  allude  to  them. 

"  The  distinction,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  of  internal  and  external 
duties  was  originally  moved  by  the  Americans  themselves ;  and  1 
think,"  says  he,  "  they  will  acquiesce  in  it,  if  they  are  not  pushed 

with  too  much  logic  and  too  little  sense  in  all  the  consequences 

Recover  your  old  ground,  and  your  old  tranquilUty.  Try  it ;  I  am 
persuaded  the  Americans  will  compromise  with  you 

"  Again,  and  again,  revert  to  your  old  principles ;  seek  peace  and 
ensue  it ;  leave  America,  if  she  has  taxable  matter  in  her,  to  tax  her-" 
self.  I  am  not  here  going  into  the  distinctions  of  rights,  nor  attempt- 
ing to  mark  their  boundaries.  I  d^  not  enter  into  these  metaphysi- 
cal distinctions ;  I  hate  the  very  sound  of  them.  Leave  the  Ameri- 
cans as  they  anciently  stood,  and  these  distinctions,  born  of  our 
unhappy  contest,  will  die  along  with  it.  They  and  we,  and  their  and 
our  ancestors,  have  been  happy  under  that  system.  Let  the  memory 
of  ^11  actions,  in  contradiction  to  that  good  old  mode,  on  both  sides, 
be  extinguished  for  ever.  Be  content  to  bind  America  by  laws  of 
trade  ;  you  have  always  done  it.  Let  this  be  your  reason  for  binding 
their  trade.  Do  not  burden  them  by  taxes  ;  you  were  not  used  to  do 
so  from  the  beginning.  Let  this  be  your  reason  for  not  taxing. 
These  are  the  arguments  of  states  and  kingdoms ;  leave  the  rest  to 
the  schools,  for  there  only  they  may  be  discussed  with  safety. 

"  But  if,  intemperately,  unwisely,  fatally,  you  sophisticate  and 
poison  the  very  source  of  government,  by  urging  subtle  deductions, 
and  consequences  odious  to  those  you  govern,  from  the  unlimited  and 
illimitable  nature  of  supreme  sovereignty,  you  will  teach  them  by 
these  means  to  call  that  sovereignty  itself  in  question.  When  you 
drive  him  hard,  the  boar  will  surely  turn  upon  the  hunters.  If  that 
sovereignty  and  their  freedom  cannot  be  reconciled,  which  will  they 
take  ?  They  will  cast  your  sovereignty  in  your  face.  No  body  will 
be  argued  into  slavery.  Sir,  let  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  call 
forth  all  their  ability ;  let  the  best  of  them  get  up  and  tell  me  what 
one  character  of  liberty  the  Americans  have,  and  what  one  brand  (rf 


AMERICAN  WAR.  683 

slavery  they  ar6  free  from,  if  they  are  bound  in  their  property  and 
industry  by  all  the  restraints  you  can  imagine  on  commerce,  and  at 
the  same  time  are  made  pack-horses  of  every  tax  you  choose  to  im- 
pose, without  the  least  share  in  granting  them.  When  they  bear  the 
burdens  of  unlimited  monopoly,  will  you  bring  them  to  bear  the  bur- 
dens of  unlimited  revenue  too  ?  The  Englishman  in  America  will' 
feel  that  this  is  slavery ;  that  it  is  legal  slavery  will  be  no  compensa- 
tion either  to  his  feelings  or  his  understanding. 

"A  noble  lord  [Lord  Carmarthen],  who  spoke  some  time  ago,  is 
full  of  the  fire  of  ingenuous  youth ;  and  when  he  has  modelled  the 
ideas  of  a  lively  imagination  by  further  experience,  he  will  be  an 
ornament  to  his  country  in  either  house.  He  has  said,  that  the 
Americans  are  our  children,  and  how  can  they  revolt  against  their 
parent  ?  He  says,  that,  if  they  are  not  free  in  their  present  sfiite, 
England  is  not  free,  because  Manchester  and  other  considerable 
places  are  not  represented.  So,  then,  because  some  towns  in  Eng- 
land are  not  represented,  America  is  to  have  no  representative  at  all. 
They  are  '  our  children ' ;  but  when  children  ask  for  bread,  we  are 
not  to  give  a  stone.  Is  it  because  the  natural  resistance  of  things, 
and  the  various  mutations  of  time,  hinders  our  government,  or  any 
scheme  of  government,  from  being  any  more  than  a  sort  of  approxi- 
mation to  the  right,  is  it  therefore  that  the  colonies  are  to  recede 

from  it  infinitely  ? Are  we  to  give  them  our  weakness  for, 

their  strength ;  our  opprobrium  for  their  glory ;  and  the  slough  of 
slavery,  which  we  ■  are  not  able  to  work  off,  to  serve  them  for  their 
freedom  ?  If  this  be  the  case,  ask  yourselves  this  question,  —  Will 
they  be  content  in  such  a  state  of  slavery  ?  If  not,  look  to  the  conse- 
quences. Reflect  how  you  are  to  govern  a  people  who  think  they 
ought  to  be  free,  and  think  they  are  not.  Your  scheme  yields  no 
revenue  ;  it  yields  nothing  but  discontent,  disorder,  disobedience  ;  and 
such  is  the  state  of  America,  that,  after  wading  up  to  your  eyes  in 
blood,  you  could  only  end  just  where  you  begun ;  that  is,  to  tax 
where  no  revenue  is  to  be  found  ;  to my  voice  fails  me  ;  my  in- 
clination, indeed,  carries  me  no  further,  —  all  is  confusion  beyond  it.'* 

But  observations  like  these  were  vain.  The  majority  against  him 
was  very  great ;  the  coercive  system  was  adopted  ;  and  a  year  after- 
wards, in  March,  1775,  Mr.  Burke  made  another,  and  even  more 
memorable,  effort  in  the  cause  of  conciliation.  You  will  see  it  in  his 
Works ;  you  will  guess  the  sort  of  matter,  but  you  cannot,  without 
perusal  and  meditation  of  it,  imagine  to  yourselves  the  beauty,  the 
propriety,  the  profound  wisdom  of  the  sentiments  and  opinions  it  con- 
tains. 

"  I  confess,''  says  he,  "my  opinion  is  much  more  in  favor  of  pru- 
dent management  than  of  force,  —  considering  force,  not  as  an  odious, 
but  a  feeble,  instrument  for  preserving  a  people  so  numerous,  so 
active,  so  growing,  so  spiiited  as  this,  in  a  profitable  and  subordinate 


584  LECTURE  XXXn. 

connection  with  us.  Force  is  in  its  effects  but  temporary.  It  is  un- 
certain. You  impair  the  object  by  your  very  endeavours  to  preserve 
it.  The  thing  you  fought  for  is  not  the  thing  which  you  recover.  I 
do  not  choose  to  consume  the  strength  of  America  along  with  our 
own  ;  nor  to  be'  caught  by  a  foreign  enemy  at  the  end  of  this  exhaust- 
ing conflict,  and  still  less  in  the  midst  of  it.  Let  me  add,  that  I  do 
not  choose  wholly  to  break  the  American  spirit,  because  it  is  the  spirit 
that  has  made  the  country.  Consider,  too,  the  temper  and  character 
of  the  Americans.  A  love  of  freedom  is  the  predominating  feature. 
The  people  of  the  colonies  are  descendants  of  Englishmen.  They  are, 
therefore,  not  only  devoted  to  liberty,  but  to  liberty  according  to 
English  ideas,  and  on  EngHsh  principles.  Now  the  great  contests 
for^freedom  in  this  country  were,  from  the  earliest  times,  chiefly  upon 
the  question  of  taxing.  The  colonies  draw  from  you,  as  with  their 
life-blood,  these  ideas  and  principles.  Their  love  of  liberty,  as  with 
you,  fixed  and  attached  on  this  specific  point  of  taxing." 

Mr.  Burke  proceeds  further  to  the  consideration  of  the  government, 
the  religion,  the  education  of  the  Americans,  drawing  from  each  his 
general  conclusion  that  they  were  not  a  people  that  could  be  coerced. 
But  again,  says  he,  "  Three  thousand  miles  of  ocean  lie  between 
you  and  them ;  no  contrivance  can  prevent  the  effect  of  this  distance 
in  weakening  government.  Seas  roll  and  months  pass  between  the 
order  and  the  execution,  and  the  want  of  a  speedy  explanation  of  a 
single  point  is  enough  to  defeat  an  whole  system.  Who  are  you 
that  should  fret  and  rage,  and  bite  the  chains  of  nature  ?  Nothing 
worse  happens  to  you  than  does  to  all  nations  who  have  extensive 
empire.  From  all  these  causes  a  fierce  spirit  of  liberty  has  grown 
up.  The  question  is,  not  whether  their  spirit  deserves  praise  or 
blame  ;  —  what,  in  the  name  of  God,  shall  we  do  with  it  ?  You  have 
before  you  the  object,  such  as  it  is,  with  all  its  glories,  with  all  its 
imperfections  on  its  head.  We  are  strongly  urged  to  determine  some- 
thing concerning  it.  I  am  much  against  any  further  experiments. 
In  effect,  we  suffer  as  much  at  home  as  we  do  abroad ;  for,  in  order 
to  prove  that  the  Americans  have  no  right  to  their  liberties,  we  are 
every  day  endeavouring  to  subvert  the  maxims  which  preserve  the 
whole  spirit  of  our  own.  We  never  seem  to  gain  a  paltry  advantage 
over  them  in  debate,  without  attacking  some  of  those  principles  or 
deriding  some  of  those  feelino-s  for  which  our  ancestors  have  shed 
their  blood." 

I  am  quoting,  you  see,  Mr.  Burke ;  I  am  referring  to  him  at  great 
length.  Among  other  reasons  that  may  occur  to  you  why  I  do  so, 
there  is  one  more^  particularly  my  own,  which  I  must  mention  to  you. 
It  is  this  :^  you  will  remember,  that,  on  endeavouring  to  account  for 
the  American  war,  I  brought  forward  to  you,  as  a  cause,  the  preva- 
lence of  a  certain  vulgarity  of  sentiment  in  poHtics.  I  must  own,  I 
consider  this  as  a  most  important  fault.     I  am  certainly  very  anxious 


AMERICAN  WAR.  585 

apon  this  point.  There  are  few  upon  which,  as  a  lecturer,  T  can  be 
more  anxious  ;  and  therefore,,  in  the  course  of  the  consideration  of 
this  American  subject,  I  had  marked  down  a  long  list  of  instances  in 
the  speeches  and  conduct  of  our  ministers,  of  our  country  gentlemen, 
and  finally  of  the  public,  with  an  intention  of  reading  them  to  you, 
thinking,  that,  if  I  exhibited  them  with  comments,  you  might  be  the 
better  protected  from  such  mistakes,  —  such  vulgar  mistakes,  as  I 
presume  to  call  them,  —  yourselves.  But  the  more  I  read  and  re- 
flected upon  the  two  speeches  and  the  letter  of  Mr.  Burke,  the  more  I 
became  persuaded  that  such  a  detailed  exhibition  on  my  part  would 
be  unnecessary ;  for,  if  you  read  and  meditate,  and  get  thoroughly 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  wisdom  which  breathes  through  these  per- 
formances, you  will  want  neither  quickness  of  sagacity  nor  accuracy 
of  sentiment  to  observe  and  feel,  as  you  read  the  history  for  your- 
selves, those  very  instance^  of  vulgar  politics  to  which  I  had  alluded, 
and  which,  indeed,  I  find  I  could  not  well  state  to  you  one  by  one  with 
proper  comments,  without  a  much  greater  expenditure  of  your  time, 
while  in  this  place,  than  I  can  afford,  if  I  may  so  speak,  to  consume 
on  this  or  any  other  single  and  more  particular  point.  On  this  ac- 
count, then,  have  I  dwelt  so  long  on  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Burke  ;  and 
it  is  on  this  account  that  I  must  proceed  with  some  further  references 
and  quotations,  though  I  will  not  continue  them  much  longer. 

After  discussing  different  modes  of  conduct  to  America,  "  No 
way,"  said  he,  "  is  open,  but  to  comply  with  the  American  spirit,  as 
necessary,  or,  if  you  please,  to  submit  to  it  as  a  necessary  evil.  Sir, 
I  think  you  must  perceive  that  I  am  resolved,  this  day,  to  have  noth- 
ing at  all  to  do  with  the  question  of  the  right  of  taxation.  It  is  not 
what  a  lawyer  tells  me  I  may  do,  but  what  humanity,  reason,  and 
justice  tell  me  I  ought  to  do. 

"  But  the  colonies  will  go  further.  —  Alas  !  alas !  what  will  quiet 
these  panic  fears  which  we  entertain  of  the  hostile  effect  of  a  concilia- 
tory conduct  ?  Is  it  a  certain  maxim,  that,  the  fewer  causes  of  dis- 
satisfaction are  left  by  government,  the  more  the  subject  will  be  in- 
clined to  resist  and  rebel  ?  It  is  a  very  great  mistake  to  imagine 
that  mankind  follow  up  practically  any  speculative  principle,  either 
of  government  or  of  freedom,  as  far  as  it  will  go  in  argument  and 
logical  illation. 

"  A  revenue  from  America  transmitted  hither !  Do  not  delude 
yourselves ;  you  never  can  receive  it.  For  all  service,  whether  of 
revenue,  trade,  or  empire,  my  trust  is  in  the  interest  which  America 
has  in  the  British  constitution.  My  hold  of  the  colonies  is  in  the 
close  affection  which  grows  from  common  names,  from  kindred  blood, 
from  similar  privileges,  and  equal  protection.  These  are  ties  which, 
though  Hght  as  air,  are  as  strong  as  links  of  iron.  Let  the  colonies 
always  keep  the  idea  of  their  civil  rights  associated  with  your  goyem- 
ment ;  they  will  cHng  and  grapple  to  you,  and  no  force  under  heaven 
T4 


616  LECTURE  XXXII. 

will  be  of  power  to  tear  them  from  their  allegiance.  But  let  it  be 
once  understood  that  your  government  may  be  one  thing,  and  their 
privileges  another,  —  that  these  two  things  may  exist  without  any 
mutual  relation,  —  the  cement  is  gone,  the  cohesion  is  loosened,  and 
every  thing  hastens  to  decay  and  dissolution. 

"  As  long  as  you  have  the  wisdom  to  keep  the  sovereign  authority 
of  this  country  as  the  sanctuary  of  Hberty,  the  sacred  temple  conse- 
crated to  our  common  faith,  wherever  the  chosen  race  and  sons  of 
England  worship  freedom,  they  will  turn  their  faces  towards  you. 
The  more  they  multiply,  the  more  friends  you  will  have ;  the  more 
ardently  they  love  liberty,  the  more  perfect  will  be  their  obedience. 
Slavery  they  can  have  anywhere.  It  is  a  weed  that  grows  in  every 
soil.  They  may  have  it  from  Spain,  they  may  have  it  from  Prussia  ; 
but  until  you  become  lost  to  all  feeling  of  your  true  interest  and  your 
natural  dignity,  freedom  they  can  have  from  none  but  you.  This  is 
the  commodity  of  price,  of  which  you  have  the  monopoly.  This  is 
the  true  act  of  navigation,  which  binds  to  you  the  commerce  of  the 
colonies,  and  through  them  secures  to  you  the  wealth  of  the  world. 
Deny  them  this  participation  of  freedom,  and  you  break  that  sole 
bond  which  originally  made,  and  must  still  preserve,  the  unity  of  the 
empire. 

"  Do  not  entertain  so  weak  an  imagination,  as  that  your  registers 
and  your  bonds,  your  affidavits  and  your  sufferances,  your  cockets 
and  your  clearances,  are  what  form  the  great  securities  of  your  com- 
merce. Do  not  dream  that  your  letters  of  office,  and  your  instruc- 
tions, and  your  suspending  clauses,  are  the  things  that  hold  together 
the  great  contexture  of  this  mysterious  whole.  These  things  do  not 
make  your  government.  Dead  instruments,  passive  tools,  as  they 
are,  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  English  communion  that  gives  all  their  life 
and  efficacy  to  them.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  Enghsh  constitution, 
which,  infused  through  the  mighty  mass,  pervades,  feeds,  unites,  in- 
vigorates, vivifies  every  part  of  the  empire,  even  down  to  the  minutest 
member.  Is  it  not  the  same  virtue  which  does  every  thing  for  us 
here  in  England  ?  Do  you  imagine,  then,  that  it  is  the  Land-Tax 
Act  which  raises  your  revenue  ?  that  it  is  the  annual  vote  in  the  Com- 
mittee of  Supply  which  gives  you  your  army  ?  or  that  it  is  the  Mutiny 
Bill  which  inspires  it  with  bravery  and  discipline  ?  No,  surely  no  ! 
It  is  the  love  of  the  people ;  it  is  their  attachment  to  their  govern- 
ment, from  the  sense  of  the  deep  stake  they  have  in  such  a  glorious 
institution,  which  gives  you  your  army  and  your  navy,  and  infuses 
into  both  that  liberal  obedience  without  which  your  army  would  be 
a  base  rabble,  and  your  navy  nothing  but  rotten  timber. 

"  All  this,  I  know  well  enough,  will  sound  wild  and  chimerical  to 
the  profane  herd  of  those  vulgar  and  mechanical  politicians  who  have 
no  place  among  us ;  a  sort  of  people  who  think  that  nothing  exists  but 
what  is  gross  and  material ;  and  wtD,  therefore,  far  from  being  quali 


AMERICAN  WAR.  587 

fied  to  be  directors  of  the  great  movement  of  empire,  are  not  fit  to 
turn  a  wheel  in  the  machine.  But  to  men  truly  initiated  and  rightly 
taught,  these  ruling  and  master  principles,  which,  in  the  opinion  of 
such  men  as  I  have  mentioned,  have  no  substantial  existence,  are  in 
truth  every  thing,  and  all  in  all. 

"Magnanimity  in  politics  is  not  seldom  the  truest  wisdom,  and 
a  great  empire  and  little  minds  go  ill  together.  If  we  are  conscious 
of  our  situation,  and  glow  with  zeal  to  fill  our  place  as  becomes  our 
station  and  ourselves,  we  ought  to  auspicate  all  our  public  proceed- 
ings on  America  with  the  old  warning  of  the  Church,  Sursum  corda  ! 
We  ought  to  elevate  our  minds  to  the  greatness  of  that  trust  to  which 
the  order  of  Providence  has  called  us.  By  adverting  to  the  dignity 
of  this  high  calUng,  our  ancestors  have  turned  a  savage  wilderness 
into  a  glorious  empire,  and  have  made  the  most  extensive  and  the 
only  honorable  conquests ;  not  by  destroying,  but  by  promoting,  the 
wealth,  the  number,  the  happiness  of  the  human  race.  Let  us  get  an 
American  revenue  as  we  have  got  an  American  empire.  English 
privileges  have  made  it  all  that  it  is ;  English  privileges  alone  will 
make  it  all  it  can  be." 

Mr.  Burke  moved  his  resolution,  but  the  previous  question  was 
carried  against  him,  —  two  hundred  and  seventy  to  seventy-eight. 
Well,  indeed,  might  Mr.  Burke  observe,  that  a  great  empire  and 
little  minds  go  but  ill  together,  and  that  the  march  of  the  human 
mind  is  slow. 

I  turn  with  difficulty  from  the  pages  of  Mr.  Burke.  I  proceed  not 
to  his  Letter  addressed  to  the  Sheriff's  of  Bristol ;  I  make  no  more 
quotations ;  I  have  made,  it  may  be  thought,  already  too  many  and 
too  long ;  but  if  I  can  but  thus  secure  your  reading  these  composi- 
tions, I  could  not  possibly  have  occupied  your  time  better,  and  I 
have  not  then  made  quotations  either  too  many  or  too  long.  You  are 
men  of  education,  and  should  be  distinguished  hereafter  by  the  eleva- 
tion of  your  sentiments  and  the  comprehensiveness  of  your  views,  — 
that  is,  not  a  little  by  the  magnanimity,  I  had  almost  said  by  the  con- 
siderate good-temper,  of  your  feehngs  and  reasonings  on  political  sub- 
jects ;  and  be  assured  that  your  own  country,  like  every  other  coun- 
try, will  fare  well  or  fare  ill,  as  such  refinement  of  mind  and  elevated 
kindness  of  temperament  does  or  does  not  prevail  among  its  rulers. 
Never  was  such  an  absence  of  it  as  appeared  in  this  nation  during 
the  American  war ;  never  was  such  a  display  of  it  as  in  the  speeches 
of  Mr.  Burke  to  which  I  have  referred,  Here,  then,  is  your  school. 
It  is  natural  for  me  to  quote  at  great  length  from  works  which,  if 
•successful  in  producing  upon  your  minds  their  proper  effects,  will  ac- 
complish for  me,  at  once,  many  of  the  best  purposes  which  I  ought  to 
labor  most  anxiously  to  attain  ;  for  among  such  purposes  the  noblest 
and  the  first  must  be,  to  enlarge  your  understandings,  and  to  harmo- 
nize your  feelings  to  the  rights  of  others,  and  to  the  claims  of  mercy 


588  LECTURE  XXXn. 

and  justice,  whatever  be  the  occasion  on  which  tney  are  urged,  or 
the  clime  or  the  people  whence  they  arise. 

Mine,  however,  is  on  this  occasion  but  a  ministerial  office :  it  is  to 
point  out  to  you  those  immortal  productions,  and  no  more :  it  is  to 
show  you  the  temple,  and  to  stand  at  the  portal,  and  to  persuade  you 
not  to"  pass  lightly  by  and  disregard  it,  but  to  enter  in  and  survey  its 
columns  and  approach  its  shrine ;  to  pause  and  to  reflect,  and  to  pon- 
der all  these  things  in  your  heart,  that  you  may  hereafter  walk  forth 
to  the  exercise  of  your  duties,  —  some  of  you,  the  highest  duties  . 
which  human  beings  can  have  to  perform,  —  the  duties  of  legislation ; 
that  you  may  come  abroad  into  the  world,  animated  with  benevolence, 
and  soothed  into  a  spirit  of  forbearance  and  of  patience,  when  expos- 
ed to  the  resistance  which,  if  you  are  to  labor  for  the  good  of  others, 
you  must  encounter  both  in  friends  and  foes  ;  better  men  and  wiser 
men,  and  purged  from  the  mean  and  vindictive  passions  of  our 
nature.  For  the  temple  to  which  I  would  now  direct  your  steps  is 
far  unlike  the  sacred  groves  or  venerated  edifices  of  ignorance  and 
superstition ;  — 

"  Unbribed,  unbloody,  stands  the  blameless  priest." 

It  is  a  temple  of  peace,  and  it  is  a  temple  of  wisdom.  There  is  no  awe, 
and  no  terror,  and  no  idol,  before  whose  appalling  fires  the  human 
victim  is  to  be  sacrificed.  Scenes  and  images  of  this  terrific  nature 
should  rather  be  associated  with  those  men  who  spoke  of  uncondition- 
al submission,  of  insulted  supremacy,  and  of  necessary  punishment ; 
who,  like  the  great  minister  of  the  vengeance  of  Spain,  the  ferocious 
Duke  of  Alva,  talked  of  gangrenes  that  were  to  be  cured  by  fire  and 
by  sword. 

Such  were  not  the  sounds,  such  was  not  the  wisdom,  which  tliis 
patriot  of  the  British  senate  breathed  during  the  whole  of  this  memo- 
rable period.  Posterity  will  do  him  that  justice  which  but  too  few  of 
those  whom  he  addressed  were  capable  of  rendering  him ;  and  how- 
ever those  who  come  after  us  may,  or  may  not,  differ  in  their  opinion 
of  the  eiFusions  of  his  mind  on  later  occasions,  at  the  opening  and  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  the  French  Revolution,  when  his  genius  may  be 
supposed  by  some  to  have  been  sublimed  almost  into  frenzy  by  the 
scenes  that  in  visible  presence  passed  before  him,  and  stjll  more  by 
those  that  came  thronging  and  terrible  upon  him  in  the  visions  of  his 
Hstening  expectation,  —  however  men  may,  or  may  not,  contest  his 
claim  to  the  character  of  a  political  prophet  (though  all  must  surely 
consider  him  as  the  great  moral  prophet  of  Europe,  at  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  this  tremendous  event),  —  however  these  things  may  be, 
no  intelligent  statesman,  no  meditating  philosopher  on  the  affairs  of 
men,  will  deny  to  him  the  praise  of  clearly  discerning,  and  luminous- 
ly stating,  at  the  opening  of  the  American  Revolution  at  least,  all  the 
human  passions  that  were  at  work  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic, 


AMERICAN  WAR.  689 

and  of  making  every  effort  which  eloquence  and  wisdom  were  compe- 
tent to  make  to  medicine  into  peace  the  unhappy  passions  which  were 
no  less  in  full  operation  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  And  though 
these  efforts  were  unavai^ng,  though  a  greater  Power,  had  decreed 
that  a  new  empire  was  now  to  issue  from  the  far  retired  recesses  of 
undisturbed  forests  and  the  wide-spreading  tracts  of  uncultivated  na- 
ture, the  merit  of  the  statesman  must  be  ever  the  same ;  the  states- 
man who,  amid  the  delusions  of  the  hour,  could  take  the  same  view 
of  the  justice  and  policy  of  the  case  before  him  which  will  be  taken 
by  posterity ;  who,  amid  the  menaces  of  violence  and  military  coer- 
cion which  animated  the  speeches  of  those  around  him,  could,  in  the 
spirit  of  the  angelic  choir,  speak  the  words  of  peace  on  earth  and 
good-will  towards  men ;  and,  amid  the  clamors  of  those  who  called 
aloud  for  unconditional  submission  and  unconditional  taxation,  could 
maintain,  with  all  that  splendor  of  wisdom  and  of  eloquence  to  which 
I  have  directed  your  admiration,  the  doctrines  of  mild  government, 
and  the  free  principles  of  the  constitution  of  England. 


I 
LECTURE    XXXIII. 

AMERICAN  WAR. 

You  will  have  observed,  from  the  extracts  I  have  produced,  that, 
in  the  course  of  the  debates  in  Parliament,  many  members  appear  to 
have  denounced  to  the  ministers  beforehand  the  folly  of  their  expecta- 
tions, and  the  evil  consequences  by  which  their  measures  would  be 
attended.  Such  instances  of  peculiar  wisdom  in  statesmen  and  in 
parties  have  at  other  times  occurred,  and  they  ought  always  to  be 
considered  as  the  proper  subjects  of  meditation  to  those  who  are  am- 
bitious to  be  hereafter  wise  and  virtuous  legislators  or  intelligent 
patriots,  themselves.  It  should  be  asked,  how  this  superior  wisdom 
"was  obtained,  and  why  it  was  not  successful. 

It  is  sometimes  said,  on  these  occasions,  by  those  who  have  noth- 
ing else  to  say,  that  predictions  of  this  kind  are  made,  not  from  a 
spirit  of  wisdom,  but  from  a  spirit  of  opposition ;  that  the  ministers 
having  taken  their  course  in  one  direction,  their  opponents  necessari- 
ly proceed  in  the  other ;  that  it  is  the  very  study  and  occupation  of 
those  who  are  on  one  side  of  the  House  to  contradict  the  assertions 
and  vilify  the  measures  of  those  who  are  on  the  other ;  and  that  all 
denunciations  of  ruin  and  defeat  are  words  of  course,  —  the  mere 

XX 


696  LECTURE  xxxm. 

terms  of  declamation  and  abuse,  played  off  by  those  who  are  without 
against  the  garrison  within,  of  a  fort  which  they  are  endeavouring  to 
storm. 

It  must  be  r)bserved,  therefore,  in  a  few  -v^^rds,  that  the  ministers 
have  the  first  choice  of  their  measures,  and  if  they  adopt  those  which 
lead  to  disappointment  and  defeat,  they  at  least  are  wrong,  and  the 
proper  objects  of  public  censure,  whatever  we  may  say  of  their  oppo- 
nents ;  but  with  respect  to  these  last,  that  it  by  no  means  follows,  if 
the  ministers  have  gone  to  the  left,  that  their  opponents  shall  neces- 
sarily turn  to  the  right ;  because,  whatever  they  do,  they  do,  like  the 
ministers  themselves,  at  the  hazard  of  their  own  characters,  —  at  the 
risk  of  their  credit  with  wise  and  good  men.  They  who  are  out  of 
office  can  come  into  office  only  by  rising  in  the  estimation  of  their 
sovereign  and  the  public,  very  often  of  the  public  only ;  and  one  of 
the  most  obvious  ways  of  rising  in  this  estimation  is  by  showing  su- 
perior sagacity  in  the  concerns  of  the  empire.  It  must  also  be  ob- 
served, that  what  public  men,  whether  in  or  out  of  office,  must  avoid, 
is  the  making  of  predictions.  This  is  what  is  called,  in  their  own 
language,  "  committing  themselves,"  and  is  never  done  without  the 
greatest  caution  and  necessity  ;  and  therefore,  whenever  public  men 
choose  to  put  themselves  at  issue  with  the  ministers,  and  hazard  pre- 
dictions, they  become  from  that  moment  entitled  to  the  praise  of  su- 
perior wisdom  or  not,  just  as  their  expectations  are  or  are  not  verified 
by  the  event.  Indeed,  upon  any  other  supposition,  the  situation  of 
our  statesmen  would  be  somewhat  ludicrous,  and  any  display  of  pohti- 
cal  wisdom  would  be  impossible,  if  those  who  advise  measures  are  to 
have  credit  when  they  succeed,  and  those  who  predict  the  folly  of 
such  measures  are  to  have  no  credit  when  they  fail. 

The  only  point  on  the  subject  that  can  now  remain  seems  to  be 
this,  —  whether  the  prediction  has  been  occasioned,  not  by  superior 
philosophy  or  wisdom,  but  by  some  particular  whim  or  passion  or 
prejudice  in  the  speaker's  mind.  This  is  a  mere  question  of  fact,  and 
before  sUch  an  explanation  can  be  received,  the  case  must  be  made 
out.  This  supposition,  however,  is  out  of  the  question,  when  they 
who  have  made  predictions  are  not  a  few,  but  many,  —  and  not  rash 
or  young  men,  but  men  of  information,  character,  and  experience. 
It  will  always  be  found  that  those  who  not  only  have  predicted,  but 
have  predicted  truly,  have  drawn  their  principles  from  deeper  sources 
in  hmuan  nature  than  their  opponents  have,  have  taken  their  views 
fix)m  more  commanding  heights,  and  have  been  better  able  to  discern 
the  philosophy  of  the  case,  and  have  probably  not  acquiesced  in  the 
popular  or  first  notions  of  it,  —  that  is,  in  a  word,  have  shown  them- 
selves irien  of  greater  capacity  for  the  management  of  the  affairs  of 
mankind. 

In  the  case,  indeed,  before  us,  these  predictions  were  uttered,  not 
only  in  the  speeches  of  different  statesmen,  but  in  the  pamphlets  of 


AMERICAN  WAR.  5^1 

different  writers ;  and  to  the  latter  such  objections  as  we  have  alluded 
to  are  even  less  reasonable  than  when  applied  to  speakers  in  Parlia- 
ment. 

I  have  now  stated  to  you  what  I  conceive  to  have  been  the  causes 
that  so  unfortunately  operated  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  to  produce 
the  civil  war  with  America.  I  have  endeavoured  to  illustrate  my 
positions  by  a  reference,  first,  to  the  debates  of  ParUament,  and, 
secondly,  to  the  most  noted  pamphlets  that  appeared  at  the  time,  and 
more  particularly  to  the  speeches,  that  were  afterwards  published  as 
pamphlets,  by  Mr.  Burke.  I  shall  now  endeavour  to  illustrate  the 
same  positions  by  a  reference  to  one  of  the  writers  of  America,  as 
well  as  one  of  our  own  ;  that  is,  I  shall  endeavour  to  make  a  compari- 
son of  the  different  views  that  were  taken  of  the  same  measures  and 
events  by  the  Americans  and  ourselves,  —  seeking  for  one  in  the 
pages  of  Dr.  Ramsay,  and  for  the  other  in  those  of  the  Annual 
Register ;  and  I  do  this  to-day,  because  I  wish  you  to  do  it  for  your- 
selves hereafter.  My  present  lecture  I  intend  to  be  a  specimen  of 
what  I  mean  when  I  advise  you,  as  I  now  do,  to  note  well  what  was 
thought  by  the  two  opposite  parties  in  this  dispute,  —  that  is,  not 
only  by  ourselves,  but  by  the  Americans.  You  know  the  great  pre- 
cept of  Christianity,  the  great  maxim  of  morality,  "  Do  unto  others 
as  you  would  they  should  do  unto  you."  The  more  you  accustom 
yourselves  to  this  discipline  of  your  feehngs,  the  better.  Try  it  in 
the  subject  now  before  you ;  you  will  be  the  more  able  and  the  more 
willing  to  do  it  hereafter  on  every  public  occasion  that  can  occur ; 
that  is,  you  will  not  only  be  better  men  in  the  relations  -of  private 
life,  but,  on  the  larger  scale,  you  will  be  more  rational  advisers  to 
your  sovereign,  or  more  useful  members  of  the  legislature,  or  more 
intelligent  individuals,  when  you  are  to  form  your  estimates,  from 
time  to  time,  as  you  ought  to  do,  of  the  measures  of  those  who  ad- 
minister the  government  of  your  country. 

No  doubt,  all  comparisons  of  this  kind,  of  one  book  and  one  set  of 
opinions  with  another,  is  a  process  somewhat  tedious  and  repulsive ; 
but  you  are,  I  hope,  not  now  to  learn  the  difference  between  reading 
and  study,  —  between  what  I  may  call  passive  reading  and  active 
reading,  —  between  sitting  still  to  receive  from  a  book  the  ideas  and 
impressions  it  may 'give  you,  and  stopping  to  reflect  upon  its  opinions, 
occasionally  examine  its  references,  and  compare  and  contrast  its  esti- 
mates and  conclusions  vnth.  those  of  other  writers.  It  is  a  process  of 
this  last  kind  that  can  alone  deserve  the  respectable  name  of  study ; 
but,  like  every  other  process  from  which  the  human  character  is  to 
acquire  the  attribute  of  merit,  it  impUes  something  to  be  achieved 
and  to  be  endured,  —  some  toil,  some  patience,  some  virtue,  some 
valuable  quality  of  the  mind  or  temper  to  be  exercised. 

It  is,  indeed,  the  great  business  of  this  place  to  teach  men  the  ex. 
ercise  of  their  understanding,  and  to  initiate  them  in  the  duties  and 


692  LECTURE  XXXin. 

sacrifices  by  which  all  intellectual  as  well  as  moral  improvement  must 
be  attained.  Those  young  men  have  taken  a  very  unworthy  and 
mistaken  view  of  our  system,  who  suppose  that  they  are  taught  the 
sciences,  for  instance,  only  for  the  immediate  and  appropriate  value  of 
the  knowledge  they  convey,  —  that%othing  more  is  meant  or  accom- 
plished. Let  any  man  endeavour  properly  to  pass  through  our  ex- 
aminations, no  matter  what  be  the  subject,  or  whether  he  be  success- 
ful or  not,  he  will  then  have  been  taught  to  comprehend  what  it  is  to 
know  a  subject,  and  what  it  is  only  to  be  acquainted  with  it  and  only 
to  suppose  he  knows  it ;  and  he  will  feel  the  benefit  of  his  labors,  or 
of  his  sufferings,  if  you  please,  if  he  should  ever  have  afterwards  to 
engage  in  a  profession,  to  take  a  part  in  our  houses  of  legislature,  to 
propose  a  measure  on  the  most  ordinary  occasion  at  a  toAvn  or  county 
meeting,  or  even  to  a  committee  of  the  subscribers  to  a  public  charity. 

But  I  am  insensibly  travelhng  out  of  my  more  proper  province. 
The  whole  business  and  purport  of  these  lectures,  as  I  have  from  the 
first  announced,  is  to  assist  you  in  reading  history  for  yourselves,  — 
to  enable  you,  as  far  as  I  am  competent,  to  turn  the  materials  before 
you  to  the  best  advantage,  to  some  purpose  of  your  present  and  future 
improvement.  Occasionally,  therefore,  I  must  propose  to  you  tasks 
of  some  labor  and  exertion.  I  do  so  now  ;  but  I  have  reduced  it,  as 
I  think,  to  the  smallest  compass.  The  books  I  have  selected  are 
very  concisely  written,  and  I  will  now  give  you  a  slight  specimen  of 
what  they  contain,  and  of  what  I  propose  to  you  to  do  hereafter  for 
yourselves. 

You  have  already  seen  what  were  the  views  of  men  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic  ;  observe  now  what  was  thought  on  the  other.  I  shall 
proceed,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  to  give  you  some  idea  of  the 
account  furnished  by  Ramsay ;  I  shall  afterwards  direct  your  atten- 
tion to  the  Annual  Register. 

The  work  of  Ramsay  is  short,  and  it  is  the  American  account. 
The  author  was  a  member  of  Congress,  and  had  access  to  all  the  of- 
ficial papers  of  the  United  States.  He  quotes  not  his  authorities, 
though  he  proposes  hereafter  to  do  so,  if  it  should  then  be  necessary. 
The  author  does  not  criticize  with  proper  severity  the  conduct  of 
Congress ;  and  he  is  disposed  to  palliate  the  defeats  of  the  Americans 
in  the  field,  —  not  considering  that  the  more  difficwlt  it  was  to  bring 
militia  and  raw  troops  to  face  the  regular  armies  of  England,  the 
greater  was  the  merit  of  the  generals  and  legislators  who  succeeded 
in  procuring  victory  and  independence  for  their  country.  But  with 
these  exceptions,  the  author  appears  to  give  a  candid  and  intelligent 
account  of  the  revolution  he  witnessed ;  and  it  is  impossible  for  an 
English  student  to  judge  of  these  transactions  without  reading  this 
work  or  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington. 

In  this  work,  as  in  others,  I  would  wish  you  more  particularly  to 
note  the  earlier  stages  of  this  dispute.     You  will  find  the  first  chap* 


AMERICAN  WAR.  693 

ter,  on  the  settlement  of  the  English  colonies,  reasonable  and  good. 
Proper  observations  are  made  on  the  charters,  the  nature  of  the 
enterprise,  and  the  rights  that  result  from  it.  The  general  notion 
was,  according  to  Ramsaj,  (though  I  abridge  his  sentences  for  the 
sake  of  brevity,  I  use  his  words,  and  shall  continue  to  do  so  for  some 
time,)  that  the  settlers  were  to  have  the  rights  of  English  subjects, 
as  if  they  had  remained  at  home  ;  but  no  such  question  of  right  as 
was  afterwards  agitated  in  the  colonies  and  the  mother  country  was 
ever  thought  of  at  the  time.  On  the  whole,  the  prerogatives  of 
royalty  were  but  feebly  impressed  on  the  colonial  forms  of  govern- 
ment. In  some  provinces,  the  inhabitants  chose  their  governors,  and 
all  other  public  officers  ;  the  legislatures  were  under  little  or  no  con- 
trol :  in  others,  the  crown  delegated  most  of  its  powers  to  particular 
persons,  who  were  also  invested  with  the  property  of  the  soil :  and  in 
those  most  dependent  on  the  king,  his  power  over  the  provincial  as- 
semblies seemed  not  greater  than  over  the  House  of  Commons  in 
England  ;  and  from  the  acquiescence  of  the  parent  state,  the  spirit  of 
our  constitution,  and  the  common  practice  of  every  day's  experience, 
the  colonists  grew  up  in  a  belief  that  their  local  assemblies  stood  in 
the  same  relation  to  them  as  the  houses  of  Parliament  to  the  mother 
country. 

The  good  effects  of  the  free  system  of  colonization  were  visible  in 
their  rapid  progress.  The  colonies  obtained  their  charters,  and  the 
greatest  number  of  their  settlers,  between  1603  and  1688  ;*  and  the 
settlers  were  in  general  devoted  to  liberty.  The  principles  of  free- 
dom, and  even  of  democratic  freedom,  were  ingrafted  and  incorporat- 
ed for  ever  into  their  minds  from  the  following  circumstances:  — 
their  extraction,  their  reUgion,  the  books  they  read,  their  colonial 
governments,  their  distance  from  the  mother  country,  the  general 
equality  of  rank,  their  freehold  and  independent  property,  their 
simple  modes  of  life,  the  little  patronage  held  by  the  crown. 

Now  these  are  the  facts  as  stated  by  Ramsay,  —  sufficiently  obvi- 
ous, and  facts  that  could  not  have  been  denied  at  the  time  ;  facts  that 
might  have  been  known  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  must  have 
been  known  to  those  of  our  public  men  who  condescended  to  think 
at  all  upon  the  subject.  And  what  was  the  preparation,  I  would  ask, 
that  these  formed  for  the  project  of  our  English  ministers  and  lawyers 
to  exercise  over  the  colonies  the  right  of  taxation  ? 

The  first  symptom  of  the  American  dispute  appeared  so  early  as 
1754 :  it  is  alluded  to  by  Governor  Pownall  in  one  of  his  speeches  in 
Parliament ;  it  is  mentioned  by  Ramsay.     When  the  French  were 

*  That  is,  between  the  accession  of  James  I.,  under  whose  auspices  the  earliest  sue- 
cessful  settlements  were  made,  and  the  period  of  the  English  Revolution.  The  oldest 
of  the  Thirteen  Colonies,  Virginia,  was  founded  in  1607,  under  a  charter  granted  tho 
previous  year;  and  the  last  during  that  century,  Pennsylvania,  in  1682:  the  charter  of 
the  youngest,  Greorgia,  dates  from  a  period' fifcy  years  later.  See  Ramsay,  Hist. 
Amer.  Rev.,  Ch.  i.  j  also,  Holmes's  Annals  of  America.  —  N. 

75  XX* 


594  LECTURE  XXXIII. 

expected  soon  to  attack  America,  the  governors  and  principal  mem 
bers  of  the  provincial  assemblies  met  at  Albany,  in  1754,  and  pra 
posed  that  a  grand  general  council  should  be  formed  of  the  members 
of  these  assemblies,*  and  that  they,  with  the  governor  appointed  by 
the  crown,  should  make  general  laws,  and  raise  money  from  all  the 
colonies  for  their  common  defence.  The  British  ministry  proposed, 
on  the  contrary,  that  the  governors  of  all  the  colonies,  with  one  or 
two  members  of  their  councils,  should  concert  and  execute  all  neces- 
sary measures,  but  draw  upon  the  British  treasury,  and  then  be  re- 
imbursed by  a  tax  laid  on  the  colonies  by  act  of  Parliament,  —  that 
is,  by  act  of  our  British  ParUament. 

This  plan  was  not  relished  by  the  colonists,  any  more  than  the  for- 
mer had  been  by  the  ministry :  in  the  one,  you  will  observe,  the  right 
of  taxation  was  exercised  by  America,  —  in  the  other,  by  England. 
But  the  Pelhams,  being  prudent  ministers,  did  not  urge  the  difference 
into  a  regular  dispute.  Dr.  Franklin,  it  seems,  at  the  time,  gave  his 
opinion  on  the  proposition  of  the  British  minister ;  and  had  the  sagaci- 
ty to  anticipate  the  substance  of  a  controversy  which,  in  ten  years 
afterwards,  began  to  employ,  and  for  twenty  years  did  employ,  the 
tongues,  the  pens,  and  the  swords  of  the  two  countries.  You  will 
find  the  whole  account  in  the  third  volume  of  his  Works. 

In  the  second  chapter  of  Ramsay,  you  will  find  the  origin  of  the 
dispute  in  the  year  1764  described,  and  then  its  progress  through  the 
vexatious  restrictions  that  had  been  at  different  times  enacted,  down 
to  the  fatal  Stamp  Act  of  1764  and  1765.  Proper  observations  are 
made  on  the  right  of  taxation,  and  on  the  exercise  of  it. 

The  effect  of  the  Stamp  Act  in  America  is  then  detailed  with  very 
proper  minuteness :  the  uneasiness,  the  irritation,  the  inflammation, 
the  fury,  the  insanity,  that  at  length  appeared.  The  particulars 
mentioned  are  instructive,  and  they  form  part  of  that  appropriate  and 
local  information  which  the  work  contains,  and  which  is  so  valuable. 
It  is  observed  that  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Pitt  inspired  the  Americans 
with  additional  confidence  in  the  rectitude  of  their  cause ;  but  the 
good  effect  of  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  by  the  Rockingham  ad- 
ministration, is  most  distinctly  stated.  "  It  was  no  sooner  known  in 
America,  than  the  colonists  rescinded  their  resolutions,  and  recom- 
menced their  mercantile  intercourse  with  the  mother  country :  their 
pubhc  and  private  rejoicings  knew  no  bounds."  Ramsay  also  states 
that  "  the  bulk  of  the  Americans  considered  tha  Declaratory  Act," 
passed  at  the  same  time,  "  as  a  salvo  for  the  honor  of  Parliament,  and 
flattered  themselves  it  would  remain  a  dead  letter :  unwilHng  to  con- 

*  Professor  Smyth  abridp^es  rather  loosely  in  this  place.  Ramsay's  language  is,  — 
"  That  a  grand  council  should  be  formed  of  members  to  be  chosen  by  the  provincial  a*' 
temblies,  which  council,  together  with  a  governor  to  be  appointed  by  the  crown,  should," 
&c.  Hist.  Amer.  Rev.,  Vol  i.  p.  37.  The  governor,  as  he  is  here  called,  is  styled  in 
the  Plan  of  Union  itself.  President- General.  For  the  paper  entire,  see  Sparka's  Frank- 
Un,  Vol.  iii.  pp.  36-55.  —N. 


AMERICAN  WAF.  595 

tend  about  paper  claims  of  ideal  supremacy,  they  returned  to  their 
habits  of  good-humor  with  the  parent  state."  Dr.  Ramsay  then  pro- 
ceeds to  state,  perhaps  even  to  exaggerate,  the  "  high-sounding  pre- 
tensions," as  he  calls  tnem,  which  were  the  result  of  this  species  of 
victory  over  the  mother  country.  It  is  impossible,  no  doubt,  that  a 
mistake  in  legislation  should  ever  be  entirely  harmless ;  but  he  at 
length  observes,  that  these  high-sounding  pretensions  would  have 
spent  themselves  in  words,  had  not  the  idea  of  taxing  America  been 
soon  after  revived  by  Charles  Townshend.  We  have  now  again  ap- 
propriate information,  and  a  short  detail  of  the  disturbances  that  took 
place. 

On  the  whole,  the  minds  of  the  Americans  might  have  been  paci- 
fied, even  after  this  very  injudicious  revival  of  the  dispute ;  but  cer- 
tainly not  without  an  entire  disavowal  by  the  mother  country  of  a 
claim  to  taxation.  The  ministers  of  England,  in  the  mean  time, 
seem  to  have  been  little  aware  of,  or  little  disposed  to  attend  to,  the 
sentiments  of  the  people  of  America.  Upon  a  supposition  that  it  was 
thought  any  object  to  retain  America,  nothing  could  be  more  un- 
worthy of  statesmen  than  the  declarations  of  themselves  and  their 
friends,  during  all  the  earlier  years  of  the  contest. 

A  third  chapter  describes  the  effect  produced  by  the  tea  tax,  and 
the  importation  of  the  article,  as  well  as  by  the  three  famous  acts, 
the  Boston  Port  Bill,  the  bill  for  altering  the  constitution  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  for  removing,  if  necessary,  the  trial  of  capital  offenders 
to  Great  Britain.  These  last  three  laws  were  considered  as  forming 
a  complete  system  of  tyranny,  from  which  there  was  scarcely  a 
chance  to  escape.  "  By  the  first,"  said  the  Americans,  "  the  proper- 
ty of  unofiending  thousands  is  arbitrarily  taken  away  for  the  act  of  a 
few  individuals ;  by  the  second,  our  chartered  liberties  are  annihilat- 
ed ;  and  by  the  third,  our  fives  may  be  destroyed  with  impunity. 
Property,  fiberty,  and  life  are  all  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  ministerial 
vengeance." 

The  three  acts  became  the  cement  of  the  union  of  all  the  States  of 
America  against  Great  Britain.  These  acts  were,  in  the  mean  time, 
popular  in  England  ;  and  this  is  the  lesson  of  instruction  which  the 
history  offers  you  :  that  nations,  like  individuals,  never  condescend  to 
stop  and  examine  how  far  the  arguments  and  feelings  of  their  oppo- 
nents may  be  reasonable  and  just ;  and  hence  it  follows,  that  men  of 
rank  and  influence,  in  any  community,  can  never  be  better  employed 
than  in  prevaifing  on  their  countrymen  to  pause  and  reflect,  —  to  re- 
member that  in  every  quarrel  there  must  necessarily  be  two  sides, 
and  that  it  would  be  a  marvellous  circumstance  indeed,  if  the  one 
side  —  that  is,  themselves  —  were  exclusively  in  the  right. 

The  fourth  and  fifth  chapters,  fike  the  second  and  third,  contain 
appropriate  information.  America,  it  seems,  was  agreed  on  the 
general  question ;  but  the  difficulty  was,  for  the  inhabitants  of  Massa- 


696  LECTURE  XXXm. 

chusetts,  particularly  of  Boston,  to  persuade  the  rest  of  the  continent 
to  make  a  common  cause  with  them.  "  The  other  provinces,"  says 
Ramsay,  "  were  but  remotely  affected  by  the  fate  of  Massachusetts. 
They  were  happy,  and  had  no  cause,  on  their  own  account,  for  oppo- 
sition to  Great  Britain.  They  commenced  it,  and  ultimately  engaged 
in  a  defensive  war,  on  speculation.  They  were  not  so  much  moved 
by  oppression  actually  felt,  as  by  a  conviction  that  a  foundation  was 
laid,  and  a  precedent  about  to  be  established,  for  future  oppressions. 
To  convince  the  bulk  of  the  people  that  they  had  an  interest  in  fore- 
going a  present  good  and  submitting  to  a  present  evil,  in  order  to  ob- 
tain a  future  greater  good  and  to  avoid  a  future  greater  evil,  was  the 
task  assigned  to  the  colonial  patriots."  This  they  effected,  in  a  great 
measure,  as  it  appears,  by  means  of  the  press,  by  pamphlets,  essays, 
addresses,  and  newspaper  dissertations  ;  by  public  and  private  letters ; 
meetings  and  resolutions ;  petitions  and  addresses  to  their  gover- 
nors ;  by  associations,  and  by  a  well-organized  system  of  committees. 
"  The  events  of  this  time,"  says  Ramsay,  "  may  be  transmitted  to 
posterity ;  but  the  agitation  of  the  public  mind  can  never  be  fully 
comprehended  but  by  those  who  were  witnesses  of  it." 

But  here,  and  through  all  these  earlier  chapters  of  Ramsay,  the 
question  to  be  asked  is  this :  Whether  these  patriots  could  have  pro- 
duced these  effects,  had  they  not  been  assisted  by  the  harsh  measures 
of  England.  It  is  possible  that  they  would  not  have  tried ;  but  sure- 
ly they  would  not  have  succeeded,  if  they  had. 

Speaking  of  the  important  year  of  1774,  "  In  the  counties  and 
towns,"  says  Ramsay,  "  of  the  several  provinces,  as  well  as  in  the 
cities,  the  people  assembled  and  passed  resolutions  expressive  of  their 
rights,  and  of  their  detestation  of  the  late  American  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment. These  had  an  instantaneous  effect  on  the  minds  of  thousands. 
Not  only  the  young  and  impetuous,  but  the  aged  and  temperate,  join- 
ed in  pronouncing  them  to  be  unconstitutional  and  oppressive.  They 
viewed  them  as  deadly  weapons  aimed  at  the  vitals  of  that  liberty 
which  they  adored ;  as  rendering  abortive  the  generous  pains  taken 
by  their  forefathers  to  procure  for  them  in  a  new  world  the  quiet  en- 
loyment  of  their  rights.  They  were  the  subjects  of  their  meditation 
when' alone,  and  of  their  conversation  when  in  company.  Within  little 
more  than  a  month  after  the  news  of  the  Boston  Port  Bill  reach- 
ed America,  it  was  communicated  from  State  to  State ;  and  a  flame 
was  kindled  in  almost  every  breast  through  the  widely  extended  prov- 
inces." 

Such  are  the  effects  produced,  such  at  all  times  are  the  advantages 
given  to  the  intemperate  or  ill-designing,  by  harsh  measures.  Let 
the  student,  in  the  name  of  common  sense,  as  well  as  humanity,  be 
entreated  to  pause,  and  to  suspect  the  approach  of  folly,  or  something 
worse,  whenever,  in  the  course  of  a  misunderstanding  with  other 
countries,  any  measure  which  is  called  "  a  measure  of  vigor"  is  pro- 
posed to  him. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  597 

"  Within  four  months,"  says  Ramsay,  "  from  the  day  on  which  the 
first  intelligence  of  the  Boston  Pert  Bill  reached  Americ^a,  the  depu- 
ties of  eleven  provinces  had  convened  in  Philadelphia,  and  in  four 
days  more  there  was  a  complete  representation  of  twelve  colonies, 
containing  three  millions  of  people.  The  instructions  given  to  these 
deputies  were  various ;  but  in  general  they  contained  strong  profes- 
sions of  loyalty  and  of  constitutional  dependence  on  the  mother  coun- 
try. The  framers  of  them  acknowledged  the  prerogatives  of  the 
crown,  and  disclaimed  every  wish  of  separation  from  the  parent  state. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  were  firm  in  declaring,  that  they  were  en- 
titled to  all  the  rights  of  British  born  subjects,  and  that  the  late 
acts  respecting  Massachusetts  were  unconstitutional  and  oppressive." 
They*  specified  the  acts  of  which  they  complained  ;  entered  into  non- 
importation and  non-exportation  associations  ;  and  prepared  addresses 
to  the  people  of  Great  Britain  and  the  king.  They  then  dissolved 
themselves  in  October,  17 T4,  and  agreed  to  meet  in  May,  1775. 

"  Their  determinations  were  no  sooner  known  than  they  were 
cheerfully  obeyed.  To  relieve  the  distresses  of  the  people  of  Boston, 
liberal  collections  were  made  throughout  t^e  colonies ;  a  disposition 
to  do,  to  suffer,  and  to  accommodate  spread  from  breast  to  breast,  and 
from  colony  to  colony,  beyond  the  reach  of  human  calculation.  It 
seemed  as  though  one  mind  inspired  the  whole.  In  the  midst  of 
their  sufferings,  cheerfulness  appeared  in  the  face  of  all  the  people : 
they  counted  every  thing  cheap  in  comparison  with  liberty,  and  readi- 
ly gave  up  whatever  tended  to  endanger  it.  The  animation  of  the 
times  raised  the  actors  in  these  scenes  above  themselves,  and  excited 
them  to  deeds  of  self-denial  which  the  interested  prudence  of  calmer 
seasons  can  scarcely  credit." 

The  fifth  chapter  of  Ramsay  exhibits  the  American  view  of  the 
transactions  that  took  place  in  Britain  during  the  beginning  of  1775  : 
this  was  the  critical  period  of  the  contest.  Great  Britain  had  com- 
menced her  measures  of  coercion,  —  America,  of  resistance.  A  body 
of  men,  the  Congress,  had  assembled,  who  were  considered  as  the 
organ  through  which  the  wishes  and  opinions  of  America  were  to  be 
conveyed ;  they  had  exhibited  their  cause  to  the  British  nation,  they 
had  petitioned  the  king.  It  was  now  to  be  seen,  in  the  conduct  of 
the  houses  of  Parliament,  whether  civil  war  was  to  ensue.  Unhap- 
pily, the  address  of  the  Houses,  in  answer  to  his  Majesty's  speech, 
declared  for  coercion,  on  the  9th  of  February,  1775.  The  force  in 
America  was  to  be  properly  increased.  Lord  Chatham  and  Mr. 
Burke  in  public.  Dr.  Franklin  and  others  in  public  and  private,  all 
labored  in  vain.  "  The  repeal  of  a  few  acts  of  Pariiament,"  says 
Ramsay,  "  would  at  this  time  have  satisfied  America."  But,  confi- 
dent of  victory,  the  ministers  were  deaf  to  petitions  and  remon- 
strances.    That  coercion  which  put  the  speediest  end  to  the  dispute, 

*  That  is,  Congress.    See  Ramsay,  *Vol.  i.  pp.  137  - 142.  —  N. 


598  LECTURE  XXXm, 

it  was  said,  must  be  eventually  the  most  merciful ;  and  no  very  long 
or  effective  resistance  was  expected. 

Very  reasonable  observations  are  here  made  by  Ramsay ;  aiid  he 
is  even  candid  enough  to  observe,  that,  "  unfortunately  for  both  coun- 
tries, two  opinions  were  generally  believed,  neither  of  which  was 
perhaps  true  in  its  utmost  extent ;  and  one  of  which  was  most  assured- 
ly false.  The  ministry  and  Parliament  of  England,"  he  says,  "  pro- 
ceeded on  the  idea*  that  the  claims  of  the  colonists  amounted  to  abso- 
lute independence,  and  that  a  fixed  resolution  to  renounce  the  sover- 
eignty of  Great  Britain  was  concealed  under  the  specious  pretext  of 
a  redress  of  grievances.  The  Americans,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
equally  confident  that  the  mother  country  not  only  harboured  designs 
unfriendly  to  their  interests,  but  seriously  intended  to  introduce  arbi- 
trary government."  There  is  probably  considerable  truth  in  this 
observation  of  Ramsay,  on  this  mutual  mistake ;  and  it  should  be  a 
warning  to  all  good  and  reasonable  men  to  be  very  careful  how  they 
listen,  on  the  breaking  out  of  a  dispute,  to  the  asseverations  of  those 
who  are  of  an  ardent  temper. 

The  sixth  chapter  of  Ramsay  is  not  less  interesting  than  the  former. 
The  preparations  on  each  side  for  the  civil  war,  —  the  jealousy  of 
liberty  on  the  one  side,  the  desire  of  supremacy  on  the  other,  —  these 
were  cause  and  effect,  and  urged  both  parties,  the  one  to  insist  on 
their  demands,  and  the  other  on  submission. 

At  Boston,  in  the  mean  time,  from  the  year  1768,  —  even  from 
so  early  a  period  as  1768,  —  a  miUtary  force  had  been  stationed  by 
England.  The  inhabitants  were  exasperated  against  the  soldiers,  and 
they  against  the  inhabitants :  the  one  were  considered  as  the  mere 
instruments  of  tyranny,  the  other  as  rioters  and  smugglers  ;  and  there 
was  a  constant  interchange  of  insulting  words,  looks,  and  gestures. 
At  length,  in  April,  1775,  the  sword  was  drawn  ;  the  civil  war  com- 
menced, and  "  the  blood  of  those  who  were  killed  at  Lexington  and 
Concord  proved,"  says  Ramsay,  "  the  firm  cement  of  an  extensive 
union.  The  Americans  who  fell  were  revered  as  martyrs  who  had 
died  in  the  cause  of  liberty.  Resentment  against  the  British  burned 
more  strongly  than  ever.  The  military  arrangements,  which  had  been 
adopted  for  defending  the  colonies  from  the  French  and  Indiana, 
were  turned  against  the  parent  state  ;  forts,  magazines,  arsenals,  were 
seized  by  the  provincial  militia ;  and  the  Lexington  battle  not  only 
furni'shed  the  Americans  with  a  justifying  apology  for  raising  an 
army,  but  inspired  them  with  ideas  of  their  own  prowess.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  time  was,  '  It  is  better  to  die  freemen  than  to  live 
slaves.'  *  Our  houses,'  it  was  said,  '  though  destroyed,  may  be  re- 
built ;  but  liberty,  once  gone,  is  lost  for  ever.' "  The  pulpit,  the  press, 
the  bench,  and  the  bar,  severally  labored  to  encourage  the  resistance 
that  had  be3n  resolved  upon :  religion  was  connected  with  patriotism ; 
and  in  sermons,  and  in  prayeus,  the  cause  of  America  was  represent- 


AMERICAN  WAR.  599 

i)d.  as  the  cause  of  Heaven ;  pastoral  letters  were  written ;  a  day  of 
tasting  and  humiliation  was  appointed :  a  league  and  covenant  had 
been  formed  in  an  earlier  stage  of  the  contest.  But  nothing  could 
apprise  the  inaccessible  confidence  of  the  British  ministry  how  danger- 
ous was  the  fury  of  a  people,  the  descendants  of  republicans  and 
fanatics,  whom  they  were  going,  by  very  unreasonable  and  very  un- 
justifiable aggressions,  to  rouse  into  action. 

After  tha  first  conflict  at  Lexington,  and  the  dreadful  storming, 
which  was  Thought  necessary  by  the  British,  of  the  American  in- 
trenchments  at  Bunker's  Hill,  both  in  1775,  the  next  event  of  very 
great  consequence  was  the  declaration  of  independence,  in  July, 
1776. 

You  will  now  observe  the  arguments  that  were  used ;  you  will  see 
them  in  the  very  celebrated  pamphlet  of  Paine,  —  his  Common 
Sense,  —  a  pamphlet  whose  effect  was  such,  that  it  is  quite  a  feature 
in  this  memorable  contest.  You  may  now  read  it,  and  wonder  how 
a  performance  not  marked,  as  you  may  at  first  sight  suppose,  with 
any  particular  powers  of  eloquence  could  possibly  produce  effects  so 
striking.  Without  entering  into  this  question,  I  must  ask  you  to 
consider  what  would  have  been  his  materials,  if  the  government  of 
the  parent  country  had  continued  mild  and  conciliatory  as  it  was  be- 
fore the  year  1763.  He  endeavours  to  make  out,  in  the  first  place, 
as  no  doubt  he  might,  that  it  was  better  for  the  continent  of  America 
to  be  an  independent  nation,  than  to  be  dependent  on  an  island  three 
thousand  miles  off.  But  when  he  comes  to  endeavour  to  animate  the 
feelings,  as  he  had  before  attempted  to  influence  the  understandings, 
of  his  countrymen,  what  were  his  words  ?  He  writes,  you  will  re- 
member, after  the  commencement  of  hostilities ;  he  writes  for  the 
purpose  of  procuring  the  vote  of  independence,  a  year  after  the  affair 
at  .Lexington  and  the  carnage  at  Bunker's  Hill. 

Paine's  Common  Sense,  p.  15.  —  "  Men  of  passive  tempers  look 
somewhat  Ughtly  over  the  offences  of  Britain,  and,  still  hoping  for 
the  best,  are  apt  to  call  out,  '  Come,  come,  we  shall  be  friends  again, 
for  all  this.'  But  examine  the  passions  and  feeUngs  of  mankind, 
bring  the  doctrine  of  reconciliation  to  the  touchstone  of  nature,  and 
then  tell  me  whether  you  can  hereafter  love,  honor,  and  faithfully 
serve  the  power  that  hath  carried  fire  and  sword  into  your  land.  If 
you  cannot  do  all  these,  then  are  you  only  deceiving  yourselves,  and 
by  your  delay  bringing  ruin  upon  posterity.  Your  future  connection 
with  Britain,  whom  you  can  neither  love  nor  honor,  will  be  forced  and 
unnatural,  and,  being  formed  only  on  the  plan  of  present  convenience, 
will,  in  a  little  time,  fall  into  a  relapse  more  wretched  than  the  first. 
But  if  you  say  you  can  still  pass  the  violations  over,  then,  I  ask. 
Hath  your  house  been  burnt  ?  Hath  your  property  been  destroyed 
before  your  face  ?  Are  your  wife  and  children  destitute  of  a  bed  to 
lie  on,  or  bread  to  live  on  ?     Have  you  lost  a  parent  or  a  child  by 


600  LECTURE  XXXm. 

their  hands,  and  yourself  the  ruined  and  wretehed  survivor  ?  If  you 
have  not,  then  are  you  not  a  judge  of  those  who  have.  But  if  you 
have,  and  still  can  shake  hands  with  the  murderers,  then  are  you  un- 
worthy the  name  of  husband,  father,  friend,  or  lover ;  and,  whatever 
may  be  your  rank  or  title  in  life,  you  have  the  heart  of  a  coward  and 
the  spirit  of  a  sycophant." 

No  man,  he  afterwards  declares,  was  a  warmer  wisher  for  reconcili- 
ation than  himself,  before  this  fatal  battle  of  Lexington.  "  Thou- 
sands," says  he,  "  are  already  ruined  by  British  barbaritly ;  thousands 
more  will  probably  suffer  the  same  fate :  those  men  have  other  feel- 
ings than  us  who  have  nothing  suffered I  make  the  sufferer's 

case  my  own,  and  I  protest,  that,  were  I  driven  from  house  and 
home,  my  property  destroyed,  and  my  circumstances  ruined,  that,  as 
a  man  sensible  of  injuries,  I  could  never  reUsh  the  doctrine  of  recon- 
ciliation, or  consider  myself  bound  thereby." 

Page  21.  —  "There  are  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  who 
would  think  it  glorious  to  expel  from  the  continent  that  barbarous  and 
hellish  power  which  hath  stirred  up  the  Indians  and  the  Negroes  to 
destroy  us :  the  cruelty  hath  a  double  guilt ;  it  is  dealing  brutally  by 
us,  and  treacherously  by  them.  To  talk  of  friendship  with  those 
in  whom  our  reason  forbids  us  to  have  faith,  and  our  affections, 
wounded  through  a  thousand  pores,  instruct  us  to  detest,  is  madness 
and  folly.  Every  day  wears  out  the  little  remains  of  kindred  be- 
tween us  and  them ;  and  can  there  be  any  reason  to  hope,  that,  as 
the  relationship  expires,  the  affection  will  increase,  or  that  we  shall 
agree  better  when  we  have  ten  times  more  and  greater  concerns  to 
quarrel  over  than  ever  ? 

"  Ye  that  tell  us  of  harmony  and  reconciliation,  can  ye  restore  to 
us  the  time  that  is  past  ?  Can  ye  give  to  prostitution  its  former  in- 
nocence ?  Neither  can  ye  reconcile  Britain  and  America.  The  last 
cord  is  now  broken ;  the  people  of  England  are  presenting  addresses 
against  us.  There  are  injuries  which  nature  cannot  forgive ;  she 
would  cease  to  be  nature,  if  she  did.  As  well  can  the  lover  forgive 
the  ravisher  of  his  mistress,  as  the  continent  forgive  the  murders  of 
Britain.  The  Almighty  hath  implanted  in  us  these  unextinguishable 
feelings  for  good  and  wise  purposes." 

Statesmen  should,  you  see,  be  very  careful  how  they  proceed  to 
acts  of  positive  hostility  against  the  towns  or  inhabitants  of  any  coun- 
try with  whom  they  ever  intend  to  be  on  terms  of  alliance  or  kind- 
ness. "  Never  can  true  reconcilement  grow,  where  wounds  of  deadly 
hate  have  pierced  so  deep."  It  is  of  no  consequence  how  unreason- 
ably the  sufferers,  or  their  leaders,  or  their  governments,  may  have 
conducted  themselves  before  the  quarrel  has  been  urged  to  acts  of 
aggression  like  these.  Nature,  when  in  affliction  or  agony,  is  deaf 
and  blind,  and  totally  insensible  to  all  suggestions  of  reason,  to  all 
considerations  of  original  right,  and  the  laws  of  war  and  of  nations ; 


AMERICAN  WAR.  601 

it  clamors  for  nothing  but  vengeance ;  and  men  are  urged  to  exas- 
peration and  frenzy  by  the  very  thought  and  name  of  a  people  whose 
soldiers  have  passed  through  their  country,  stabbing  their  friends 
and  kindred,  burning  their  houses,  or  violating  their  wives  and 
daughters. 

Dr.  Ramsay's  observations  on  the  independence  of  America  must 
be  read.  The  aifair  at  Lexington,  in  April,  1775,  exhibited  the 
mother  country  in  an  odious  point  of  view ;  yet  he  thinks,  for  a 
twelvemonth  after,  a  majority  wished  only  to  be  reestablished  as  sub- 
jects of  Great  Britain  in  their  ancient  rights.  Some  of  the  popular 
leaders  might  have  secretly  wished  for  independence  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  controversy ;  but  their  number  he  conceives  to  have  been 
small,  and  their  sentiments  not  generally  known.  The  coercion  at- 
tempted by  the  mother  country  he  considers  as  the  cause  that  natu- 
rally produced  the  declaration  of  independence ;  and  in  the  short 
space  of  two  years,  nearly  three  millions  of  people  passed  over  from 
the  love  and  duty  of  loyal  subjects  to  the  hatred  and  resentment  of 
enemies.  The  people  were  encouraged  by  this  measure,  the  declara- 
tion of  independence,  to  bear  up  under  the  calamities  of  war ;  so  were 
the  army. 

Paine  gives  the  same  representation,  in  his  very  curious  Letter  to 
the  Abbe  Raynal.  "  It  was  this  measure  that  pledged,"  he  says, 
"  their  honor,  their  interest,  their  every  thing ;  and  produced  that 
glow  of  thought  and  energy  of  heart  which  enabled  them  to  endure 
the  gloomy  campaign  of  1776."  And  no  doubt,  as  Ramsay  observes, 
*'  If  the  interference  of  France  was  necessary  to  give  success  to  the 
resistance  of  the  Americans,  the  declaration  of  independence  was  also 
necessary."     The  one  was  the  price  of  the  other. 

The  year  1776  was  the  most  important  in  the  contest.  In  this 
year  the  people  of  America  generally  took  their  side.  The  great  mass 
of  the  wealth,  learning,  and  influence  in  all  the  southern  colonies,  and 
in  most  of  the  northern,  was  in  favor  of  the  American  cause.  Some 
aged  persons  were  exceptions  ;  a  few,  too,  who  had  been  connected 
with  government ;  some,  also,  who  feared  the  power  of  Great  Britain, 
and  others  who  doubted  the  perseverance  of  America :  but  a  great 
majority  was  resolved  to  hazard  every  thing.  In  the  beginning  of 
the  year  1776,  the  colonists  were  farmers,  merchants,  and  mechanics; 
at  its  close,  soldiers. 

The  quotations  I  have  thus  made  from  Ramsay,  abridging  his  para- 
graphs, but  retaining  his  words,  will  give  you  a  general  idea  of  the 
feelings  and  reasonings  of  the  Americans  during  the  different  stages 
of  the  contest.  Bear  them  in  mind,  and  let  us  now  turn  to  consider, 
once  more,  the  reasonings  and  feelings  of  the  legislators  and  the  peo- 
ple of  England  during  the  same  stages  of  the  same  contest. 

We  will  refer,  as  I  have  announced  to  you,  to  the  Annual  Register. 
The  volumes  of  this  work  issued  from  the  press  year  after  year  in 

76  YY 


602  LECTURE  XXXIH. 

succession ;  they  are,  therefore,  the  very  mirrors  of  the  public  senti- 
mept.  They  exhibit  the  Hving  state  of  affairs  on  each  side  of  the 
Atlantic  as  they  appeared  at  each  period  to  some  very  active  and  in- 
telligent observer,  the  writer  of  this  work,  whose  proper  business  it 
was  to  observe.  The  author,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  was  Mr. 
Burke  ;  but  the  impartiaUty  with  which  the  arguments  and  views  on 
each  side  of  the  question  are  stated  is  marvellous. 

Begin,  if  you  please,  with  the  eighth  volume,  for  the  year  1765, 
and  with  the  commercial  regulations  of  Mr.  George  Grenville ;  pro- 
ceed to  the  Stamp  Act,  and  you  arrive  immediately  at  the  most  clear 
indications  of  very  general  discontent  and  resistance  all  over  America. 
This  general  discontent  and  resistance  is  the  first  point,  and  one  of 
great  consequence ;  and  this  is  stated.  In  the  ninth  volume  you  have  a 
description  of  the  ruinous  effects  of  this  exercise  of  the  right  of  Great 
Britain  to  tax  America,  —  the  effects  produced  upon  the  trade  and 
the  manufactures  on  each  side  of  the  Atlantic.  In  Great  Britain, 
indeed,  men  appear  to  have  been  divided  in  opinion  on  the  right  of 
taxing  America ;  but  on  the  poiver  of  coercing  her  by  the  military 
and  naval  force  of  this  country  there  seems  to  have  been  no  difference 
of  opinion.  This  point,  at  this  period  (in  1765),  seems  to  have  been 
taken  for  granted. 

In  1766,  however,  the  Stamp  Act  is  repealed.  It  was  repealed, 
because  during  this  interval,  and  this  only,  the  administration  was  in 
the  hands  of  a  portion  of  the  Whig  party,  Lord  Rockingham  and  his 
friends,  who,  to  their  eternal  honor,  put  their  theories  into  practice, 
their  principles  of  mild  governinent,  and  showed  an  attention  to  the 
petitions  of  men  who,  whether  right  or  wrong,  thought  they  were  in 
danger  of  being  enslaved.  But  in  the  twelfth  volume  we  have  new 
attempts  to  enforce  the  right  of  taxation  ;  we  have  the  tea  tax :  and 
in  the  thirteenth,  the  arguments  on  each  side  of  the  question.  What 
follows  ?  In  the  seventeenth  volume  we  have  the  riots  at  Boston,  the 
seizure  of  the  Gasp^e  sloop  of  war  by  the  populace ;  and  in  conse- 
quence of  these  outrages,  an  act  of  Parliament  to  shut  up  the  port  of 
Boston ;  a  disposition  to  carry  every  thing  to  extremities  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic  ;  the  fatal  bill  for  regulating  the  constitution  of  Massa- 
chusetts ;  and  even  the  obsolete  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  revived  and 
converted,  in  the  most  impolitic  manner,  to  the  most  unexpected  pur- 
pose, —  that  of  bringing  offenders  in  America  to  be  tried,  if  necessary, 
in  England.  But  the  eighteenth  volume  opens  with  observing  that 
the  prognostics  of  the  opposition  had  been  all  verified,  that  the  effect 
of  these  different  acts  had  been  all  as  injurious  as  possible  ;  and  in  the 
second  chapter  we  have  in  America  the  ominous  meeting  of  a  general 
congress,  in  September,  1774.  The  instructions  given  to  the  dele- 
gates appeared  to  the  editor  of  the  Annual  Register,  though  some- 
times violent,  reasonable  and  good.  The  resolutions  that  were  pass- 
ed, though  indicating  resistance,  were  still  of  a  defensive  nature. 


AMERICAN   WAR.  603 

And  we  have  next  their  declaration  of  rights,  their  petitions  and  me- 
morials to  the  king,  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  &c.,  &c.  The 
strong  point  of  their  case  seems  to  be,  that  they  considered  them- 
selves as  left  in  a  state  of  happiness  and  prosperity  at  the  peace 
of  1763,  and  that  their  wish  was  only  to  be  restored  to  that  former 
state,  and  nothing  more. 

In  the  mean  time,  on  all  these  important  subjects,  it  is  said  by  the 
Annual  Register  that  a  very  general  indiiference  prevailed  in  this 
country.  Marvellous  this,  it  may  now  be  thought :  America  had  re- 
sisted ;  and  there  prevailed,  it  seems,  a  very  general  indifference ! 
Our  young  members  of  Parliament  were  probably  occupied  only  with 
their  dress,  their  equipage,  and  their  clubs ;  our  country  gentlemen 
with  their  game  laws,  and  their  expected  relief  from  the  land  tax ; 
and  they  all,  young  and  old,  in  town  and  out,  left  the  affairs  of  the 
nation  to  those  wiser  heads  which,  they  somewhat  rashly  supposed, 
must  of  course  be  found  in  the  cabinet ! 

The  philosophic  views  of  the  merchants  and  manufacturers,  those 
of  them  who  were  not  creditors  of  American  houses,  and  likely  to  lose 
their  property  by  the  expected  rupture,  were,  it  seems,  at  this  period, 
about  the  level  of  the  gay  and  grave  triflers  I  have  just  alluded  to ; 
and  as  it  was  thought  that  a  countenance  of  resolution,  if  still  main- 
tained, would  certainly  awe  the  Americans  into  obedience,  there  was 
a  kind  of  general  vote,  it  seems,  that  we  were  to  go  on,  and  that  the 
ministry  knew  best.  Prudence  in  politics  was  supposed  to  be  like  the 
Christian  charity  that  "  hopeth  all  things,  and  believeth  all  things." 

The  new  Parliament  met  in  November,  1774.  The  ministry  were, 
indeed,  reproached  with  the  failure  of  their  predictions,  and  it  was 
evident  not  only  that  the  maze  was  mighty,  but  that  they  were  all 
without  a  plan.  Their  critics,  however,  were  only  seventy-three  (the 
number  of  opposition),  and  their  admirers  (themselves  included)  two 
hundred  and  sixty-four.  The  peers  of  the  realm  were  too  many  of 
them  distinguishable  from  their  inferiors  only  by  their  titles.  No 
other  claim  to  superiority  was  visible.  The  wisdom  of  Lord  Chatham, 
like  the  wisdom  of  Mr.  Burke,  was  exerted  in  vain.  His  assertions 
and  advice  should  be  compared  with  those  of  the  peers  in  office  who 
surrounded  him  in  the  House.  The  ministers  had  taken  their  ground 
(in  1774)  ;  the  supremacy  of  Great  Britain  was  to  be  enforced  ;  the 
Americans  could  not  persevere,  as  they  held,  in  their  systems  of  self- 
denial  and  schemes  of  non-itiaportation ;  they  could  not,  it  was  said, 
become  soldiers,  jfranklin,  with  a  petition,  was  not  heard ;  some  of 
the  commercial  bodies  fared  not  much  better ;  and  the  numbers  of 
ministry  and  opposition  in  the  two  houses  (th#  measures  of  the  pro- 
portion of  reasonableness  and  unreasonableness  in  each)  were  about 
two  to  one  in  the  upper,  and  three  to  one  in  the  lower.*    The  proper- 

*  The  votes  at  this  period,  as  given  in  Hansard  and  the  Annual  Register,  make  the 
proportiou  in  the  upper  house  very  different,  and  certainly  indicate  no  such  supenoiity 


604  LECTURE  XXXm. 

tion  was  better  in  the  upper  house  on  account  of  the  great  Whig 
families  found  there. 

We  have  next  some  vacillating  conduct  of  Lord  North,  and  even  a 
kind  of  conciliatory  scheme  actually  proposed  by  him  in  his  place, 
amid  the  alarm  of  his  friends,  and  the  amazement  of  all.  This  was 
the  celebrated  occasion  when  he  was  upon  his  legs  nine  different  times 
to  unsay  what  he  had  said,  because  what  he  had  certainly  said  was 
found  so  unpalatable  to  his  friends  and  supporters.  The  brighter 
rays  of  peace,  it  seems,  that  shot  athwart  his  speech,  were  unwelcome 
visitants  on  his  own  side  of  the  House,  "  the  reign  of  chaos  and  old 
night "  ;  and  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  Wedderburn,  and  at  last  the  minister 
himself,  were  forced  to  huddle  up  in  fogs  and  gloom  the  rainbow 
tints  that  might  have  indicated  too  soon  that  the  storm  was  passing 
away. 

But  the  storm  was  not  to  pass  away :  force  was,  in  fact,  to  be 
tried ;  and  the  force  determined  upon  was  declared  by  the  opposition 
to  be,  as  it  afterwards  proved,  inadequate  to  effect  its  purpose.  We 
have,  in  the  mean  time,  very  great  unanimity  in  America ;  the  peti- 
tion from  New  York,  made  under  very  particular  circumstances,  re- 
jected, as  well  as  Mr.  Burke's  conciliatory  motion,  by  the  British 
House  of  Commons.  The  civil  war,  therefore,  begins  in  April,  1775. 
What  follows  ?  At  the  end  of  the  first  campaign,  at  the  end  of  1775, 
a  regular  army,  of  the  most  unquestionable  discipline  and  valor,  ten 
thousand  men,  with  all  their  proper  accompaniments  of  artillery  and 
a  naval  force,  sent  out  in  this  impolitic  manner  to  conquer  America, 
had  achieved  —  what  ?  The  conquest  of  Bunker's  Hill !  —  that  is, 
had  conquered  of  the  great  continent  of  America  just  as  much  space  as 
lay  covered,  at  the  end  of  the  action,  with  the  dead  and  the  dying ! 

over  the  lower  house  as  is  here  stated,  but  quite  the  contrary.  In  offset  to  the  vote  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  73  to  264,  referred  to  near  the  beginning  of  the  paragraph,  we 
have  in  the  House  of  Lords,  at  the  same  time,  and  on  a  question  of  similar  cliaracter, 
-—an  Amendment  by  the  friends  of  America  to  the  Address  of  Thanks  in  answer  to  the 
King's  Speech  at  the  opening  of  the  session,  —  a  vote  of  only  13  to  63 ;  nearly  five  to  one 
in  the  latter  case,  against  a  little  over  three  to  one  in  the  former.  A  few  weeks  after- 
wards, on  the  subject  of  a  Joint  Address  to  the  King  respecting  the  Disturbances  in 
America,  the  votes  in  the  two  houses  were  296  to  106,  and  104  to  29 ;  less  than  three 
to  one  in  the  lower  house,  against  nearly  four  to  one  in  the  upper.  Immediately  fol- 
lowing this  was  the  Bill  for  Restraining  the  Trade  of  the  New  England  Colonies,  the 
vote  ujion  which  in  the  Commons  stood  261  to  85  (a  slight  relative  falling  off  in  the 
opposition),  and  in  the  Lords,  as  before,  104  to  29.  At  the  opening  of  the  next  session, 
seven  months  afterwards,  on  an  Amendment,  couched  in  the  same  terms  in  both  houses, 
to  the  Address  of  Thanks,  the  votes  were  108  to  278  in  the- lower  house,  and  29  to  69 
in  the  upper;  making  the  proportions  nearly  equal,  or  about  five  to  two  against  seven 
to  three.  On  the  American  Prohibitory  Bill,  a  few  weeks  later,  on  which  the  House  of 
Commons  divided  no  less^han  six  times,  the  greatest  vote  in  this  branch  was  207  to 
55,  or  less  than  four  to  one,  against  78  to  19,  or  more  than  four  to  one,  in  the  Lords. 
On  the  subject  of  employing  the  Hessian  troops,  near  the  close  of  the  session,  the  votes 
in  the  two  houses  stood  242  to  88,  and  100  to  32;  a  little  less  than  three  to  one  in  the 
lower  house,  against  a  little  over  three  to  one  in  the  upper.  —  These  seem  to  have  been 
tlie  only  questions  relating  to  American  affairs  which  engaged  the  joint  attention  of  the 
♦wo  houses  at  or  near  the  period  referred  to  in  the  text,  the  votes  upon  which  are  pre* 
•erved.  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  605 

It  was  but  a  cheerless  beginning  of  this  unhappy  contest  to  have 
coals,  and  fagots,  and  vegetables,  and  vinegar,  and  hay,  oxen,  and 
sheep,  transported  three  thousand  miles  across  the  Atlantic,  for  the 
support  of  the  gallant  men  who  were  sent  to  reduce  the  Americans  to 
obedience.  Very  lucrative  contracts  might,  indeed,  be  made  by  in- 
dividuals, and  they  and  their  connections  might  swell  the  clamors,  — 
they  certainly  did,  —  in  and  out  of  Parliament,  for  the  right  of  tax- 
ing America.  But  all  this  might  happen  while  the  English  Channel 
was  strewed,  as  it  was  strewed,  with  the  floating  carcasses  of  the 
animals  that  were  continually  perishing  in  the  transports,  and  while 
the  streets  of  Boston,  our  military  station,  were  filled  with  complaints, 
and  its  hospitals  with  sickness. 

One  effort  more  was  made  by  Congi'ess.  About  August,  1775, 
Mr.  Penn  arrived  in  London  with  a  petition  to  the  king,  subscribed 
by  all  the  members  of  Congress,  and  called  by  the  Americans  "  the 
olive-branch."  In  America  it  might  be^  called,  what  it  was  thought, 
the  olive-branch ;  but  darkness  and  tempest  still  dwelt  on  the  face 
of  the  waters,  and  there  was  no  resting-place  for  him  who  bore  it. 
Mr.  Penn  was  informed  by  the  minister  that  no  answer  could  be  re- 
turned. 

This  seems  an  epoch  in  the  dispute  :  it  should  be  examined  by 
those  who  mean  to  reap  the  instruction  of  history.  The  reasonings 
of  the  different  parties  and  descriptions  of  men  in  and  out  of  Parlia- 
ment, at  this  particular  period,  —  the  middle  and  close  of  the  year 
1775,  —  are  very  remarkable.  They  will  illustrate,  I  apprehend, 
the  influence  of  those  causes  which  I  have  ventured  to  propose  in  ex- 
planation of  the  conduct  of  the  mother  country :  the  general  ignorance 
of  the  real  nature  of  our  commercial  prosperity ;  the  vulgar  notions 
on  political  subjects  into  which  communities  are  always  liable  to  fall ; 
and  the  very  high  principles  of  government  which  people  of  property 
and  respectabihty,  under  any  mixed  constitution,  are  always  too  ready 
to  insist  upon. 

Many  of  the  first  members  in  opposition  (I  quote  from  the  Annual 
Register),  both  peers  and  commoners,  it  was  expected,  during  the 
session,  were  more  likely  to  be  found  in  the  Tower,  for  treasonable 
practices,  than  in  their  places  in  the  two  houses.  —  Sir  George 
Savile  and  Lord  Rockingham  in  the  Tower !  —  And  Mr.  Penn  de- 
clared at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Lords,  that,  during  the  whole  of 
his  stay  in  London,  he  had  never  been  asked  a  single  question  relative 
to  America,  by  any  minister  or  person  in  power  whatever. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  year  1776,  the  war  was,  it  seems,  in 
England  not  unpopular.  National  rights  were  supposed  to  be  in- 
vaded ;  national  burdens,  it  was  expected  (ludicrous  expectations !), 
would  be  alleviated.  The  expenses  of  the  contest  were  not  yet  felt ; 
and  the  hospitals  and  fields  of  battle  were  at  a  distance.  A  general 
carelessness  as  to  the  present  and  the  future  —  perhaps  the  effect 

YY* 


606  LECTURE  XXXIII. 

of  prosperity  —  was  very  observable  in  the  people  of  England  at  this 
time.  The  declaration  of  independence  had,  it  seems,  in  the  latter 
part  of  1776,  an  unfortunate  effect.  Instead  of  showing  the  people 
how  great  had  been  the  mistakes  of  their  rulers,  it  rather  tended  to 
unite  them  in  support  of  men  who  had  always  advised  coercive  meas- 
ures, and  who  insisted  that  independence  had  been  the  secret  object 
of  the  American  patriots  from  the  first.  The  war  was  considered  as 
unavoidable,  and  almost  as  one  of  self-defence.  The  king's  speech, 
the  debates  in  Parliament,  and  the  conversations  in  private  society 
breathed  nothing  but  accusations  against  the  Americans,  approbation 
of  our  own  conduct,  and  resolutions  to  resist  rebellion  and  chastise 
ingratitude. 

An  enlightened  reasoner  upon  the  affairs  of  mankind  would  rather 
have  been  occupied,  all  this  time,  in  considering  how  far  it  might  be 
wise  for  Great  Britain  to  make  the  best  of  a  conjuncture  of  circum- 
stances so  unfortunate,  and  t©  attempt  some  scheme  of  confederation 
or  amity  and  alliance  with  America,  on  the  principle  of  acknowledg- 
ing at  once  that  independence  which  they  had  asserted.  Such  would 
'  certainly  have  be6n  the  advice  of  Dean  Tucker,  and  probably  of  Mr. 
Robinson :  but  a  community  is  generally  at  fifty  years'  distance  from 
its  real  philosophers.  The  majorities  in  the  two  houses,  on  amend- 
ments of  a  conciliatory  nature,  were  two  hundred  and  forty-two  to 
eighty-seven  in  the  lower,  and  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  to  ninety- 
one  in  the  upper.*  The  opposition  about  this  time  seem  even  to  have 
seceded,  and  given  up  their  efforts.  It  is  very  difficult,  no  doubt,  for 
men  of  rank  and  intelligence  to  attend  with  the  patience  of  physicians, 
and  watch  over  the  diseases  of  the  public  mind  ;  but  the  misfortune  is, 
these  secessions  never  awaken  any  sympathy  in  the  country,  and  uni- 
formly fail  in  their  purpose.  This  particular  secession,  however,  gave 
occasion  to  a  very  remarkable  composition  which  is  now  regularly 
published  in  Burke's  Works.  It  was  intended  as  an  address  to  the 
king  on  the  subject  of  this  secession,  or  rather  on  the  general  subject 
of  American  poHtics.  Being  addressed  to  the  sovereign,  it  could 
have  neither  the  faults,  nor  some  of  the  particular  merits,  of  Mr. 
Burke's  other  compositions.  But  it  is  in  its  matter  very  weighty ;  it 
is  very  fine,  level  writing,  and  quite  a  model  in  its  way. 

The  campaign  of  1777  was  marked  by  the  successes  of  General 
Howe  and  the  misfortunes  of  General  Burgoyne ;  but  the  result  of 
two  decided  victories  on  the  part  of  the  former  was  only  the  posses- 

*  This  is  a  great  mistake.  The  amendments  in  question  —  amendments  to  the 
Address  of  Thanks  in  answer  to  the  King's  Speech  at  the  opening  of  the  session,  Oc- 
tober 31, 1776  — were  rejected  in  the  lower  house  by  a  vote  of  87  to  242,  as  is  stated  in 
the  text;  but  in  the  upper  house, according  to  both  Hansard  and  the  Annual  Register, 
the  numbers  were  only  26  to  91,  including  proxies.  The  largest  vote  in  this  branchy 
during  the  session,  appears  to  have  been  that  on  the  Earl  of  Chatham's  motion  for  an 
Address  to  the  King  to  put  a  Stop  to  Hostilities  in  America,  May  30, 1777,  and  includ- 
ing proxies  was  but  28  to  99.  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  60T 

sion  of  Philadelphia,  and  as  much  of  the  adjacent  country  as  the 
British  commanded  by  their  arms.  The  result  of  the  misfortunes  of 
the  latter  was  the  entire  surrender  and  capture  of  the  royal  army. 

The  general  conclusion  from  the  whole  was,  that  the  country  pre- 
sented difficulties  that  were  insurmountable,  and  that  the  enemy  could 
not  be  brought  to  engage  without  his  consent ;  that  the  subjugation, 
therefore,  of  the  continent  was  impossible.  The  English  ministers 
drew  no  such  lessons  from  these  events ;  but  the  French  did,  and  im- 
mediately resolved  to  join  the  Americans. 

The  opposition,  even  before  the  news  of  the  capture  of  General 
Burgoyne  had  arrived,  remonstrated  loudly,  and  with  great  force  of 
argument,  against  any  further  attempts  at  coercion,  but  in  vain. 
Their  amendments  were  negatived  in  the  Commons,  two  hundred  and 
forty-three  to  eighty-six ;  in  the  Lords,  notwithstanding  the  exertions 
and  predictions  of  Lord  Chatham,  ninety-seven  to  twenty-eight.  In- 
terest of  money,  it  seems,  rose ;  the  stocks  fell,  and  so  did  the  value 
of  real  estates.  The  country  gentlemen  looked  blank,  and  perceived 
that  all  was  wrong ;  but,  not  knowing  how  to  set  things  right,  acqui- 
esced in  whatever  was  proposed  to  them,  —  silently,  indeed,  but  they 
acquiesced. 

In  the  opening  of  the  year  1778,  Lord  North  brought  in  his  con- 
ciUatory  bills,  and  produced  his  creed  on  the  general  subject  of  the 
American  troubles.  Neither  the  creed  nor  the  bills  were  very  good,  • 
but  they  were  both  three  years  too  late.  Reproaches  followed  from 
Mr.  Fox  at  his  tardy  wisdom ;  and  his  followers  and  the  country 
gentlemen  sat  in  mixed  indignation  and  despair.  Lord  Carlisle  was 
afterwards  the  bearer  of  this  vain  attempt  at  accommodation.  It  is 
impossible  for  either  nations  or  individuals,  in  the  management  of  a 
dispute,  to  have  the  benefit  of  two  opposite  chances.  They  may  be, 
from  the  first,  moderate,  pacific,  magnanimous ;  they  will  thus  secure 
certain  advantages,  and  they  will  lose  possible  advantages.  They 
may,  on  the  contrary,  be  haughty,  warhke,  and  selfish  ;  their  chances 
and  advantages  will  then  be  the  reverse  of  the  former.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  unite  the  two. 

France  joined  in  March,  1778.*  The  ministry  and  the  people  of 
England  were  furious,  though  the  opponents  of  the  American  war  had 
always  predicted  the  event.  The  only  question  with  these  opponents 
of  the  war  now  was,  whether  America  should  not  immediately  be 
acknowledged  an  independent  power.  All  idea  of  the  coercion  of 
America  must  have  been  now,  among  reasonable  men,  at  an  end. 
But  the  ministers  waited  till  another  royal  army  was  lost,  under  Lord 
Cornwallis  ;  and  they  had  then  only  to  consider  how  they  could  keep 
the  Americans  in  check,  protect  the  West  India  islands,  pacify  Ire- 
land, and  save  England  itself  from  the  superior  fleets  of  the  enemy. 

*  The  treaty  of  alliance  with  France  was  signed  February  6,  1778 ;  and  the  French 
forces  arrived  in  America  the  following  July.  Sparks's  'Wntings  of  Washington, 
V.  325,  VI.  3.  — N. 


608  LECTURE  XXXIII. 

Such  was  the  unhappy  situation  to  which  the  American  contest 
was  at  last  brought  by  men  who  were  debaters  in  Parlfament,  but  not 
statesmen.  Their  last  conciliatory  effort  reached  America  in  April, 
1778.  "  There  was  a  day/'  replied  General  Washington  to  Gov- 
ernor Trumbull,*  "  there  was  a  day,  when  even  this  step,  from  our 
then  acknowledged  parent  state,  might  have  been  accepted  with  joy 
and  gratitude  ;  but  that  day,  Sir,  is  past  irrevocably." 

What  I  have  now  delivered  to  you,  borrowing  my  materials  from 
Ramsay  and  the  Annual  Register,  will  give  you  some  general  notion 
of  the  instruction  to  be  derived  from  a  comparison  of  the  opinions  and 
feelings  of  the  inhabitants  of  America  with  those  of  the  people  of  this 
country  at  each  corresponding  period. 

This  kind  of  instruction  may  be  still  further  amphfied  by  a  refer- 
ence to  the  Memoirs  of  Gibbon.  Look  at  his  private  letters,  and  ob- 
serve the  passages  where  any  mention  is  made  of  America.  I  had 
extracted  several  of  them,  meaning  to  read  them  to  you ;  but  I  for- 
bear, lest  I  should  dwell  too  long  upon  a  lesson  that  is,  from  the  first 
to  the  last,  sufficiently  striking. 

Of  the  powers  of  the  mind  of  Gibbon  I  need  not  speak,  and  I  must 
confess  that  the  few  sentences  which  appear  in  his  confidential  letters, 
when  written  by  such  a  man,  and  when  contrasted,  as  they  should  be, 
with  what  in  the  mean  time  was  passing  in  America,  appear  to  me  to 
%peak  volumes.  Gibbon  lived  in  the  first  society  in  London,  with  Lord 
North  and  his  friends ;  was  a  member  of  Pariiament,  and  acquainted, 
no  doubt,  in  a  general  manner,  with  their  reasonings  and  measures. 
The  lively,  superficial  glance  which  he  casts  upon  these  momentous 
transactions  must  have  been  much  the  same  with  that  of  other  people 
of  consequence  and  talents  around  him ;  and  it  is  in  the  same  careless, 
unfeeling,  and  presumptuous  manner  that  men  in  easy  circumstances, 
and  men  of  rank  and  fortune,  are  but  too  often  talking,  writing,  and 
voting,  on  all  concerns  of  national  policy,  not  immediately  connected 
with  their  own  personal  interests.  It  is  necessary  that  1  should  de- 
clare to  you,  for  it  is  on  this  account  that  I  must  recommend  them  to 
your  perusal,  that  a  more  lamentable  inattention  than  is  displayed  in 
these  letters  of  Mr.  Gibbon,  from  first  to  last,  to  all  the  facts  and  to 
all  the  principles  that  properly  belonged  to  this  great  subject  of  Ameri- 
ca, one  more  striking,  and,  if  duly  considered,  one  more  valuable, 
cannot  be  offered  for  your  instruction.  I  do  not  quote  them,  not 
only  for  the  reasons  I  have  mentioned,  but  because  the  letters  are 
everywhere  full  of  spirit  and  entertainment,  and  must,  of  course,  be 
read  by  every  man  of  education.  I  must  again  and  again  repeat,  that 
these  tilings  are,  and  ought  to  be,  a  warning  to  us,  how  we  suffer  our- 
selves to  be  guilty  of  such  faults,  in  matters  of  national  policy,  as  even 
the  talents  of  Gibbon  did  not  protect  him  from,  —  how  we  are  either 

•*  Gov.  Trambull,  of  Connecticut,  to  Gov.  Tryon,  of  New  York.    See  Annual  Reds 
terf^r  1778,  p.  216*].  — N.  ^ 


AMERICAN  WAR.  609 

arrogant  or  selfish,  with  regard  to  foreign  nations,  arbitrary  in  our 
notions  of  government,  or  consenting  to  the  short-sighted,  petty,  paltry 
expedients  of  vulgar  politics. 

For  Lord  North,  on  this  occasion,  a  man  of  fine  talents  and  mild 
temper,  there  can  be  no  excuse.  He  must  have  been  guilty  of  ac- 
quiescing in  measures  the  general  folly  of  which  he  must  have  resolved 
to  shut  out  from  his  view.  Either  this,  or  he  is  an  example  to  show 
that  wit  and  eloquence  and  acuteness  and  dexterity  in  debate  are  one 
thing,  while  decision,  elevation,  strength,  and  clearness  of  understand- 
ing, such  as  are  indispensable  in  the  rulers  of  mankind,  are  quite 
another.  He  slumbered  on,  amid  the  downy  pleasures  of  patronage 
and  social  regard ;  amid  shifts  and  expedients  and  discreditable  fail- 
ures, vernal  hopes  and  winter  disappointments  ;  uniformly  a  year  too 
late  in  every  project  he  formed  ;  and  while  he  talked  of  having  fol- 
lowed up-  the  system  of  his  predecessors,  of  not  being  the  original 
author  of  a  dispute  from  which  he  could  not  disengage  himself,  and 
of  having  pursued  the  conduct  recommended  to  him  by  the  advice  of 
Parliament  and  the  wishes  of  the  nation  (the  unfair  excuses,  these, 
and  palliatives  of  bad  ministers  at  all  times)  he  saw  the  empire  gradu- 
ally dismembered,  his  administration  ending  in  defeat  and  disgrace, 
and  his  character  and  fame  as  a  statesman,  in  the  opinion  of  posterity, 
lost  for  ever.  This  is  not  to  pass  too  harsh  a  judgment  upon  him,  nor 
is  it  to  judge  after  the  event ;  nothing  is  now  known  that  was  not  then  • 
known,  and  nothing  happened  that  was  not  repeatedly  predicted.  It 
was  known,  for  instance,  that  the  Americans  were,  on  their  first  set- 
tlement, repubhcans  ;  that  the  Pelhams  and .  the.  Walpoles  had  care- 
fully abstained  from  stirring  the  critical  question  of  American  taxa- 
tion :  the  difficulties  and  irritations  connected  with  the  restraint  of 
the  contraband  trade  of  the  colonies  were  also  known.  The  spirit 
shown  on  the  subject  of  the  Stamp  Act,  both  on  its  enactment  and 
on  its  repeal,  was  a  matter  of  the  most  perfect  notoriety.  Lord 
North,  and  his  predecessors.  Lord  Grenville  and  Charles  ToAvnshend, 
had  nothing  to  learn  with  respect  to  the  influence  of  posts  and  places 
on  the  minds  of  men ;  and  it  was  known  very  well,  that  the  crown 
had  no  very  extensive  or  effective  influence,  arising  from  its  patron- 
age in  North  America.  It  was  clear,  therefore,  that  the  precise 
merit  of  every  measure,  and  its  agreeableness  to  the  notions,  habits, 
and  interests  of  the  people,  were  points  of  the  utmost  consequence. 
These  ministers  were  aware,  or  might  have  been,  that  this  right  of 
taxation  was  the  particular  point  on  which  the  Americans  were  sensi- 
tive. Fanaticism,  as  it  was  well  known,  made  a  part  of  the  national 
character  of  America.  Its  transition  from  religious  to  civil  liberty 
was  very  intelligible ;  it  was  part  of  the  instruction  even  of  our  own 
history,  in  the  times  of  Charles  the  First.  It  was  kno^yn  that  a 
state  of  independence  on  the  mother  country  was  (at  least,  might 
yery  possibly  be)  the  ambition  of  many  bolder  spirits  in  America : 
77 


610  LECTURE  XXXIV. 

again,  that  this  was  even  the  state  to  which  the  prosperity  of  large 
and  distant  colonies  naturally  tends.  Every  one  was  aware  that  dif- 
ferent opinions  existed  in  America  on  the  justice  of  the  claims  of 
Great  Britain ;  it  was,  therefore,  the  obvious  policy  of  the  rulers  of 
Great  Britain  so  to  deport  themselves,  that  those  who  in  America 
undertook  their  defence  should  have  as  good  a  case  as  possible  against 
the  opposite  party.  All  these  things  were  or  might  have  been  known 
and  understood ;  and  when  all  that  was  requested  by  the  petitions 
from  America  was,  in  a  word,  only  the  renewal  of  their  situation  at 
the  peace  in  1763,  only  a  return  to  the  old  system,  what  are  we  to 
say,  when  we  see  these  petitions  disregarded,  troops  sent  to  Boston, 
soldiers  hired  from  Germany  to  force  into  submission  such  an  immense 
continent  as  America,  situated  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  ? 

There  is  a  progress  in  these  things,  but  it  is  from  mistake  to  folly, 
from  folly  to  fault,  from  fault  to  crime ;  it  is  at  least  from  fau4t  to  the 
shedding  of  blood  in  a  quarrel,  of  which  the  theoretical  justice  must 
have  been  confessed  by  every  one  to  be  a  matter  of  some  debate,  but 
of  which  the  issue,  whatever  direction  it  might  take,  could  not  have 
been  well  expected  by  any  one  to  be  favorable  to  the  real  interests  of 
the  mother  country,  if  the  question  was  once  reduced  to  a  question  of 
arms.* 


LECTURE    XXXIV. 


AMERICAN  WAR. 


^  In  my  last  lecture  I  endeavoured  to  exhibit  to  you  the  different 
views  that  were  taken  of  the  same  measures  and  events  by  the  Ameri- 
cans on  the  one  side,  and  by  the  British  ministers  and  people  on  the 
other.  I  alluded  to  passages  in  the  account  given  by  Ramsay,  and 
to  passages  in  the  Annual  Register ;  these  I  recommended  to  your 
study.  I  did  so  because  men  fail  in  the  management  of  a  dispute, 
whether  as  statesmen  or  individuals,  chiefly  because  they  never  enter 
into  the  particular  views  and  feelings  of  those  to  whom  they  are  op- 

*  I  had  observed  in  the  above  lecture,  that  for  Lord  North  there  could  be  no  excuse, 
what  excuse  there  is  I  have  lately,  many  years  after,  had  an  opportunity  of  ascertain- 
ing. I  have  seen  papers  which  show  that  Lord  North,  after  tie  affair  at  Saratoga,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  year  1778,  made  every  effort  to  procure  from  the  king  permission 
to  resign.  Th^se  efforts  were  continually  repeated  for  a  long  period,  but  in  vain :  the 
king  could  not  give  up  the  idea  of  coercing  America,  and  therefore  could  not  part  with 
the  only  man  who  was,  he  thought,  fit  to  manage  the  House  of  Commons. 


AMERICAN   WAR.  611 

posed.     Of  this  fault  in  mankind  no  instances  can  be  produced  more 
strong  than  those  which  I  yesterday  exhibited.     Paine,  the  popular 
writer  of  America,  considered  the  English  nation  as  one  with  which 
no  terms  were  to  be  kept,  —  as  a  "  hellish  nation,"  and  her  soldiers 
as  ''murderers":  yet  were  these  soldiers  sent  to  enforce  the  meas- 
ures of  Lord  North,  the  most  amiable  of  men,  who  thought  the  sover- 
eignty lay  in  the  parent  state  ;  that  in  the  rights  of  sovereignty  was 
included  the  right  of  taxation ;  and  as  far  as  the  moral  part  of  the 
case  was  concerned,  believed  himself  perfectly  justified  in  asserting 
the  supremacy  of  Great  Britain.     In  this  opinion  he  was  supported  by 
a  decided  majority  of  the  English  nation  in  and  out  of  Parliament ; 
while  the  pamphlet  of  Paine,  whatever  may  justly  be  thought  of  the 
coarseness  and  fury  of  such  terms  as  I  have  mentioned,  was  uni- 
versally read  and  admired  in  America,  and  is  said  to  have  contributed 
most  materially  to  the  vote  of  independence  passed  by  Congress  in 
1776.     Again,  the  representations  of  Ramsay,  as  well  as  the  known 
facts,  display  the  violence  with  which  the  Americans  reasoned  and 
felt ;  while  the  pages  of  the  Annual  Register  show  how  indifferent  or 
how  ignorant  were  in  the  mean  time  the  generality  of  the  English 
people.     These  are  edifying  examples  of  the  nature  of  the  human 
mind  to  those  who  will  reflect  upon  them,  and  as  such  I  yesterday 
recommended  them  to  your  attention :  refer  to  whichever  side  of  the 
Atlantic  you  choose,  the  instruction  will  be  found.     I  am,  however, 
not  speaking  to  Americans,  and  it  is  more  fit  that  I  should  dwell  upon 
the  faults  which  we  ourselves  exhibited,  more  particularly  as  they  lost 
us  half  our  empire.      Certainly  there  was  in  England  and  in  her 
statesmen  a  total  inattention  to  the  particular  character,  feelings,  and 
opinions  of  the  American  people ;  and  to  direct  your  reflection  to  this 
particular  part  and  most  important  part  of  the  subject  was,  as  I  have 
already  mentioned,  the  business  of  the  lecture  of  yesterday.     But  I 
meant  you  also  to  see  at  the  same  time  what  I  conceive  to  be  the 
great  political  lesson  of  the  American  dispute,  —  the  impoUcy  of 
harsh  government ;  and  this,  which  is  the  lesson  of  the  American  dis- 
pute, is  also  the  great  lesson  of  history.     I  have  never  failed  to  point 
it  out  to  you.     There  is  an  instance  of  this  kind  very  memorable  in 
the  annals  of  Europe,  to  which  I  called  your  attention  in  a  formei 
lecture  ;  as  it  bears  a  certain  resemblance  in  many  important  points 
to  the  case  before  us,  I  will  now  again  allude  to  it,  and  again  re- 
quest you  to  consider  it :  it  is  the  instance  of  the  Low  Countries  and 
Spain.     It  can  scarcely  be  necessary  to  say  that  no  comparison  is  in- 
tended between  the  project  of  introducing  the  Inquisition  in  the  one 
case  and  the  Stamp  Act  in  the  other ;  but  there  is  a  certain  analogy 
in  the  want  of  policy  in  the  two  cabinets  at  these  different  periods, 
which  is  sufficiently  strong  to  be  worth  your  observation;  in  each 
case  the  great  question  was  coercion  or  not,  -^  harsk  government  or 
mild. 


612  LECTURE  XXXIV. 

The  lessons  of  history  are  neglected  by  those  who  are  too  intemper- 
ate to  listen  to  any  admojiition,  from  whatever  quarter  it  may  come, 
and  by  those  who  have  not  philosophy  enough  either  to  relish  histori- 
cal inquiries,  or  to  separate  principles  from  the  particular  circum- 
stances by  wt^ch  they  may  be  surrounded.  To  mark,  however,  the 
common  appearance  of  any  great  principles  in  the  case  that  is  past 
and  in  the  case  before  us  is  to  read  history  with  proper  advantage  ; 
and  to  see,  or  not  to  see,  instruction  of  this  kind,  is  the  great  distinc- 
tion between  the  statesman  who  may  be  trusted  in  critical  times,  and 
the  mere  man  of  office,  who,  in  all  such  critical  times,  is  more  likely 
to  injure  than  to  serve  his  country. 

In  a  former  lecture,  when  alluding  to  the  great  struggle  between 
Spain  and  the  Low  Countries,  as  I  have  already  said,  I  mentioned  the 
analogy  in  many  important  points  between  this  great  contest  and  our 
own  American  dispute.  I  have  since  found,  on  examining  the  de* 
bates  in  the  Commons,  that  the  instance  of  the  Flemings,  and  their 
successful  resistance  to  the  Spanish  monarchy,  was  not  overlooked ; 
it*  was  alluded  to  by  Governor  Johnstone,  and  it  is  probable  that  he 
insisted  upon  it  at  some  length.  I  shall  make  a  short  reference  to 
the  historian  Bentivoglio,  and  take  the  common  translation,  that  you 
may  not  be  listening  to  any  representations  of  mine.  You  will  see 
the  leading  points  of  similarity,  I  doubt  not,  without  any  assistance 
from  me. 

"  The  council  of  Spain,"  says  Bentivoglio,  "  was  then  full  of  many 
eminent  personages.  Amongst  the  rest,  the  Duke  of  Alva  and  the 
Duke  of  Feria  were  in  great  esteem  both  with  the  king  and  council. 

These  two  were  of  diiFering  opinions Upon  a  certain 

day,  then,  when  the  king  himself  was  in  council  to  resolve  what  was 
to  be  done  in  this  so  important  business,  the  Duke  of  Feria  spake 
thus : — 

" 'To  provide  for  the  evils  wherewith  Flanders  is  afflicted, 

't  is  very  necessary  first  to  know  their  causes.  And  this  without  all 
doubt  ought  chiefly  to  be  attributed  to  the  terror  which  the  Inquisi- 
tion and  the  edicts  have  infused  into  that  country.  The  Flemish 
have  apprehended,  and  do  apprehend  now  more  than  ever,  to  have 
their  consciences  violated  by  such  ways,  and  to  undergo  all  other 
greater  affliction  and  misery ;  and  this  it  is  which  hath  made  them 
fall  at  last  into  so  many  and  so  heinous  outrages.  That  under  which 
Flanders  doth  at  this  present  labor  is,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  a  frenzy  of 
fear.  .....  If  the  bare  name  of  Inquisition hath  put  Flan- 
ders into  such  commotions,  what  will  that  nation  do  wh-en  they  shall 
see  themselves  threatened  with  the  forces  of  a  foreign  army  ?  What 
fear,  what  horror,  will  i;hey  thereat  conceive ! They  will  be- 
lieve that  the  government  of  Spain  will  be  by  force  brought  into 
Flanders ;  that  their  privileges  will  be  violated,  their  institutions  over- 
thrown, their  faults  severely  punished,  their  liberties  oppressed  bj 


AMERICAN  WAR.  613 

garrisons,  and  finally  be  buried  in  citadels People's  fear  doth 

ofttimes  degenerate  into  desperation.  So  the  Flemings  growing  des- 
perate, and  the  nobility  cloaking  themselves  no  longer  under  cove- 
nants and  petitions,  nor  the  common  people  falling  into  slight  tumults, 
but  the  whole  country  going  into  a  general  rebelUon,  all  may,  with  one 
accord,  oppose  our  forces,  and  not  suffer  them  to  enter.  And  say  the 
Flemish  were  not  apt  enough  of  themselves  to  make  this  opposition, 
will  they  peradventure  want  neighbours  who  will  use  all  means  to  in- 
cite them  thereunto  ? But  let  it  be  granted  that  the  Spanish 

forces  be  suffered  to  enter, are  we  any  whit  the  more  secure 

that  the  country  may  not  alter  afterwards,  and  be  troubled  ?  Great 
punishments  must  certainly  be  undergone,  and  force  must  divers  ways 
be  secured  by  greater  force.  The  people  there  will  then  begin  to 
despair  more  than  ever ;  they  will  call  punishment  oppression,  and 
severity  tyranny,  citadels  yokes,  and  garrisons  chains  and  fetters ; 
and  thus  at  last  they  will  break  out  into  rebellion  and  arms.  Thus 
will  the  war  be  kindled.  Nor  do  I  know  whether  it  will  be  afterwards 
as  easily  ended  as  it  would  have  been  easy  at  first  not  to  have  begun 
it.  Nature,  by  the  strong  situation  of  sea  and  rivers,  will  fight  for 
them  ;  they  themselves  will  fight  desperately,  in  defence,  as  they  will 
say,  of  themselves,  wives,  children,  and  liberty.  The  opulency  of 
their  own  country  will  furnish  them  with  gallant  forces,  and  much 
more  the  opportunity  of  their  neighbours.  On  the  contrary,  how 
heavy  a  burden  of  war  will  your  Majesty  be  to  sustain !  Succours  at 
so  great  a  distance  will  prove  very  slow,  and  very  costly  both  by  sea 

and  land The  event  of  war  is  always  uncertain ;  and  fortune, 

which  in  other  human  accidents  is  content  with  a  part,  will  here  have 
the  whole  dominion.  If  the  success  prove  favorable  to  your  Majesty, 
the  victory  will  be  bought  with  blood,  and  against  the  blood  of  your 
subjects.     But  if  the  contrary  should  fall  out  (which  God  forbid!), 

not  only  men,  but  states,  would  be  lost ; and  so  at  last,  by 

too  deplorable  event,  we  shall  be  taught  how  much  fair  means  would 
have  been  better  than  bitter  proceedings  for  the  accommodation  of 
the  affairs  of  those  provinces.  It  is  to  those  fair  means  that  I  exhort 
you,  and  that  by  all  means  you  give  over  any  thought  of  the  other. 
Every  province,  every  kingdom,  hath  its  particular  nature,  Hke  unto 

human  bodies One  government  is  proper  for  Spain,  another 

for  the  Indies,  another  for  your  states  in  Italy,  and  so  likewise  others 

in  Flanders Let  the  Flemish,  then,  be  permitted  to  enjoy  the 

government  of  Flanders.  Free  them  from  all  suspicion  either  of  In- 
quisition, foreign  forces,  or  any  other  more  dreaded  violence.  Let 
one  contrary  cure  another ;  so  the  people's  fear  ceasing,  the  country 

commotions  will  cease Let  the  punishment  of  a  few  serve  for 

the  example  of  all ;  and  let  it  be  laid  there  where  the  country  may  be 
least  exasperated  thereby.  In  fine,  clemency  becomes  a  pricce; 
other  people  are  capable  of  other  virtues.'  " 

zz 


614  LECTURE  XXXrV. 

But  tlie  Duke  of  Alva  thought  not  so ;  like  the  fallen  angel  of  Mil* 
ton,  and  hke  other  fallen  angels  in  cabinets  and  senates,  his  "  sentence 
was  for  open  war."  " '  To  begin,'  says  he,  '  most  puissant  Prince, 
where  the  Duke  of  Feria  ended,  I  shall  both  truly  and  freely  deny 
that  it  is  now  in  your  Majesty's  power  to  use  clemency,  which  virtue, 

ill-used,  degenerates  into  abject  servility How  long  will  you 

endure  to  receive  laws  in  Flanders,  instead  of  giving  them  ?  What 
remains  now  but  that  the  Flemish,  who  upon  all  occasion  boast  them- 
selves to  be  as  well  free  as  subjects,  having  denied  all  obedience  to 
the  Church,  may  also  altogether  deny  it  to  you?  so  as  a  second 
Switzers'  commonwealth  shall  be  seen  to  arise ; or  rather,  in- 
stead of  a  popular  tyranny,  Orange  and  Egmont,  and  the  other  authors 

of  so  many  base  novelties, shall  boldly  divide  those  provinces 

amongst  themselves.  The  aifairs  of  Flanders  do  at  the  present  lean 
this  way ;  and  shall  we  talk  of  pardon  ?  and  shall  it  be  in  your  power 
to  make  the  Church  lose  the  patrimony  of  so  many  of  the  faithful,  and 

your  crown  the  like  of  so  many  opulent  countries  ? Is  not  your 

authority  oppugned  on  all  sides  by  covenants,  petitions,  and  a  thousand 
other  perfidious  practices  ?  You  have  erred,  then,  sufficiently  already, 
in  using  only  fair  means.  And  to  say  truth,  to  what  end  hath  so  long 
patience  and  dissimulation  served,  unless  to  make  the  disorders  still 

the  greater,  and  the  authors  thereof  more  audacious  ? My 

opinion  is,  that  without  more  delay  you  send  an  army  into  those 
provinces On  what  side  shall  any  one  so  much  as  dare  to  op- 
pose the  passage  of  your  forces  ?  Will  the  Flemish  peradventure  do 
it  ?  as  if  it  were  as  easy  to  raise  an  army  as  to  frame  a  conspiracy,  and 
that  the  rabble  rout  will  be  as  ready  to  fight  against  armed  squadrons 
as  they  have  been  to  wage  war  so  wickedly  against  the  sacred  images 

and  altars France  is  wholly  on  fire  with  civil  war ;  a  woman 

sits  at  the  helm  of  government  in  England ;  and  what  can  be  feared 
from  Germany,  divided  amongst  so  many  princes,  and  so  at  variance 
within  themselves  ?    Moreover,  your  case  will  be  thejrs :  all  princes  are 

equally  concerned  in  the  people's  disobedience ; the  example 

reaches  always  to  all.  On  the  contrary,  when  was  ever  your  empire 
in  greater  power  and  tranquillity  ? Your  forces  will,  then,  with- 
out any  manner  of  difficulty,  be  received  in  Flanders And 

if  that  frenzy,  as  it  is  termed,  of  fear,  but  which  is,  indeed,  of  perfidi- 
ousness,  made  the  Flemish  fall  blindfold  into  open  rebellion,  why  ought 
not  your  forces  hope  for  all  good  success  against  them  ;  yours,  which 
will  be  so  just,  and  so  potent  against  theirs,  which  are  tumultuary, 

managed  by  al^ect  men,  rebels  to  'God  and  to  their  prince  ? 

We  shall  see  the  rebellion  suppressed  almost  as  soon  as  born,  by  those 

which  shall  now  enter  Flanders Doubtlessly  there  are  variety 

of  governments,  but  there  can  be  no  variance  in  the  bond  of  obedience 
which  is  due  by  the  people  unto  their  prince.  Subjects  are  born  with 
this  law ;  and  when  they  go  about  to  break  it,  'tis  they  that  use  vio- 


AMERICAN  WAR.  615 

lence,  they  receive  it  not Your  Majesty  shall  not,  then,  use 

force,  save  only  to  suppress  force ;  nor  sharp  remedies,  till  after  hav- 
ing so  long  in  vain  used  moderate  ones.  The  wound  is  degenerated 
into  a  gangrene  ;  it  requires  fire  and  sword.'  " 

So  thought  the  Duke  of  Alva,  and  fire  and  sword  were  applied. 
The  result  was,  that  he  returned  from  the  Low  Countries,  as  in  after 
times  did  the  generals  of  England  from  America,  unable  to  accom- 
plish the  subjection  of  men  whom  he  had  despised ;  men  who  might 
have  been  retained  in  obedience  by  the  mild  counsels  of  the  Duke  of 
Feria,  but  who  could  see  in  his  "  sharp  remedies,"  as  he  termed  them, 
nothing  but  an  excess  of  cruelty  and  injustice,  that  dissolved  at  cnce 
all  the  ordinary  bonds  of  affection  and  allegiance. 

Other  instances  might  be  produced  from  history ;  the  wisdom,  the 
duty,  of  mild  government  I  conceive  to  be  the  great,  but  disregarded, 
lesson  of  all  history. 

Passing  now  from  the  first  part  of  the  general  subject,  the  origin 
of  the  dispute,  the  second  seems  to  be  the  conduct  of  it. 

The  student  will  be  already  impatient  to  know  how  it  could  possibly 
happen  that  the  fleets  and  armies  of  this  country  should  be  success- 
fully resisted  by  those  who  had  neither ;  why'  Howe  did  not  drive 
Washington  from  the  field ;  why  regular  armies  of  acknowledged  skill 
and  bravery  did  not  disperse  every  irregular  combination  of  men 
whenever  they  appeared,  —  support  the  governors  of  the  provinces 
in  the  enforcement  of  British  acts  of  Parliament,  —  and  by  the  as- 
sistance of  the  loyalists,  partly  by  persuasion  and  partly  by  force,  as- 
sert and  establish  the  sovereignty  of  the  mother  country. 

Now,  to  answer  this  general  question,  it  is  necessary  to  read  the 
history  of  the  American  war.  The  authorities  you  must  more  par- 
ticularly consult  are,  Washington's  Letters,  and  the  Life  of  Washing- 
ton by  Marshall ;  Stedman's  History  of  the  American  War ;  and  the 
examination  into  the  conduct  of  Sir  Wilham  Howe  by -the  House  of 
Commons,  which  you  will  find  given  in  the  Debates. 

I  will  allude  to  this  general  subject  of  the  conduct  of  the  war  in 
the  case  of  Sir  William  Howe,  not  only  to  exhibit  to  you  the  proper 
means  of  answering  to  yourselves  a  very  natural  question,  but  for  the 
sake  of  drawing  your  attention  to  other  topics  perhaps  still  more  im- 
portant. For  instance,  I  shall  refer  to  the  Letters  of  Washington 
and  to  the  Life  of  Washington ;  and  the  extracts  I  shall  produce,  in 
the  first  place,  will  enable  you,  and  can  alone  enable  you,  to  judge 
of  the  merit  of  Washington  himself,  the  great  character  of  the  last 
century.  In  the  next  place,  they  will  still  further  substantiate  several 
of  the  points  I  have  already  been  endeavouring  to  establish,  —  the 
faults  and  folHes,  I  mean,  of  England.  You  will  see  the  most  constant 
and  extreme  distress  exhibited  by  Washington  in  these  letters ;  the 
great  inference  you  are  to  draw  is,  therefore,  not  only  how  great  must 
have  been  the  want  of  enterprise  in  Sir  WilUam  Howe,  but  how  great 


(TlS  LECTURE  XXXIV. 

must  have  been  the  original  impolicy  and  subsequent  mismanagement 
of  the  quarrel  on  our  part,  so  to  exasperate  the  Americans,  that  they 
should  think  of  beginning,  of  prosecuting,  of  persevering  in  a  system 
of  resistance  under  difficulties  so  serious,  distresses  so  painful,  and 
privations  so  intolerable. 

There  are  other  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  these  documents,  — 
the  superiority,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  of  regular  armies  over  all  and 
every  description  of  militia :  conclusions,  too,  with  respect  to  the  re- 
publican character,  and  those  very  unfavorable  to  it ;  its  ridiculous 
jealousy,  its  impracticable  nature,  its  coarseness,  its  harshness. 

Lastly,  you  will  observe,  that,  while  you  are  reading  these  accounts 
of  the  distresses  and  difficulties  of  Washington,  you  are,  in  fact,  pass- 
ing over,  in  your  perusal,  the  materials  of  the  most  serious  charge 
that  I  think  can  be  brought  against  the  American  leaders  in  this  dis- 
pute ;  because  it  is  not  quite  enough  that  there  should  be  right  on 
the  side  of  those  who  mean  to  resist,  —  there  should  also  be  a  fair, 
and,  indeed,  more  than  a  fair,  chance  of  success.  Men  cannot  be 
otherwise  justified  in  leading  on  their  countrymen  into  measures 
which  will  be  considered  by  their  rulers,  or  oppressors,  if  you  please, 
as  rebellion,  and  punished  as  such  by  fire  and  sword.  Of  all  the 
questions  that  occur  in  the  whole  of  this  dispute,  this  seems  to  me 
one  of  the  most  difficult,  —  whether  the  very  able  men  who  composed 
the  Congress  (admitting  the  justice  of  the  cause)  did  or  did  not  hurry 
on  the  resistance  of  their  countrymen  at  too  great  a  rate,  and  embark 
in  the  fearful  enterprise  of  open  rebellion  against  the  mother  country 
with  means  far  too  disproportionate  to  the  occasion.  Of  this,  it  will  be 
said,  the  actors  in  the  scene  were  the  best  and  can  be  the  only  judges, 
and  that  at  least  they  were  justified  by  the  event.  Perhaps  not ;  — 
the  difficulties  they  had  to  struggle  with  were  all  most  obviously  to 
be  expected ;  while  the  causes  of  their  success,  some  of  them,  and 
those  very  important,  were  not  so :  no  one,  for  instance,  could  have 
presupposed  such  a  want  of  skill  and  enterprise  in  the  British  minis- 
ters and  generals. 

On  the  whole,  though  the  attempt  of  Great  Britain  permanently  to 
establish  a  system  of  taxation  by  force  was,  from  the  first,  not  a  little 
hopeless,  from  the  distance  and  impracticability  of  the  country  and 
the  spirit  and  unanimity  of  the  inhabitants,  and  though  it  was  an  at- 
tempt that  could  not  ultimately  be  successful,  still  it  must  be  allowed, 
on  the  other  side,  that  the  American  leaders  won  the  independence 
of  their  country  at  a  much  less  expense  of  carnage  and  desolation, 
long  as  the  war  lasted,  than  they  had  any  reason  to  expect.  But 
you  must  consider  the  books  which  I  have  mentioned.  In  the  mean 
time,  I  will  make  some  references  to  these  authorities,  and  as  much 
as  possible  use  the  words  1  find  in  them,  as  I  have  before  done  while 
adverting  to  the  History  of  Ramsay. 
There  is  a  small  volume  purportmg  to  be  Letters  of  Washington, 


AMERICAN   WAR.  617 

and  in  wMcli  are  inclMed  several  to  Mrs.  Washington ;  these  are 
not  genuine.*  Those  letters  which  are  authentic  rest  upon  the  author- 
ity of  an  appeal  to  Mr.  Pinckney,  at  that  time  the  American  ambas- 
sador. They  do  not  descend  lower  than  December,  1778 ;  they 
comprehend  but  a  part  of  what  the  editor  has  collected.  On  the 
whole,  these  letters  rather  disappoint  expectation ;  they  partake  too 
much  of  the  nature  of  state  papers.  They  were,  indeed,  addressed 
to  Congress,  and  are  written  in  a  manner  so  calm  and  sedate,  that 
they  give  but  an  imperfect  portrait  of  what  we  wish  to  see,  —  the 
various  hopes  and  disappointments  that  must  have  affected  the  mind 
of  Washington  in  the  course  of  so  singular  a  contest.  They  make 
out,  however,  two  main  points :  that  Washington,  while  of  a  tempera- 
ment, on  great  occasions,  the  most  deliberate  and  reasonable,  always 
considered  the  cause  of  America  as  the  cause  of  freedom  and  right ; 
secondly,  that  his  difficulties  were  such  as  no  general  was  ever  before 
able  to  contend  with,  for  so  long  a  continuance.  These  letters,  in- 
deed, stop  short  at  the  end  of  1778 ;  but  these  points  would  only 
have  been  more  fully  displayed,  if  they  had  been  continued  to  the 
end  of  the  contest. 

Washington  took  the  command  immediately  after  the  affair  at  Bun- 
ker's Hill,  in  1775.  Want  of  gunpowder  was  the  first  difficulty,  in 
June,  1775 ;  the  defence  of  lines  so  extensive  is  the  second ;  the 
want  of  money,  engineers,  &c.,  &c.,  immediately  follows;  and  no  de- 
pendence, the  general  officers  told  him,  could  be  put  on  the  mihtia 
for  a  continuance  in  camp,  or  regularity  and  discipline  during  the 
short  time  they  might  stay.  "In  the  mean  time,"  says  he  (July, 
1775),  "there  are  materials  for  a  good  army,  a  great  number  of 
able-bodied  men,  active,  zealous  in  the  cause,  and  of  unquestionable 
courage."  In  August,  1775,  he  observes,  —  "The  enemy,  finding 
us  so  well  prepared,  mean  to  bombard  us  out  of  our  present  line  of 
defence,  or  are  waiting  in  expectation  that  the  colonies  must  sink 

*  These  spurious  letters,  comprising  five  to  Mr.  Lund  Washington,  one  to  John 
Parke  Custis,  Esq.,  and  one  only  to  Mrs.  Washington,  were  first  published  in  London, 
in  1777,  in  a  small  pamphlet  entitled  "Letters  from  General  Washington  to  Several 
of  his  Friends  in  the  Year  1776."  "The  object  of  the  fabricator,"  says  Mr.  Sparks, 
"was  to  disparage  General  Washington,  and  create  distrust  in  the  minds  of  liis  comi- 
trymen,  by  sliqwing,  from  his  private  sentiments  unguardedly  expressed  to  his  friends, 
that  he  was  acting  a  hypocritical  part,  being  in  reality  opposed  to  the  war."  In  1796. 
these  letters  were  republished  at  New  York,  for  factious  purposes,  and  in  the  course 
of  the  same  year  in  London  also,  in  a  small  octavo  volume,  with  a  number  of  genuine 
letters,  and  other  papers,  bearing  vaiious  dates,  from  1777  to  1783,  under  the  title  of 
"  Epistles  Domestic,  Confidential,  and  Official,  from  General  Washington."  This  work 
is  doubtless  the  one  alluded  to  in  the  text,  yet  not  the  one  from  which  the  extracts  that 
follow  are  taken ;  the  latter  being  a  collection  in  two  volumes,  embracing  the  correspond- 
ence from  June,  1775,  to  December,  1778,  compiled  from  the  original  papers  in  the 
office  of  the  Secretary  of  State  in  Philadelphia,  and  first  published  in  London,  in  1795, 
under  the  title  of  "  Official  Letters  to  the  Honorable  American  Congress,  written.,  dur- 
ing the  War  between  the  United  Colonies  and  Great  Britain,  by  his  Excellency,  George 
Washin^rton."  —  See  Sparks's  Writings  of  Washington,  Vol.  v.  p.  379,  and  Vol.  xi. 
pp.  183  -  185,  192  -  194 ;  also.  Official  Letters,  Vol.  i.,  Advertisement.  —  N. 

78  zz* 


618  LECTURE  XXXIV. 

under  the  weight  of  the  expense,  or  the  pWpect  of  a  winter  cam 
paign  so  discourage  our  troops  as  to  break  up  our  armj."  These 
were,  no  doubt,  the  expectations  of  the  British  commanders.  "  Our 
situation,"  he  sajs,  "  in  the  article  of  powder,  is  much  more  alarm- 
ing than  I  had  the  most  distant  idea  of,  —  not  more  than  nine  rounds 
a  man."  In  September,  1775,  he  sajs  to  Congress,  —  "  My  situa- 
tion is  inexpressibly  distressing,  —  to  see  the  winter  fast  approach- 
ing upon  a  naked  army,  the  time  of  their  service  within  a  few  weeks 
of  expiring,  and  no  provision  yet  made  for  such  important  events. 
Added  to  these,  the  military  chest  is  totally  exhausted;  the  pay- 
master has  not  a  single  dollar  in  hand ;  the  commissary-general  as- 
sures me  he  has  strained  his  credit,  for  the  subsistence  of  the  army, 
to  the  utmost;  the  quartermaster-general  is  precisely  in  the  same 
situation ;  and  the  greater  part  of  the  troops  are  in  a  state  not  far 
from  mutiny,  upon  the  deduction  from  their  stated  allowance  :  if  the 
evil  is  not  immediately  remedied,  and  more  punctuality  observed  in 
future,  the  army  must  absolutely  break  up,"  &c.,  &c. 

In  October,  1775,  he  says,  —  "  Gage  is  recalled  ;  five  regiments 
and  a  thousand  marines  are  ordered  out ;  no  prospect  of  accommoda- 
tion, but  the  ministry  determined  to  push  the  war  to  the  utmost." 
In  November,  1775,  he  says,  —  "  As  there  is  every  appearance  that 
this  contest  will  not  be  soon  decided,  would  it  not  be  eligible  to  raise 
two  battaUons  of  marines  in  New  York,  kc.Vl  At  the  end  of  No- 
vember, 1775,  he  says,  —  "  Our  situation  is  truly  alarming ;  and  of 
this  General  Howe  is  well  apprised :  it  being  the  common  topic  of 
conversation  when  the  people  left  Boston  last  Friday.  I  am  making 
the  best  disposition  I  can  for  our  defence,  having  thrown  up  several 
redoubts,"  &c. 

Howe  was  all  this  time  at  Boston  and  Bunker's  Hill ;  Washington 
not  far  distant,  in  an  intrenched  camp  at  Cambridge.  In  December, 
1775,  he  says,  —  "  Last  Friday  the  major  part  of  the  Connecticut 
troops  were  going  away  with  their  arms  and  ammunition ;  we  have, 
however,  by  threats,  persuasion,  and  the  activity  of  the  people  of  the 
country,  who  sent  back  many  of  them  that  had  set  out,  prevailed 
upon  the  most  part  to  stay."  In  January,  1776,  he  observes  to 
Congress,  —  "  It  is  not  in  the  pages  of  history,  perhaps,  to  furnish  a 
case  like  ours :  to  maintain  a  post,  within  musket-shot  of  the  enemy, 
for  six  months  together,  without  powder,  and  at  the  same  time  to  dis- 
band one  army  and  recruit  another,  within  that  distance  of  twenty- 
odd  British  regiments,  is  more,  probably,  than  ever  was  attempted." 
His  letter  of  January  14,  1776,  opens  thus :  —  "I  am  exceedingly 
sorry  that- 1  am  under  the  necessity  of  applying  to  you,  and  calUng 
the  attention  of  Congress  to  the  state  of  our  arms,  which  is  truly 
alarming,  &c.,  kc.  Supplies  are  wanting,  and  the  enlisting  goes  on 
BO  very  slow,  that  it  almost  seems  at  an  end."  His  letter  of  Febru- 
ary 9,  1776,  was  intended  to  show  Congress  the  difference  that  must 


AMERICAN  WAK.  619 

ever  exist  between  regular  soldiers  and  all  sorts  of  militia,  or  men 
who  enlist  for  a  short  time,  and  may  leave  the  army  when  in  presence 
of  the  enemy.  His  observations,  drawn  from  his  own  experience, 
must  be  considered  as  decisive.  But  the  jealousy  which  Congress 
entertained  of  a  regular  army  was  so  great,  that  Washington  is 
obliged  to  begin  and  conclude  his  letter  with  a  sort  of  apology  for 
recommending  it  so  earnestly  to  their  adoption. 

Independence  was  declared  in  July,  1776 ;  it  is  therefore  impor- 
tant to  remark  an  expression  five  months  before,  in  February.  "  I 
am  entirely  of  your  opinion,'*  says  he,  "  that,  should  an  accommoda- 
tion take  place,  the  terms  will  be  severe  or  favorable  in  proportion  tc 
our  ability  to  resist,  and  that  we  ought  to  be  on  a  respectable  footing 
to  receive  their  armaments  in  the  spring."  The  possibiUty  of  concili- 
ation seems  here  taken  for  granted ;  that  is,  independence  was  not 
^Jien  the  idea  of  Washington,  five  months  before  the  declaration. 

At  this  very  moment  (February,  1776)  he  declares  there  were 
near  two  thousand  men  without  firelocks.  His  letters  continue  to 
speak  of  embarrassments  for  want  of  proper  supphes  through  the 
months  that  follow  ;  but  on  the  10th  of  July,  immediately  after  the 
declaration  of  independence,  he  writes  thus :  —  "I  trust  the  late  de- 
cisive part  Congress  have  taken  is  calculated  for  our  happiness,  and 
will  secure  us  that  freedom  and  those  privileges  which  have  been  and 
are  refused  us,  contrary  to  the  voice  of  nature  and  the  British  con- 
stitution. Agreeably  to  the  request  of  Congress,  I  caused  the  Decld- 
ration  to  be  proclaimed  before  all  the  army,  and  the  measure  seem- 
ed to  have  their  most  hearty  assent ;  the  expressions  and  behaviour 
both  of  officers  and  men  testifying  their  warmest  approbation  of  it." 
The  conclusion  of  his  letter  is  more  animated  than  usual ;  calmness, 
that  useful,  but  disagreeable  quality,  was  the  very  essence  of  his  char- 
acter, was  so  on  all  pubUc  occasions  at  least :  —  "  The  intelligence 
we  have  is,  that  the  British  look  for  Admiral  Howe's  arrival  every 
day,  with  his  fleet  and  a  large  reinforcement ;  are  in  high  spirits, 
and  talk  confidently  of  success,  and  carrying  all  before  them,  when 
he  comes.  I  trust,  through  Divine  favor,  and  our  own  exertions, 
they  will  be  disappointed  in  their  views,  and  at  all  events  any 
advantages  they  may  gain  will  cost  them  very  dear.  If  our  troops 
will  behave  well,  —  which  I  hope  will  be  the  case,  having  every 
thing  to  contend  for  that  freemen  hold  dear,  —  they  will  have  to  wade 
through  much  blood  and  slaughter,  before  they  can  carry  any  part  of 
our  works,  if  they  carry  them  at  all,  and  at  best  be  in  possession  of 
a  melancholy  and  mournful  victory.  May  the  sacredness  of  our  cause 
inspire  our  soldiery  with  sentiments  of  heroism,  and  lead  them  to  the 
performance  of  the  noblest  exploits  ! " 

In  August,  1776,  before  the  attack  of  Howe  on  Long  Island  and 
New  York,  he  considers  himself  as  having  ten  thousand  five  hundred 
men  fit  for  duty,  sick  three  thousand,  on  command  about  as  many 


620  LECTURE  XXXIV. 

more,  —  in  all,  about  seventeen  thousand.  "  These  things,"  he  says, 
"  are  melancholy.  So  far  as  I  can  judge  from  the  professions  and  ap- 
parent disposition  of  my  troops,  I  shall  have  their  support ;  the  superi- 
ority of  the  enemy  and  the  expected  attack  do  not  seem  to  have  de- 
pressed their  spirits."  After  the  victories  of  Howe,  September  2d, 
he  writes,  —  "  Our  situation  is  truly  distressing.  The  militia  are 
dismayed,  intractable,  and  impatient  to  return ;  great  numbers  of 
them  have  gone  off,  in  some  instances  almost  by  whole  regiments. 
With  the  deepest  concern  I  am  obliged  to  confess  my  want  of  confi- 
dence in  the  generality  of  the  troops.  I  have  liiore  than  once,"  he 
continues,  "  taken  the  liberty  of  mentioning  to  Congress,  that  no  de- 
pendence could  be  put  in  a  militia.  I  am  persuaded  that  our  liberties 
must  of  necessity  be  greatly  hazarded,  if  not  entirely  lost,  if  their  de- 
fence is  left  to  any  but  a  permanent  standing  army,  —  I  mean,  one 
to  exist  during  the  war." 

His  letter  of  8th  September,  1776,  is  very  important,  and  contains 
his  ideas  on  the  late  and  future  operations  of  the  war,  but  it  is  too 
long  to  quote.  "  We  should  on  all  occasions,"  says  he,  "  avoid  a 
general  action,  nor  put  any  thing  to  the  risk,  unless  compelled  by  a 
necessity  into  which  we  ought  never  td  be  drawn.  The  war  should 
be  defensive,  a  war  of  posts.  I  have  never  spared  the  spade  and 
pickaxe."  He  never  did  afterwards  spare  them.  The  affair  at  Bun- 
ker's Hill  had  shown  what  it  was  to  fight  from  behind  intrenchments. 
The  country  gave  opportunities  for  this  species  of  defence,  and  the 
war^  was  thus  protracted  by  Washington  till  the  irregular  and  un- 
disciplined troops  of  America  became  in  time  fit  to  be  opposed,  in 
pitched  battles,  if  necessary,  to  the  regular  troops  of  England  and 
Germany. 

But  Washington  had  no  prt)per  powers  intrusted  to  him  by  the 
Congress.  These  jealous  republicans  hazarded  their  cause  to  the 
utmost,  rather  than  give  their  general  the  means  of  saving  them  from 
their  enemies.  This  sgrt  of  impracticable  adherence  to  a  principle  is 
always  the  characteristic  of  democratic  men  and  democratic  bodies. 
It  is  sometimes  their  praise,  but  more  often  their  fault.  The  respect- 
ful patience  with  which  Washington  waited  for  the  influence  of  his 
representations  on  his  constitutional  ruiers  exceeds  all  description, 
and  certainly  far  exceeds  the  patience  of  those  who  read  his  letters. 
The  lowest  point  of  depression  was  at  this  moment,  December,  1776. 
But  the  enterprise  at  Trenton,  where  he  surprised  a  part  of  the 
British  army,  and  which  was  the  great  achievement  of  the  military 
life  of  Washington,  then  followed,  —  the  achievement  that  inspired 
with  some  hope  the  despairing  friends  and  armies  of  America,  and 
which  enabled  him  to  maintain  a  show  of  regular  resistance  to  the 
superior  forces  of  the  British  commanders.  His  own  account  of  this 
affair,  December  27th,  is  singularly  modest  and  concise. 

The  year  1777  opens  with  a  letter  in  which  he  evidently  expects 


AMERICAN  WAR.  621 

very  favorable  effects  from  the  ill  conduct  of  the  British  in  the  Jer- 
seys. "  If  what  the  people  of  Jersey  have  suffered  does  not  rouse 
their  resentment,  they  must  not  possess  the  common  feelings  of  hu- 
manity. To  oppression,  ravage,  and  a  deprivation  of  property,  they 
have  had  the  more  mortifying  circumstance  of  insult  added.  We 
keep  up  appearances,"  says  he,  "  before  an  enemy  double  to  us  in 
numbers.  Our  situation  is  delicate  and  truly  critical,  for  want  of  a 
sufficient  force  to  oppose  the  enemy." 

Now  it  was  about  this  time,  and  in  this  situation  of  things,  that  the 
Congress  expressed  to  him  their  wishes  (such  was  their  reasonable- 
ness) that  "  he  would  confine  the  enemy  within  their  present  quar- 
ters, prevent  their  getting  supplies  from  the  country,  and  totally  sub- 
due them  before  they  were  reinforced."  They  do  not  exactly  desire 
him  to  step  over  to  London,  and  send  them  Lord  North  and  Lord 
George  Germain  in  ircps,  but  I  really  have  quoted  the  very  terms  in 
which  they  expressed  themselves.*  The  good- temper  of  Washington 
is  astonishing.  "  The  inclosed  return,"  says  he,  "  comprehends  the 
whole  force  I  have  in  Jersey ;  it  is  but  a  handful,  and  bears  no  pro- 
portion, on  the  scale  of  numbers,  to  that  of  the  enemy;  added  to  this, 
the  major  part  is  made  up  of  militia.  The  most  sanguine  in  specula- 
tion," says  he,  "  cannot  deem  it  more  than  adequate  to  the  least 
valuable  purposes  of  war." 

These  notices,  drawii  from  different  letters  (they  proceed  in  the 
same  strain  to  the  end) ,  will  give  you  some  idea  of  the  work  before 
us.  The  letters,  you  will  see,  however  cold  and  formal,  may  serve 
to  afford  you  a  proper  notion  of  the  contest,  and  more  particularly  of 
the  merit  of  Washington.  You  will  scarcely  be  able  regularly  to 
read  them,  though  you  will  easily  perceive  that  they  must  be  read 
very  patiently  by  any  historian  of  these  times,  and  that,  if  particular 

*  The  terms  in  which  Washington  alludes  to  this  matter  are  somewhat  ambiguous, 

—  sufficiently  so,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  to  afford  an  opening  for  the  amusing  light 
in  which  it  is  here  presented ;  but  a  reference  to  the  Journals  of  Congress  places  it  in 
quite  a  different  aspect.  It  appears  to  have  been  the  design  to  strike  a  vigorous,  and, 
if  possible,  a  decisive,  blow  at  the  enemy,  in  anticipation  of  the  arrival  ©f  reinforce- 
ments from  England.  In  pursuance  of  this  design,  Congress,  on  the  24th  of  Febru- 
ary, 1777,  passed  a  resolution  requiring  the  new  recruits  to  join  the  army  under  Wash- 
ington immediately,  and  calling  out  the  militia  of  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania, 

—  "in  order,"  says  the  preamble,  "farther  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  general"; 
"it  being  the  earnest  desire  of  Congress,"  as  is  added  in  conclusion,  "to  make  the 
army  under  the  immediate  command  of  General  Washington  sufficiently  strong,  not 
only  to  curb  and  confine  the  enemy  within  their  present  quarters,  and  prevent  them 
from  drawing  support  of  any  kind  from  the  country,  but,  by  the  Divine  blessing,  totally 
to  subdue  them  before  they  can  be  reinforced."  In  commenting  upon  this  resolution, 
in  a  letter  of  the  14th  of  March  following,  Washington  observes,  —  "  Could  I  accom- 
plish the  important  objects  so  eagerly  wished  by  Congress,  —  '  confining  the  enemy 
within  their  present  quarters,  preventing  their  getting  supplies  from  the  country,  and 
totally  subduing  them  before  they  are  reinforced,'  —  I  should  be  happy  indeed."  Pro- 
fessor Smyth's  construction  of  this  language  is,  perhaps,  natural  enough,  apart  from 
the  consideration,  which  at  once  suggests  itself,  of  the  intrinsic  improbability  that  any 
deliberative  body  of  sane  men  could  have  intended  any  thing  so  absurd  as  he  sipposes 
but  it  is  clear  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  resolution  itself  to  support  it. — N. 


622  LECTURE  XXXIV. 

points  are  to  be  settled,  they  must  be  referred  to.  You  will  remem 
ber  that  I  have  already  announced  to  you  that  these  letters  may 
supply  many  more  conclusions  than  such  as  relate  to  the  merit  of 
General  Washington. 

But  there  is  another  work  which  you  may  more  readily  meet  with, 
—  the  Life  of  Washington,  by  Marshall.  The  work  is,  indeed,  chiefly 
compiled  from  Washington's  correspondence,  and  a  life  of  Washington 
is  of  course  a  history  of  the  American  war.  To  the  first  volume  of 
this  work  I  have  referred  you  on  former  occasions.  Our  present  sub- 
ject begins  to  be  treated  in  the  second  volume ;  it  is  continued  through 
the  next  three  quartos,  but  they  are  not  large  or  closely  printed ; 
and  as  much  of  the  military  part  may  be  looked  at  rather  than  read, 
they  will  not  occupy  you  too  long.  Of  the  fifth  volume  I  shall  speak 
hereafter. 

The  conclusions  which  you  will  draw  from  Jihe  pages  of  Marshall 
you  will  find  much  the  same  as  those  that  you  would  derive  from 
Kamsay.  The  more  appropriate  value  of  the  work  consists  in  the 
description  of  the  distresses  of  Washington.  You  may  here,  too,  gain 
some  idea  of  the  views  and  counsels  of  Washington  and  the  Congress 
from  time  to  time ;  and  you  may  compare  them  with  those  of  the 
British  generals  and  statesmen  to  be  found  in  other  publications.  I 
do  not  detain  you  with  these  considerations,  because  you  will  read  this 
work  of  Marshall  more  readily  than  the  former  work,  the  Letters  of 
Washington.  You  will  have  the  same  instruction  afforded  you  in  a 
less  disagreeable  manner. 

We  will  now  advert  to  the  History  of  Stedman.  This  is  the  work 
where  may  be  found  the  most  distinct  materials  for  the  censure  of  Sir 
William  Howe.  Stedman  evidently  thought  that  the  cause  was  lost 
by  his  want  of  capacity.  Stedman  served  under  Howe,  Clinton,  and 
Cornwallis ;  and  when  the  conduct  of  the  war  is  to  be  estimated,  he 
must  be  consulted.  But  I  consider  him  of  no  authority  on  any  sub- 
ject which  is  not  connected  with  his  profession.  His  account  is  mere- 
ly that  of  a  sensible,  well-meaning,  and  probably  very  good  officer. 
He  forms  no  views,  is  no  statesman,  and  his  work  should  be  considered 
only  as  offering  us  a  very  good  specimen  of  what  were  probably  the 
opinions  and  feelings  of  intelligent  officers  serving  in  the  British  army 
at  the  time.  But  what  intelligent  officers  thought  is  by  no  means  an 
uninteresting  part  of  the  subject,  and  I  therefore  recommend  his  book. 
Enter  into  the  military  details  as  much  or  as  little  as  you  please,  but 
gather  up  his  sentiments  and  opinions  whenever  you  can  find  them, 
considering  them  as  the  objects  of  your  speculation,  not  of  your  con^ 
fidence. 

After  these  few  remarks,  I  will  not  occupy  your  time  with  any 
further  comments  on  tliis  particular  history.  I  had  prepared  many ; 
but  if  your  mind  has  been  properly  enlarged  by  the  writings  I  have 
recommended,  more  particularly  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Burke,  you  will 


AMERICAN  WAR.  623 

be  sufficiently  secure  from  the  misapprehensions,  confined  views,  and 
arbitrary  notions,  which  were  entertained  by  Stedman,  —  I  doubt  not, 
a  very  respectable  officer,  but  it  is  quite  out  of  the  question  to  sup- 
pose him  fit  to  direct  your  judgments  on  such  topics  as  he  often  de- 
cides upon. 

But  as  a  man  like  Stedman,  connected  with  the  military  profession, 
was  very  naturally  inclined  rather  to  depend  on  the  exertions  of 
authority,  and  to  see  the  propriety  of  its  claims,  than  to  trust  to  the 
distant  efiects  of  mild  government,  he  is  naturally  referred  to  by 
authors  and  reasoners  like  Adolphus,  who,  without  the  excuse  of  the 
same  profession,  have  the  same  arbitrary  inclinations  and  opinions. 
There  are  some  facts  and  anecdotes  given  by  Stedman  not  to  be 
found  in  others.  He  has  the  appearance,  too,  of  being  honest,  and 
of  speaking  freely  what  he  thought.  Stedman  must  be  consulted,  in 
his  eighth  chapter  more  particularly,  by  those  who  would  judge  of 
the  failure  of  our  arms  in  the  dispute. 

It  was  during  the  campaign  of  1776,  and  at  the  close  of  it,  when 
it  was  for  Sir  William  Howe  to  have  struck  some  important  blow. 
The  enemy  were  unable  to  stand  before  the  British  troops  in  the# 
field  ;  the  American  army  had  diminished  from  thirty  thousand  almost 
to  three  thousand ;  Washington  was  scarcely  able  to  maintain  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  regular  force :  and  Stedman  insists  that  the  general 
panic  had  extended  itself  from  the  military  to  all  the  civil  depart- 
ments ;  the  Congress  had  retired  into  Maryland ;  Philadelphia  only 
waited  the  arrival  of  the  British  army  to  submit  to  the  mother  coun- 
try ;  other  parts  would  have  done  the  same ;  New  York  was  already 
in  Howe's  possession.  These  advantages  were  neglected,  and  other 
material  errors,  which  he  states,  were  in  his  opinion  committed.  I 
cannot  enter  into  the  details  in  this  and  in  other  parts  of  his  work. 
You  will  consider  also  his  twentieth  chapter,  where  he  finds  ar  other 
opportunity  of  renewing  his  censures  when  the  general  takes  leave  of 
his  command. 

The  blame  that  belonged  to  the  failure  of  our  arms  in  America  be- 
came, of  course,  a  subject  of  dispute  between  the  general  and  the 
secretary  of  war,  Lord  George  Germain. 

In  this  question  is  involved,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  more  than 
the  character  of  either ;  and  they  who  examine  it  will  be  continually 
led  away  to  the  more  important  question  of  the  original  probability 
of  conquering  America  by  any  force  which  it  was  competent  for  this 
country  to  have  sent  across  the  Atlantic.  On  this  account,  and  on 
account  of  many  curious  particulars  which  appeared  in  the  course  of 
the  examination,  I  would  recommend  it  to  you  to  consult  the  Debates. 
The  labor  will  not  be  great.  You  will  find  General  Howe,  on  his  re- 
turn, declaring  in  the  House  that  he  had  resigned  his  command  (I 
quote  his  words)  "  in  consequence  of  a  total  disregard  to  his  opinions, 
and  to  his  recommendations  of  meritorious  officers ;  that  the  war  had 


624  LECTURE  XXXIY. 

not  been  left  to  his  management,  and  jet  when  he  applied  for  instnic- 
tions,  he  frequently  could  not  get  them."  Lord  George  Germain  ex- 
pressed some  surprise  at  so  unexpected  an  attack ;  said  his  recom- 
mendations had  been  complied  with,  except  in  three  instances,  which 
he  explained ;  declared  that  he  had  always  seconded  the  plans  of  the 
general ;  and  that,  if  the  general  had  not  instructions  when  he  called 
for  them,  it  was  because  many  things  depended  on  unforeseen  circum- 
stances, and  it  was  impossible  to  send  letters  every  day  across  the 
Atlantic  ;  that  the  general  must  necessarily,  in  many  respects,  be  left 
to  his  own  discretion. 

Perhaps  these  few  words  that  I  have  quoted  from  these  two 
speeches  are  sufficient  to  decide,  without  any  further  inquiry,  the 
merits  both  of  the  general  and  of  the  secretary.  If  the  general,  on 
the  one  hand,  supposed,  that,  unless  he  was  left  entirely  to  his  own 
discretion,  he  could  not  overpower  Washington  and  the  Congress,  — 
or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  secretary  imagined,  that,  while  sitting 
at  Whitehall,  he  had  the  slightest  chance  of  conquering  the  continent 
of  America,  or  even  of  materially  assisting  those  whom  he  sent  for 
4he  purpose,  it  was  evident  at  once,  that  neither  the  general  nor  the 
secretary  had  genius  enough  to  execute,  or  even  properly  to  compre- 
hend, the  enterprise  which  was  before  them. 

An  inquiry  took  place  to  satisfy  General  Howe,  and  not  Lord 
George  Germain.  The  general  entered  on  his  defence,  and  insisted 
that  the  papers  before  the  House  made  out  for  him  four  points :  first, 
that  he  supplied  the  ministry,  from  time  to  time,  with  proper  infor- 
mation ;  secondly,  that  he  gave  his  own  opinions  on  what  was  practi- 
cable with  the  force  on  the  spot,  and  with  such  succours  as  he  ex- 
pected ;  thirdly,  that  his  plans  were  carried  into  execution  with  as 
little  deviation  as  could  have  been  expected ;  and,  fourthly,  that  he 
never  flattered  the  ministry  with  improper  hopes  of  seeing  the  war 
terminated  in  any  one  campaign,  with  the  force  at  any  one  time 
under  his  command.  The  general  then  proceeded  to  his  defence ; 
and  the  student,  as  he  reads  it,  will  find  himself  silenced,  if  not  satis- 
fied, and  that  to  a  much  greater  degree  than  he  could  have  expected. 
The  great  question  is,  why  the  general  did  not  attempt  some  decisive 
enterprise  at  the  close  of  the  campaign  of  1776,  about  the  time  of 
the  surprise  at  Trenton.  The  general  seems  always  to  have  respect- 
ed his  enemy  more, than  the  student  might  think  necessary ;  but  it 
would  be  rather  presumptuous  to  judge  for  him  on  this  point.  .  In- 
stead of  immediately  making  any  important  effort,  he  wrote  for  a  re- 
inforcement of  fifteen  thousand  men  and  a  battalion  of  artillery.  The 
force  could  not  be  sent,  and  this  opportunity  —  which  was,  in  fact,  a 
striking  one  —  was  lost. 

You  will  see  the  defence  of  Lord  George  GeftBidn  at  page  391,* 

*  Parliamentary  Register;  or  History  of  the  Proceedings  and  Debates  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  &c.  (London,  1779),  Vol.  xii.  pp.  391  -394.  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  626 

the  main  point  of  which  is,  that  he  admitted,  that,  "  after  the  affair 
at  White  Plains  [in  1776],  when  the  rebel  army  was  all  one  as  anni- 
hilated, the  general  demanded  a  large  reinforcement,  fifteen  or  twenty 
thousand  men ;  but  that  for  his  part,  against  an  enemy  flying  on  every 
side,  scarcely  a  battalion  in  any  one  body,  and  at  the  head  of  a  vic- 
torious, well-disciplined  army,  combined  with  the  information  of  per- 
sons well  informed  on  the  spot,  and  on  his  own  judgment,  he  thought 
then,  and  now,  that  such  a  requisition  on  the  part  of  the  commander- 
in-chief  ought  not  to  be  complied  with." 

Now  here  appears  to  me  to  turn  the  main  hinge  of  the  question  be- 
tween the  secretary  and  the  general,  and  the  answer  of  the  secretary 
seems  not  sufficient.  It  was  for  the  general  to  judge  of  the  quantity 
of  force,  not  for  him ;  and  the  better  answer  would  have  been,  not 
that  he  would  not,  but  that  he  could  not,  comply  with  the  requisition, 
and  this  answer  would  probably  have  been  th«  real  truth.  To  have 
said  tliis^  however,  would  have  been  to  suggest  to  the  opposition  the 
incompetence  of  Great  Britain  to  make  a  sufficient  effort  to  conquer 
America  at  all,  and  the  original  folly  of  attempting  it;  and  this, 
•iierefore,  could  not  be  said. 

The  twelfth*  volume  of  Debates  opens  with  the  examination  of 
Uord  CornwaUis  and  Sir  Charles  Grey.  They  are  very  decided  in 
their  testimony  in  favor  of  Sir  William.  The  evidence  of  both  goes 
to  show  the  impracticability  of  the  country ;  and  of  Sir  Charles,  to 
prove  the  inadequacy  of  the  force  which  was  sent.  But  he  joined 
^ate,  —  not  till  June,  1777. 

Lord  George  Germain  then  brings  up  his  evidences.  General  Robert- 
son and  Mr.  Galloway.  Much  is  made  to  depend  on  the  evidence 
of  Galloway  by  the  historian  Adolphus ;  but  you  will  see  such  con- 
versation taking  place  in  the  House  of  Commons,  with  respect  to 
Galloway's  memory,  situation,  and  other  particulars,  that  you  will 
receive  with  great  hesitation  any  representations  founded  on  his 
opinions. 

At  last  you  will  find  that  the  inquiry  suddenly  stops  short.  The 
jyeneral  is  absent,  and  the  committee  breaks  up  and  expires.  The 
general  says,  the  next  day,  that  his  absence  was  no  proper  reason 
why  it  should  do  so.  The  two  brothers  ask  the  secretary,  whether, 
after  having  heard  the  evidence,  he  has  any  accusation  to  make. 
He  is  silent,  and  the  whole  business  is  at  an  end ;  not  very  intelligi- 
bly, or  much  to  the  credit  of  any  of  the  parties  concerned,  —  the 
general,  the  secretary,  or  the  House. 

On  the  whole,  the  conclusion  seems  to  be,  that  success  could  not 
have  been  accompHshed,  unless  Howe  had  been  more  enterprising  or 
England  more  powerful ;  that  America  was  a  country  so  impracticable 
and  so  distant,  that,  considering  the  spirit  of  resistance  which  had 

*  The  thirteenth  (Pari.  Reg.),  pp.  1  -32.  —  N. 
79  3  A 


626  LECTUHE  XXXIV. 

been  shown,  no  reasonable  hope  could  be  entertained  of  ultimately 
controlling  the  inhabitants  by  force  of  arms. 

Marshall,  in  his  Life  of  Washington,  probably  speaks  the  general 
opinion  of  intelligent  men  in  America.  He  conceives  that  Sir 
William  Howe  might,  on  some  occasions,  have  acted  more  efficiently, 
but,  in  doing  so,  that  he  would  have  risked  much.  Victories  like 
that  of  Bunker's  Hill,  or  that  claimed  by  Burgoyne  in  September, 
1777,  would  have  ruined  the  royal  cause.  Howe's  system  he  con- 
ceives to  have  been,  to  put  nothing  to  hazard,  and  to  be  very  careful 
of  his  troops.  "  Howe  probably  supposed,"  he  says,  "  that  the  ex- 
treme difficulties  under  which  America  labored,  the  depreciation  of 
the  paper  money,  the  annual  dispersion  of  her  army  by  the  expira- 
tion of  the  terms  of  their  enlistment,  the  privations  to  which  every 
class  of  society  had  to  submit,  would  of  themselves  create  a  general 
disposition  to  return  to-  the  ancient  state  of  things,  if  the  operation 
of  these  causes  should  not  be  counteracted  by  brilliant  successes  ob- 
tained over  the  British  by  Washington."  Now  it  is  very  possible 
that  Howe  did  reason  in  this  manner ;  but  the  train  of  reasoning 
would  have  been  more  solid,  if  it  had  concluded  in  a  manner  exactly 
opposite :  for  instance,  that  these  causes  would  not  create  a  general 
disposition  in  the  Americans  to  return  to  the  ancient  state  of  things^ 
unless  he  could  assist  their  operation  by  obtaining  some  brilliant  sue 
cesses  over  Washington. 

There  is  a  summary  account  given  in  the  twenty-second  volume  of 
the  Annual  Register :  it  is  full  of  matter  and  very  concise,  though 
too  long  to  be  quoted  here.  The  reader  is  left  to  infer,  that  the  force 
was  inadequate,  and  the  ministers  were  told  so ;  that  the  country,  on 
the  whole,  was  too  hostile  and  too  impracticable,  to  leave  it  possi- 
ble for  the  army  to  carry  on  its  operations  at  any  distance  from  the 
fleet ;  that,  according  to  the  rules  of  military  prudence,  there  was  no 
enterprise,  from  time  to  time,  that  appeared  likely  to  be  attended 
with  success  ;  that  so  far  the  fault  is  clearly  with  the  ministry :  that, 
on  the  other  hand,  in  the  midst  of  all  these  difficulties,  the  general 
should  liave  seen  the  necessity  of  striking  some  blow  immediately, 
and  if  he  did  not  choose  to  risk  it,  should  have  resigned  his  com- 
mand. 

I^  must  now  repeat,  that  I  have  adverted  to  this  subject  on  the 
merits  of  General  Howe,  not  only  to  furnish  some  general  answer  to 
one  of  the  first  questions  which  the  student  will  naturally  ask,  but  to 
remind  him,  that,  while  he  is  gratifying  his  curiosity,  he  must  neces- 
sarily place  before  his  view  —  and  that  he  ought  to  observe  them  — 
two  of  the  most  important  points  connected  with  the  American  dis- 
pute :  whether,  for  instance,  the  original  idea  of  conquering  America 
by  force  was  ever  reasonable  on  our  part ;  and  again,  whether  the 
resolution  of  the  principal  men  of  America  at  all  events  to  hazard 
rebellion  against  the  mother  country  was  properly  justified  at  the 


AMERICAN  WAR.  627 

time  by  their  probable  means  of  resistance.  Finally,  it  is  in  this 
manner  that  the  student  can  best  be  taught,  in  some  degree,  to  com- 
prehend the  extraordinary  merit  of  Washington. 


LECTURE    XXXV 


AMERICAN  WAR. 


Hitherto  I  have  alluded  chiefly  to  the  origin  of  this  unhappy  civil 
war ;  the  causes  of  which,  as  they  operated  on  each  side  of  the  At- 
lantic, you  will  even  now  be  able,  in  a  general  manner,  to  estimate. 
Of  these  general  causes,  too  many  of  those  that  operated  with  us, 
those  that  I  have  enumerated,  for  instance,  may,  I  think,  be  held  up 
to  the  censure  and  avoidance  of  posterity.  The  more  they  are 
analyzed,  the  less  can  they  be  respected ;  and  it  was  very  fit,  and 
even  desirable,  that  the  haughty  and  selfish  sentiments,  the  unworthy 
opinions,  by  which  the  people  of  Great  Britain  and  their  rulers  were 
led  astray,  should  not  only  be  resisted,  but  successfully  resisted. 

And  yet  it  is  not  so  easy  to  come  to  a  decision  on  the  Amei-ican 
part  of  the  case.  The  colonies  were  from  the  first  connected  with 
the  British  Empire.  They  had  grown  up,  under  its  influence,  to  un- 
exampled strength  and  prosperity.  A  principle  was,  no  doubt,  on  a 
sudden  brought  forward  by  the  British  minister,  which  might  have 
been  carried  to  an  extent,  and,  if  unresisted,  would  probably  have 
been  jcarried  to  an  extent,  materially  injurious  to  their  liberties  ;  but 
it  had  not  been  carried  to  any  such  extent  when  acts  of  fury  and  out- 
rage were  committed  in  the  province  of  Massachusetts  ;  and  we  assent 
to,  rather  than  enter  into,  the  reasonings  of  the  Americans.  We  are 
surprised  and  struck  with  the  fervor  of  their  resistance,  rather  than 
sympathize  with  it;  certainly  we  do  not  feel  the  glo\rof  indignation 
against  the  mother  country  which,  on  other  occasions,  of  Switzerland 
and  the  Low  Countries,  for  instance,  we  have  felt  against  the  superior 
state.  That  the  British  nation  was  wrong,  and  deserved  to  be  se- 
verely punished,  must  be  allowed  ;  but  to  lose  half  its  empire,  and  to 
have  America  and  Europe  rejoicing  in  its  humiliation  and  misfortunes, 
as  in  the  fall  of  tyranny  and  oppression,  is  more  than  a  speculator  on 
human  affairs,  in  this  country  at  least,  can  be  well  reconciled  to. 
The  punishment  seems  disproportioned  to  the  fault ;  —  the  fault, 
however,  must  not  be  denied.  It  was  one  totally  unworthy  of  the 
English  people,  the  very  essence  of  whose  constitution,  its  sdeguard, 

0 


628  LECTURE  XXXV. 

its  characteristic  boast,  its  principle  from  the  earliest  times,  the  very 
object  of  all  its  virtuous  struggles,  and  for  which  its  patriots  had  died 
on  the  scaffold  and  in  the  field,  was  this  very  principle  of  representa- 
tive taxation. 

I  must  now,  therefore,  recall  to  your  minds  my  observation,  that 
the  causes  which  led  to  the  American  war  were  not  all  of  them,  in 
their  feeling  and  principle,  discreditable  to  our  country.  For  in- 
stance, a  particular  notion  of  political  right  had  a  great  effect  in  mis- 
leading our  ministers  and  people,  and  hurrying  them  into  measures 
of  violence  and  coercion.  It  was  of  the  following  nature :  all  general 
principles  of  legislation  and  national  law  seem  to  lead  to  the  conclu- 
sion, that  the  sovereignty  must  remain  with  the  parent  state,  and  that 
the  power  of  taxation  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  sovereignty.  Even 
Burke  seems  to  have  been  of  this  opinion,  and  the  Rockingham  part 
of  the  Whigs.  But  this  was  a  point  much  contested  at  the  time. 
The  reverse  was  loudly  insisted  upon  by  Lord  Chatham  and  his 
division  of  the  Whigs :  that  the  general  powers  of  sovereignty  were 
one  thing,  and  the  particular  power  of  taxation  another,  —  that  this 
species  of  sovereignty,  taxation,  could  not  be  exercised  without  repre- 
sentation. 

And  thus  much  must,  at  least,  be  conceded  to  Lord  Chatham,  — 
that,  in  practice,  this  distinction  had  always  existed  in  the  European 
governments,  derived  from  the  Barbarian  conquerors  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  This  power  of  taxation  was  always  supposed  to  be  the 
proper  prerogative  of  the  people,  or  of  the  great  assemblies  that 
were  quite  distinct  from  the  wearer  of  the  crown.  The  granting  or 
refusing  of  supplies  was  always  considered  as  a  matter  of  grace  and 
favor  to  the  sovereign,  —  not  of  duty ;  and  as  something  with  which 
they  were  enabled  to  come,  if  I  may  so  speak,  into  the  market  with 
their  rulers,  and  truck  and  barter  for  privileges  and  immunities. 
But  however  this  original  point,  of  the  right  of  taxation  being  includ- 
ed in  sovereignty,  be  determined  ;  whether  it  be  admitted,  or  riot,  in 
the  abstract  and  elementary  theory  of  government,  which  is  the  first 
question ;  and  whether  it  be  admitted,  or  not,  in  any  ideas  we  can 
form  of  our  feudal  governments  of  Europe,  which  is  the  second  ques- 
tion ;  still,  the  same  point  assumed  a  very  different  appearance,  and 
became  another  and  a  third  question,  when  this  sovereign  right  of 
taxation  was  to  be  practically  applied  to  colonies,  situated  as  were 
those  of  America,  and  by  a  mother  country,  enjoying  the  kind  of 
free  constitution  which  Great  Britain  at  the  time  enjoyed.  The 
question  of  taxation,  under  these  circumstances,  became  materially 
and  fundamentally  altered ;  and  for  the  rulers  and  people  of  Great 
Britain  to  set  up  a  right,  one,  if  it  existed  at  all,  certainly  of  a  very 
general  and  abstract  kind,  and  even  to  carry  it  into  practical  effect, 
without  the  slightest  accommodation  to  the  feelings  of  freemen  and 
the  descendants  of  freemen,  —  without  offering  the  slightest  political 

t 


AMERICAN  WAR.  629 

contrivance,  the  slightest  form  of  representation,  by  which  the  prop- 
erty of  the  Americans  could  be  rendered  as  secure  as  is  the  property 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Great  Britain,  —  without  the  slightest  attempt 
to  avail  themselves  of  the  colonial  governments  existing  in  America 
at  the  time ;  for  the  rulers  and  people  of  Great  Britain  to  be  so  total- 
ly deaf  and  insensible  to  all  the  reasonings  and  feelings  which  had 
dignified  the  conduct  of  their  ancestors  from  the  earliest  period,  and 
which  at  that  moment  continued  to  dignify  their  own,  —  was  to  show 
a  want  of  genuine  sympathy  with  the  first  principles  of  the  EngUsh 
constitution,  and  the  first  principles  of  all  relative  justice,  —  was  to 
show  such  carelessness  of  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  others,  and 
such  haughty  contempt  and  disregard  of  the  most  obvious  suggestions 
of  pohcy  and  expediency,  that  it  is  not  at  all  to  be  lamented  that  the 
ministers  and  people  of  this  country  should  fail  in  their  scheme  of  un- 
conditionally taxing  America,  should  be  disgraced  and  defeated  in 
any  such  unworthy  enterprise.  And  it  is  ardently  to  be  hoped,  that 
all  nations,  and  all  rulers  of  nations,  and  all  bodies  of  men,  and  all 
individuals,  should  eternally  fail  and  be  discomfited,  and,  according 
to  the  measure  of  their  offences,  be  stigmatized  and  made  to  suffer, 
whenever  they  show  this  kind  of  selfish  or  unenlightened  hostility  to 
such  great  principles  as  I  have  alluded  to,  —  the  principles  of  civil 
freedom,  of  relative  justice,  and  of  mild  government. 

After  having  thus  considered  the  original  grounds  of  the  war,  when 
I  came  in  the  last  lecture  to  advert  to  the  conduct  of  the  war,  I  point- 
ed out  to  you  the  most  curious  and  difficult  question  which  the  whole 
contest  affords  :  whether  the  American  leaders  did  not  hurry  into  posi- 
tive rebellion  before  they  had  sufficient  grounds  to  suppose  they  could 
resist  what  was  then  the  greatest  empire  on  earth. 

The  fact  seems  to  have  been,  that  resistance  ripened  gradually  and 
insensibly  into  rebellion.  The  leaders  had  incurred  the  penalties  of 
treason  before  they  could  well  have  asked  themselves  to  what  lengths 
they  were  prepared  to  go.  They  always  debated  with  closed  doors, 
so  that  what  were  their  exact  views,  and  the  progress  of  their  opinions, 
cannot  now  be  known.  But  the  strange,  incoherent  manner  in  which 
both  they  and  the  people  of  America  seemed  to  have  supposed  that 
the  dispute  would  be  terminated  each  year,  in  the  course  of  that  year, 
or  the  next,  is  very  striking,  and  shows  how  little  they  were  aware 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  enterprise  in  which  they  had  engaged.  This 
is  true  in  general ;  but  particular  individuals  were  more  wise.  In- 
stances certainly  did  occur,  and  some  are  on  record,  of  men  who  were 
aware  how  perilous  was  the  course  which,  at  the  opening  of  the  dis- 
pute, the  patriots  were  pursuing.  "We  are  not  to  hope,"  said  Mr. 
Quincy,  to  the  meeting  assembled  at  Boston  in  1774,  "  that  we  shall 
end  this  controversy  without  the  sharpest,  sharpest  conflicts.  We 
are  not  to  flatter  ourselves,  that  popular  resolves,  popular  harangues, 
popular  acclamations,  and  popular  vapor  will  vanquish  our  foes.     Let 

3  a* 


^0  ,  LECTURE  XXXV. 

US  weigh  and  consider,  before  we  advance  to  those  measures  which 
must  bring  on  the  most  trying  and  terrible  struggle  this  country  ever 
saw." 

But  on  the  whole,  the  general  enthusiasm  that  was  excited  by  this 
single  principle,  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  American  contro- 
versy, that  the  Parhament  of  Great  Britain  had  no  right  to  tax  them, 
is  quite  unexampled  in  history ;  and  that  men  should  act  on  the  fore- 
sight and  expectation  of  events  just  as  if  the  events  were  present, 
and  should  endure  as  much  to  avoid  the  approach  of  oppressive  tax- 
gatherers  as  if  they  were  already  in  their  houses,  is  a  perfect  phe- 
nomenon in  the  records  of  the  world,  and  a  very  curious  specimen  of 
that  reasoning,  sagacious,  spirited,  determined  attachment  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  civil  liberty  which  so  honorably  distinguished  ^the  ancestors 
of  these  Americans,  the  very  singular  men  who  flourished  in  the  times 
of  Charles  the  First,  and  who,  whatever  may  be  their  faults,  did  cer- 
tainly rescue  from  imminent  danger  the  civil  liberties  of  these  islands. 

I  have  hitherto,  through  all  these  lectures  on  the  subject  of  the 
American  dispute,  been  obliged  to  direct  your  attention  to  the  ill 
effects  of  harsh  government,  to  the  unfortunate  nature  of  high  and 
arbitrary  notions,  when  the  interests  of  mankind  are  concerned,  — 
their  civil  liberties  at  home,  —  their  sense  of  relative  justice  to  Qther 
states  abroad :  but  the  lessons  I  am  now  called  upon  to  offer  you, 
through  this  and  the  ensuing  lecture,  are  of  a  different  kind ;  and  it 
will  now  be  my  business  continually  to  remind  you,  that,  though  gov- 
ernment ought  not  to  be  harsh,  still  that  government  must  exist ;  and 
that,  whatever  may  be  the  temptations  to  which  all  executive  power 
is  exposed,  still  that  somewhere  or  other  executive  power  must  be 
found,  or  there  will  be  no  chance  for  the  maintenance  of  justice  and 
right  among  mankind. 

For  as  we  proceed  to  consider  still  further  the  conduct  of  the 
American  leaders,  the  principal  and  I  had  almost  said  the  only  re- 
maining observation  I  have  to  make  is  this :  that  through  the  whole 
course  of  the  accounts,  as  given  by  the  American  writers,  the  reflec- 
tion that  is  continually  presenting  itself  is  the  objectionable  nature  of 
the  purely  republican  form  of  government ;  the  total  inadequacy  of 
all  forms  strictly  democratical  for  the  management  of  mankind,  where 
any  management  is  required,  —  their  management,  I  mean,  accord- 
ing to  the  proper  principles  of  equity  and  wisdom.  I  do  not  think 
that  any  sober-minded  speculator  on  government  could  ever  have  had 
much  doubt  on  the  subject,  yet  I  conceive  that  any  such  doubt  will  be 
entirely  at  an  end  with  those  who  peruse  the  volumes  of  Marshall,  or 
even  of  Dr.  Ramsay ;  for  we  are  continually  led  to  remark,  through 
every  stage  of  the  contest,  the  want  of  a  proper  executive  govern- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  Americans,  and  the  evils  that  hence  ensued ; 
and  though  the  case  before  us  is  the  case  of  a  country  at  war,  where 
the  difficulties  must  necessarily  be  not  of  an  ordinary  nature,  and  the 


AMERICAN  WAR.  631 

executive  government  ouglit  to  be  particularly  strong,  still  the  con- 
clusion is  inevitabljttransferred  to  a  country  in  a  state  of  peace,  so 
strong  are  the  instances  everywhere  displayed  of  the  impracticable 
nature  of  the  human  character,  of  the  entire  necessity  that  exists  in 
every  community  for  some  controlling,  superintending,  executive 
power,  —  some  power  that  shall  bind  up,  and  bring  into  proper  ef- 
fect, and  reduce  to  the  proper  standard  of  equity  and  reason,  all  the 
divided,  dispersed,  ardent,  and  often  very  ill-directed  energies  of  the 
individuals  that  compose  any  society  of  human  beings.  Freedom 
must  be  enjoyed,  and  men  must  not  lose  their  nature  and  be  driven 
by  their  keepers  like  the  beasts  of  the  field ;  but  neither  must  they  be 
sb  enamoured  of  self  rule  as  to  admit  of  no  paramount  directors  and 
governors.  The  public  rights  and  privileges  for  which  they  should 
contend  are  not  the  power  of  self-rule,  nor  even  the  immediate  and 
palpable  direction  of  the  measures  of  their  government,  the  great  aim 
and  boast  of  purely  republican  forms ;  but  the  privileges  of  peaceful 
criticism  on  their  government,  the  power  of  subsequent  censure,  the 
acknowledgment  in  the  rulers  of  a  delegated  rather  than  an  original 
authority,  and  a  reference  of  their  measures  to  the  interest  of  the 
community.  These  are  the  points  for  w^hich  they  should  coatend,  — 
the  points  which,  as  a  government  is  more  or  less  perfect,  are  more 
or  less  accomplished  and  secured. 

I  shall  proceed,  in  the  remainder  of  this  lecture,  to  mention  some 
particulars  which  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  remarks  I  have  now 
made  on  the  necessity  of  executive  government ;  draiwing  them  from 
the  American  historians  themselves,  Ramsay  and  Marshall,  more 
especially  Marshall,  who,  though  supposed  to  lean  to  the  Federalists, 
is  one  of  the  most  respectable  of  men,  and,  at  all  events,  a  sort  of 
representative  of  Washington. 

An  English  reader,  when  he  comes  to  the  history  of  the  American 
war,  as  given  by  the  American  writers,  hears  of  nothing  at  first  but 
fury  and  resistance  to  the  British  ministers,  resolutions  to  defend  the 
liberties  of  America,  public  meetings,  patriotic  sacrifices  and  exer- 
tions of  every  description ;  and  yet  when  Congress  is  assembled,  an 
army  collecting,  and  a  general  appointed,  this  Congress,  army,  and 
general,  these  defenders  of  their  country  and  representatives  of  the 
public  will,  meet  with  nothing  but  difficulties  and  distresses ;  no  sup- 
phes  for  the  troops,  no  pay  for  the  soldiers  and  officers,  the  paper 
money  issued  for  the  purpose  intolerably  depreciated,  and  at  last 
even  a  mutiny  among  the  troops,  and  this  repeated  at  different  pe- 
riods of  the  contest. 

But  whence  could  arise  all  these  difficulties  ?  Why  did  not  the 
Congress  lay  at  once  the  necessary  taxes  on  the  people  of  America, 
and  with  the  produce  of  these  taxes  procure  thf  necessary  suppHes  ? 
—  or  if  they  issued  paper  money,  why  not  with  the  same  produce  of 
the  taxes  keep  their  paper  from  being  depreciated  ? 


(532  LECTURE  XXXV. 

The  fact  was,  that  the  Congress  had  it  not  in  their  power  to  tax 
America,  and  they  had  no  real  securities  within  their  reach  on  which 
to  rest  their  paper.  The  different  governments  of  the  different  prov- 
inces of  America  were  all  separate  and  independent  of  each  other ; 
they  were  all,  in  truth,  separate  and  independent  republics.  Con- 
gress was  only  a  delegation  from  each  province  or  republic,  and  was 
assembled  merely  for  the  purpose  of  considering  the  situation,  of 
representing  the  claims,  and  at  last  of  conducting  the  resistance  of 
the  whole  continent.  But  no  powers  were  given  to  the  Congress  of 
taxation ;  the  utmost  they  could  do  was  to  recommend  it  to  the  sepa- 
rate provincial  legislatures  to  levy  taxes ;  they  could  not  levy  any  taxes 
themselves ;  and  so  preposterous  w^as  the  jealousy  in  the  mind  of  the 
Americans  of  all  power,  that  many  years  elapsed  before  any  authority 
existed  that  could  legally  act  for  the  whole  continent.  Thus  the  first 
thing  that  reason  required  to  be  done  was  the  last  thing  that  could 
be  admitted ;  no  proper  executive  power  could  be  suffered  to  exist, 
and  the  fortunes  of  the  contest,  and  indeed  of  America  after  the  con- 
test, were  put  to  the  most  extreme  hazard  from  this  very  circum- 
stance ;  and  it  is  this  unreasonableness,  and  this  consequent  hazard, 
that  become  the  very  lesson  which  I  would  now  impress  upon  your 
minds ;  for  all  arose  from  the  want  of  an  executive  government. 

The  Congress  were  in  possession  of  no  revenue,  and  had  no  re- 
source but  to  emit  paper  money,  which  was  to  depend  for  its  payment 
on  the  public  faith,  —  on  the  contributions  of  the  different  provinces 
for  the  Hquidation  or  security  of  the  debt  after  the  termination  of  the 
dispute.  This  dispute  lasted  much  longer  than  was  ever  expected ; 
new  and  repeated  issues  of  paper  money  were  resorted  to ;  that  the 
paper,  therefore,  should  after  a  certain  time  depreciate  rapidly,  and 
at  length  become  scarcely  negotiable  at  any  discount,  can  be  matter 
of  no  surprise.  Washington  was  in  the  mean  time  necessitated  to  get 
his  supplies  from  the  legislatures  of  the  different  provinces  in  any 
manner  he  could.  Great  exertions  were  no  doubt  made;  but  \hQ 
anxieties,  the  mortifications,  the  apprehensions  he  suffered  are  visible 
in  every  page  of  his  letters.  So  early  as  1777,  he  was  obliged  even 
to  take  by  force  what  he  could  not  regularly  get  possession  of ;  at 
another  period  to  try  the  experiment  of  receiving  in  kind  and  in  bulk 
what  he  had  no  proper  government  money  to  purchase :  neither  of 
these  expedients  could  possibly  answer.  In  the  mean  time  the  suffer- 
ings and  privations  of  the  soldiers  and  ofiicers,  even  so  early  as  the 
winters  of  1777  and  1778,  were  most  extreme ;  famine  was  more  than 
once  in  the  camp ;  and  such  exertions  and  privations  must  have  been 
fatal  to  the  cause,  if  the  cause  had  not  appeared  to  the  sufferers  a 
struggle  for  every  thing  that  could  be  dear  to  themselves  or  their 
posterity.  • 

At  no  period  was  this  distress  of  the  army  urged  to  a  higher  point 
of  exasperation  than  at  the  time  when  success  on  the  part  of  Great 


AMERICAN  WAR.  633 

Britain  seemed  no  longer  possible.  In  1780,  a  captain's  pay  did  not, 
from  the  depreciation  of  paper,  furnish  him  with  shoes.  It  was  only 
at  a  period  so  late  as  1780  that  some  relief  could  be  obtained  from 
France  by  FrankUn,  and  it  was  not  till  1781  that  a  more  regular  and 
eflfective  loan  was  at  last  negotiated  at  Versailles  ;  and  you  will  be  led 
to  suppose,  if  you  read  the  history,  that  nothing  but  this  last  most 
opportune  supply  could  have  saved  the  American  army  from  destruc- 
tion. Great  dependence  was  placed  by  the  ministers  and  people  of 
Great  Britain  on  the  effects  that  must  be  produced  from  this  depreci- 
ation of  the  paper  money.  At  a  subsequent  period  in  our  late  revo- 
lutionary war,  great  dependence  was  placed  in  like  manner  on  the 
fall  of  assignats  in  France.  In  each  case  the  expectation*  of  our 
EngUsh  cabinets  were  disappointed.  I  will  digress  for  a  moment  on 
this  particular  point,  on  account  of  its  importance. 
-  In  all  such  cases  the  principle  upon  which  the  whole  depends 
seems  to  be  this,  —  whether  there  is  in  the  country  any  executive 
government  sufficiently  strong  to  convert  the  produce  of  the  land  and 
labor  of  the  community  to  the  purposes  of  the  army.  Paper  money 
is  a  species  of  tax,  and  a  most  unfair  one,  if  it  depreciates ;  for  any 
man  who  touches  it  loses  by  it.  The  question,  then,  is,  whether,  if 
it  should  depreciate  materially  and  at  last  fail,  the  popular  leaders 
can  venture  upon  more  violent  expedients,  can  seize  and  convert  to 
the  purposes  of  the  troops  whatever  is  wanted ;  which  is,  in  other 
words,  a  question  of  the  strength  of  the  executive  government  at  the 
time.  The  expectations,  therefore,  of  the  English  cabinets  were,  1 
apprehend,  much  more  reasonable  in  the  case  of  America  than  in  the 
case  of  France. 

In  the  latter  (in  France),  the  executive  government  soon  became 
so  strong,  that  life,  property,  and  every  thing  human  was  seized  upon 
and  disposed  of  without  the  slightest  ceremony  or  mercy.  France, 
too,  was  a  part  of  a  continent,  not  itself  a  continent.  The  revolu- 
tionary leaders  had  it,  therefore,  always  in  their  power  to  quarter 
their  armies  on  the  countries  of  their  enemies.  There  was  little 
hope,  therefore,  from  the  fall  of  assignats.  But  in  the  case  of 
America  the  executive  government  was  evidently  very  weak.  Far 
from  being  able  to  provide  itself,  if  necessary,  with  whatever  it  want- 
ed, it  seemed  not  able  to  resort  to  the  most  common  exercise  of  the 
powers  of  all  acknowledged  governments,  the  laying- on  of  taxes. 
Their  paper  issues  of  money  seemed  to  depend,  not  on  any  securities 
prepared  for  the  purpose,  but  merely  on  the  good  pleasure  and  proper 
faith  of  the  community ;  but  this  was  a  very  frail  foundation  on  which 
to  rest  the  fortunes  of  a  military  contest  with  Great  Britain. 

In  every  case,  I  must  repeat  (for  I  must  repeat  my  principle), 

where  taxes  cannot  be  laid,  or  some  expedient  resorted  to  of  the  same 

nature  and  effect  with  taxes,  it  certainly  does  not  seem  possible  to 

carry  on  any  system  of  resistance  against  invading  armies.     It  is  in 

80  . 


634  LECTURE  XXXV. 

vain  to  say  that  the  food  and  clothing  exist  in  the  country,  if  the 
state  cannot,  by  some  mode  of  taxation,  or  seizure,  or  confiscation, 
get  possession  of  them,  and  convert  them  to  the  use  of  the  soldier 
who  wants  them.  Certainly  the  pages  of  the  American  historians, 
and  the  letters  of  Washington  himself,  show  very  plainly  how  extreme 
is  the  hazard,  how  cruel  are  the  difficulties,  to  which  every  cause 
must  be  exposed,  when  the  executive  government  is  too  weak, — 
when  the  leaders  of  the  general  emotion  are  not  intrusted  with  proper 
powers  to  supply  those  who  fight  in  the  public  cause  with  the  proper 
means  of  fighting,  with  tents,  with  clothing,  with  ammunition,  and 
food,  —  and  when  such  men,  in  those  ebbings  of  the  spirit  and  fluc- 
tuations of  the  resolution,  to  which  all  men  must  be  exposed  who 
have  been  highly  wrought  up  by  their  feelings,  when  such  men  have 
to  compare  their  own  forlorn,  desolate,  helpless,  and  unworthy  situa- 
tion with  all  the  pride  and  pomp  and  circumstance  which  may  in  the 
mean  time  belong  to  the  armies  of  their  enemy.  I  need  not  allude 
further  to  the  letters  of  Washington,  to  make  out  to  you  the  extent 
and  intolerable  nature  of  these  privations  and  difficulties.  The  truth 
is,  that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  very  extraordinary  merit  of 
Washington,  as  I  have  before  stated,  depends  on  this  very  point ; 
and  how  he  could  keep  his  officers  and  his  men  in  any  tolerable  state 
of  good-humor,  or  spirits,  or  discipline,  amid  the  privations  and  wretch- 
edness they  had  to  suffer,  in  such  a  climate  as  that  of  America,  — 
how  he  could  maintain  even  the  appearance  of  an  army  before  an 
army  so  accommodated  and  appointed  as  was  that  of  England,  must 
appear  perfectly  inexplicable  to  those  who  consider  what  the  human 
mind  is,  and  what  the  circumstances  were  by  which  not  only  the  cour- 
age of  the  American  soldier,  but  qualities  of  the  mind  and  temper  far 
more  rare  than  courage,  and  of  more  difficult  attainment,  were  tried 
to  the  utmost,  day  after  day,  and  year  after  year. 

Famine,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  was  more  than  once  in  the 
camp.  Washington  saw  his  best  officers  throwing  up  their  commis- 
sions ;  troops  that  could  not  be  tempted  by  the  enemy  to  desert  were 
yet  in  a  state  of  mutiny ;  all  were  suffering  and  all  were  complaining. 
If  they  met  the  enemy  in  the  field,  they  were  for  a  long  period  neces 
sarily  beaten ;  if  they  kept  behind  their  intrenchments,  they  had  no 
comfort  or  support  but  the  looks  of  their  general,  and  their  conscious- 
ness of  the  high  principles  of  liberty  which  ennobled  their  cause. 
They  must,  in  the  mean  ftme,  have  supposed  the  Congress  totally  in- 
attentive to  their  distresses,  totally  regardless  of  those  brave  men  for 
whose  wants  it  was  their  proper  duty  to  provide.  The  real  difficulties 
of  the  case,  the  real  impossibilities  which  their  legislators  were  ex- 
pected to  accomplish,  were  not  of  a  nature  to  be  readily  explained  to 
their  understandings,  even  if  their  minds  had  been  in  a  state  of  tran- 
quilUty,  much  less  when  the  result  of  the  explanation  was  to  show 
them  that  they  were  necessarily  to  be  left  in  a  state  of  nakedness  and 
hunger. 


AMEBICAN  WAR.  635 

But  all  these  difficulties  arose,  in  the  instance  before  us,  from  the 
want  of  a  proper  executive  power  in  the  state  ;  for  this  is  the  lesson 
to  which  I  must  now  return,  and  which  you  must  not  forget.  There 
was  no  executive  government  to  levy  general  taxes  and  convert  the 
produce  of  the  taxes  to  the  proper  purpose ;  nor  was  there  any  ex- 
ecutive government  to  seize,  as  in  France,  on  every  thing  that  was 
wanted,  nor  any  neighbouring  nations  on  which  the  armies  could  be 
quartered. 

But  this  want  of  a  proper  executive  government  was  to  be  exhibit- 
ed in  a  still  more  striking  manner  than  has  yet  been  alluded  to. 
Those  meritorious  and  gallant  men  who  successfully  resisted  the  Brit- 
ish armies  were  not  only  paid  in  a  constantly  depreciating  paper  while 
the  war  lasted,  but  they  were  never,  even  in  the  event,  and  after  the 
war  had  ceased,  properly  p^id  their  arrears ;  and  the  reader  has  to 
take  up  and  lay  down  the  subject  of  these  arrears  again  and  again,  as 
he  reads  the  history  of  Marshall,  to  peruse  the  expostulations  of  Wash- 
ington to  Congress,  and  then  ultimately  to  see  the  army  break  up  and 
dissolve,  and  the  general  retire  to  his  farm,  —  to  see  the  poor  soldier, 
impatient  to  revisit  his  family  and  friends,  dismissed  on  his  furlough 
with  only  some  shght  portion  of  his  arrears,  dismissed  never  after  to 
return  to  a  state  where  he  could  demand  his  right ;  the  reader  is  to 
witness  all  this  till  his  feelings  are  wound  up  to  such  a  pitch  of  indig- 
nation that  he  is  ready  to  execrate  and  devote  to  eternal  abomination 
all  the  legislators  and  legislative  assemblies,  the  whole  country  and 
continent  together,  where  such  base,  selfish,  faithless  ingratitude  could 
be  endured  for  a  moment.  It  is,  however,  to  be  supposed,  that  no 
such  disgrace  to  the  American  name  could  have  suUied  the  annals  of 
the  Revolution,  if  there  had  existed  at  the  time  a  proper  executive 
power  in  the  general  government,  or  if  it  had  ever  existed  afterwards, 
at  any  point  of  time  sufficiently  near  the  termination  of  the  war. 
This  is  a  sort  of  lesson  which,  in  that  abhorrence  of  all  arbitrary  rule 
which  I  trust  will  ever  animate  your  bosoms,  you  must  by  no  means 
forge^  - 

The  English  documents  which  relate  to  this  American  civil  war 
show  the  unfortunate  nature  of  high  principles  of  government.  I 
have  stated  this  part  of  the  instruction  to  be  derived  from  the  dis- 
pute already ;  but  from  the  American  documents  the  conclusion  is 
the  very  reverse.  I  am  now,  therefore,  stating  this,  as  before  I  did 
the  other,  and  you  will  draw,  I  hope,  the  instruction  that  is  afforded 
by  both.  .  * 

I  could  wish  that  this  subject  of  the  paper  money  of  America,  and 
the  revolutionary  debt,  should  hereafter  occupy  your  reflection ;  you 
will  find  materials  in  Ramsay  and  Marshall.  Ramsay  gives  an  ap- 
pendix on  paper  money  expressly ;  but  the  subject  is  huddled  up  too 
rapidly  at  the  end ;  and  the  historian,  though  he  resumes  it  in  his  His- 
tory, never  does,  and  from  the  date  of  his  work  never  could,  give  the 


636  LECTURE  XXXV. 

entire  detail  of  it,  in  a  complete  and  satisfactory  manner.  Marshall  13 
more  full,  but  he  never  properly  connects  and  puts  it  at  once  regular- 
ly and  thoroughly  in  the  possession  of  the  reader.  He  has  a  sort  of 
stately,  tedious  manner,  which  keeps  the  mind  for  a  long  time  in  a  dis- 
agreeable state  of  suspense,  from  which  it  is  at  the  last  scarcely  ever 
relieved.  I  suspect  that  both  writers  were  not  a  little  ashamed  of  the 
facts  that  lay  before  them. 

I  consider  these  points  as  on  the  whole  so  curious,  and  so  jfitted  to 
employ  your  thoughts,  that  I  shall  dwell  a  little  longer  upon  them ; 
giving  you  my  facts,  as  nearly  as  I  can,  in  the  very  words,  first  of 
Kamsay,  and  afterwards  of  Marshall.      • 

The  resolution  of  the  Congress  to  raise  an  army,  in  June,  1775, 
was  followed  by  another  to  emit  bills  of  credit :  for  their  redemption 
they  pledged  the  confederated  colonies.  More  bills  were  issued  in 
November,  1775,  all  on  a  supposition  that  an  accommodation  would 
take  place  before  the  10th  of  June,  1776.  It  was  thought,  however, 
necessary,  in  consequence  of  the  contract  entered  into  by  Great  Brit- 
ain with  Germany  for  sixteen  thousand  foreign  mercenaries,  to  ex- 
tend the  plan  of  defence,  and  in  February,  May,  and  July,  1776, 
more  and  more  bills  were  emitted ;  so  that  the  first  issue  swelled 
from  two  to  twenty  milHons  of  dollars.  The  paper  money  circulated 
for  about  eighteen  months,  and  to  the  extent  of  twenty  millions,  with- 
out depreciation. 

Congress  made  some  efforts  to  borrow,  and  some  to  reeommena 
taxes  to  the  different  States  of  the  Union.  But,  from  the  impossi- 
bility of  procuring  a  sufficiency  of  money,  either  from  loans  or  taxes, 
the  old  expedient  of  further  emissions  was  reiterated ;  and  the  value 
decreased  as  the  quantity  increased. 

The  depreciation  began  at  different  periods  in  different  States,  but 
became  general  about  the  middle  of  the  year  1777,  and  progressively 
increased  for  three  or  four  years.  In  1777,  the  depreciation  reached 
two  or  three  for  one  ;  in  1778,  five  or  six  for  one  ;  in  1779,  twenty- 
seven  or  twenty-eight  for  one  ;  in  1780,  fifty  or  sixty  for  one,  during 
the  first  four  or  five  months ;  afterwards,  one  hundred  and  fifty  for 
one,  and  t^e  circulation  only  partial ;  in  1781,  several  hundreds  for 
one,  and  many  would  not  take  the  paper  at  any  rate.  It  is  to  be  ob- 
served all  this  time,  that  the  paper  emissions  of  the  different  States, 
not  only  of  Congress,  but  of  the  different  provincial  States,  amounted 
also  to  many  millions,  and,  being  mixed  with  the  continental  money 
of  Congress,  added  to  its  depreciation. 

Washington,  was,  after  about  five  years,  reduced  to  the  alternative 
of  disbanding  his  troops,  or  of  supplying  them  with  necessaries  by 
military  force. 

Now  I  must  here  remark,  though  Dr.  Ramsay  does  not,  that  after 
five  years  the  success  of  the  Revolution  was  become  certain.  Had  it 
been  still  doubtful,  what,  in  such  a  situation,  would  have  been  the  fate 
either  of  the  army  or  the  Congress  ?    But  to  proceed. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  637 

The  next  expedient  was  to  call  upon  the  States,  in  lieu  of  money, 
for  determinate  quantities  of  flour  and  other  articles,  for  the  use  of 
the  army.  This  was  a  tax  in  kind,  and  found  on  experiment  so  in- 
convenient, partial,  and  expensive,  that  it  was  speedily  abandoned. 

The  remaining  expedient  was  to  call  in  the  old  paper  by  taxes,  to 
burn  it,  and  then  to  emit  new  paper,  one  of  new  for  twenty  of  old, 
under  new  conditions.  But  the  provincial  States  could  not  be  brought 
to  consent  to  this  with  sufficient  unanimity,  nor,  indeed,  would  they 
have  assented  to  any  financial  measure  of  a  general  nature  that  could 
have  been  proposed ;  and  on  this  account,  it  appears,  that,  for  want 
of  some  federal  head,  or  executive  power,  to  force  the  country  to  sub- 
mit to  the  proper  rules  of  equity  and  reason,  and  even  to  the  measures 
necessary  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  own  wishes,  the  success  of 
their  own  resistance  to  Great  Britain,  a  crisis  followed  (so  late  as  the 
year  1781)  which  might  have  been  fatal  to  the  cause  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, if  relief  had  not  been  obtained  by  the  means  of  France.  There 
was  no  circulating  medium  either  of  paper  or  specie  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  American  army,  a  real  want  of  necessaries  ensued.* 
The  Pennsylvanian  line  could  not,  and  would  not,  endure  their  situa- 
tion, without  pay  and  without  provisions.  They  were  in  a  state  of 
mutiny.  Yet  these  men  had  not  ceased  to  be  patriots,  though  they 
could  not  stand  at  their  posts  till  they  died  off  by  famine.  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  tried  every  expedient  to  bring  them  over  to  the  British  army, 
but  in  vain.  Washington  and  the  Congress,  luckily  for  America,  being 
more  considerate  than  generals  and  legislators  on  such  occasions  com- 
monly are,  adopted  mild  measures ;  the  army  was  not  dissolved,  and  the 
revolt  was  quieted.  But  what  might  at  length  have  been  the  event 
it  is  impossible  to  say.  Fortunately,  new  resources  had  been  opened 
about  the  time  of  this  crisis,  so  long  wished  for  by  the  enemies  and 
dreaded  by  the  friends  of  American  independence.  A  great  deal  of 
gold  and  silver  was  at  this  time  introduced  into  the  American  States, 
by  a  trade  with  the  French  and  Spanish  West  India  islands,  and  again 
by  the  French  army  in  Rhode  Island.  The  king  of  France  furnished 
a  subsidy  of  six  millions  of  livres,  and  was  the  security  for  ten  millions 
more  borrowed  in  the  Netherlands.  The  public  finances  were  put 
under  the  skilful  direction  of  Mr.  Morris,  and  the  pubHc  engagements 
were  made  payable  in  gold  and  silver. 

About  this  time  the  old  continental  paper  money  ceased  to  have 
any  currency ;  the  money  had  got  out  of  the  hands  of  the  original 
proprietors,  and  was  in  the  possession  of  others,  who  had  obtained  it, 
it  may  be  supposed,  at  some  very  high  rate  of  depreciation.  To  raise 
taxes  to  pay  this  paper  money,  at  its  original  value,  and  thus  to  pre- 

*  Ramsay's  language  is,  —  "  At  this  period  of  the  war,  there  was  little  or  no  circu- 
lating medium,  either  in  the  form  of  paper  or  specie,  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
American  army  there  was  a  real  want  of  necessary  provisions."  History  of  the  Ameri 
can  Revolution,  Vol.  ii.  p.  223.  —N. 

3b 


638  LECTURE  XXXV. 

serve  the  public  faith,  was  now  quite  out  of  the  'question  ;  and  the  ex 
tinction  of  it  seems  to  have  produced  no  particular  sensation :  the  ill 
effects  produced  by  the  depreciation  of  this  paper  money  had  taken 
place  before.  To  prevent  or  retard  this  depreciation,  Congress  had 
made  different  efforts  from  time  to  time ;  they  had  recommended  to 
the  States  absurd  and  unjust  laws  for  regulating  the  prices  of  labor, 
manufactures,  and  all  sorts  of  commodities ;  for  confiscating  and  sell- 
ing the  estates  of  Tories ;  and  they  very  early  recommended  a  law 
for  making  the  paper  money  a  legal  tender.  These  laws  were  all 
found,  of  course,  to  be  impracticable  ;  all  but  the  last,  of  legal  tender, 
which  produced,  not  indeed  the  effect  intended,  but  that  alone  which 
it  is  fitted  to  produce :  it  enabled  a  man  who  had  borrowed  a  pound 
to  pay  his  debt  by  paper  which,  though  nominally  a  pound,  was  not 
really  worth  a  pound,  nor  one  half,  nor  one  eighth  of  the  money : 
that  is,  it  enabled  every  existing  debtor  to  cheat  his  creditor ;  and 
those  who  had  to  receive  annuities,  who  had  money  out  at  interest, 
widows  and  orphans,  for  instance;  or  the  aged  who  had  retired  from 
business,  found  themselves  reduced  to  beggary :  that  is,  the  very  per- 
sons who  should,  of  all  others,  be  under  the  protection  of  the  state, 
the  innocent  and  the  defenceless,  were  ruined  by  it;  and  such  are  al- 
ways the  only  effects  that  can  be  produced  by  this  measure  of  a  legal 
tender ;  existing  debtors  are  enabled  to  cheat  existing  creditors,  — 
nothing  more. 

The  concluding  paragraphs  of  the  American  historian  are  remark- 
able, and  should  be  a  warning  to  those  who  tamper  with  the  circulat- 
ing medium  of  a  country.  "  The  evils  of  depreciation,"  says  he, 
"  did  not  terminate  with  the  war ;  they  extend  to  the  present  hour. 
.  .  *  .  .  The  iniquity  of  the  laws  estranged  the  minds  of  many  of  the 
citizens  from  the  habits  and  love  of  justice.  The  nature  of  obliga- 
tions was  so  far  changed,  that  he  was  reckoned  the  honest  man,  who, 

from  principle,  delayed  to  pay  his  debts Truth,  honor,  and 

justice  were  swept  away  by  the  overflowing  deluge  of  legal  iniquity. 

Time  and  industry  have  already,  in  a  great  degree,  repaired 

the  losses  of  property  which  the  citizens  sustained  during  the  war ; 
but  both  have  hitherto  failed  in  effacing  the  taint  which  was  then  com- 
municated to  their  principles  ;  nor  can  its  total  ablution  be  expected, 
till  a  new  generation  arises,  unpractised  in  the  iniquities  of  their 
fathers." 

I  have  been  quoting  from  Ramsay.  I  will  now  lay  before  you  a 
few  sentences  from  Paine's  Letter  to  the  Abb^  Raynal,  published  in 
Philadelphia,  in  the  year  1782.  I  do  so,  to  show  you  how  necessary 
it  is  that  you  should  study  well  the  elements  of  political  economy,  be- 
fore you  approach  any  subject  connected  with,  the  national  prosperity; 
you  will  otherwise  be  always  liable  to  be  deceived  by  mistaken  writers 
or  speakers,  who  produce  with  confidence  the  first. impressions  of  the 
mind  on  these  subjects  of  political  economy,  which  first  impressions 


AMERICA^   WAR.  689 

are,  in  tliis  particular  science,  almost  always  wrong.  Pa^ne  is  a 
writer  as  distinguished  for  the  superficial  view  which  he  takes  of  the 
subjects  on  which  he  writes,  as  for  the  effrontery  with  which  he  pro- 
,  poses  and  the  abihty  with  which  he  illustrates  his  opinions.  Indeed, 
I  know  no  argument  so  strong  against  all  the  democracy  which  he 
espouses,  as  the  very  success  of  his  own  works.  I  should  hope,  after 
what  I  have  read  to  you  from  Ramsay,  and  the  unhappy  consequences 
that  you  see  from  his  account  result  to  helpless,  unoffending  individu- 
als from  a  depreciated  currency,  that  you  are  not  now  to  be  imposed 
upon  by  the  loose,  though  specious,  reasonings  of  Paine.  You  will,  I 
hope,  detect  their  unfairness  and  inaccuracy,  while  I  read  them.  I 
do  not  deny  that  they  are  plausible  ;  this  is  rather  the  reason  why  I 
now  produce  them,  that  on  this  subject  you  may  always  be  particularly 
circumspect  and  patient. 

".I  know,"  says  Paine,  "  it  must  be  extremely  difficult  to  make  for- 
eigners understand  the  nature  and  circumstances  of  our  paper  money, 
because  there  are  natives  who  do  not  understand  it  themselves.  But 
with  us,  its  fate  is  now  determined ;  common  consent  has  consigned  it 
to  rest,  with  that  kind  of  regard  which  the  long  service  of  inanimate 
things  insensibly  obtains  from  mankind.  Every  stone  in  the  bridge 
that  has  carried  us  over  seems  to  have  a  claim  upon  our  esteem ;  but 
this  was  a  corner-stone,  and  its  usefulness  cannot  bo  forgotten 

"  The  paper  money,  though  issued  from  Congress  under  the  name 
of  dollars,  did  not  come  from  that  body  always  at. that  value.  Those 
which  were  issued  the  first  year  were  equal  to  gold  and  silver ;  the 
second  year,  less ;  the  third,  still  less ;  and  so  on,  for  nearly  the  space 
of  five  years ;  at  the  end  of  which,  I  imagine  that  the  whole  value  at 
which  Congress  might  pay  away  the  several  emissions,  taking  them 
together,  was  about  ten  or  twelve  million  pounds  sterhng.  Now,  as 
it  would  have  taken  ten  or  twelve  millions  sterling  of  taxes  to  carry 
on  the  war  for  five  years,  and  as  while  this  money  was  issuing,  and 
Hkewise  depreciating  down  to  nothing,  there  were  none  or  few  valu- 
able taxes  paid,  consequently  the  event  to  the  public  was  the  same, 
whether  they  sunk  ten  or  twelve  millions  of  expended  money  by  de- 
preciation, or  paid  ten  or  twelve  milHons  by  taxation ;  for,  as  they  did 
not  do  both,  and  chose  to  do  one,  the  matter,  in  a  general  view,  was 
indifferent.  And  therefore  what  the  Abbe  supposes,"  says  Paine, 
"  to  be  a  debt  has  now  no  existence,  it  having  been  paid  by  every- 
body consenting  to  reduce,  at  his  own  expense,  from  the  value  of  the 
bills  continually  passing  among  themselves,  a  sum  equal  to  nearly 
what  the  expense  of  the  war  was  for  five  years 

"  It  is  true,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  that  it  never  was  intended, 
neither  was  it  foreseen,  that  the  debt  contained  in  the  paper  currency 
should  sink  itself  in  this  manner ;  but  as,  by  the  voluntary  conduct  of 
all  and  of  every  one,  it  has  arrived  at  this  fate,  the  debt  is  paid  by 
those  who  owed  it.     Perhaps  nothing  was  ever  so  universally  the  act 


640  LECTURE  XXXV. 

of  a  country  as  this.  Government  had  no  hand  in  it.  Every  man 
depreciated  his  own  money  by  his  own  consent ;  for  such  was  the  ef- 
fect which  the  raising  the  nominal  value  of  goods  produced.  But  aa 
by  such  reduction  he  sustained  a  loss  equal  to  what  he  must  have 
paid  to  sink  it  by  taxation,  therefore  the  line  of  justice  is  to  consider 
his  loss  by  the  depreciation  as  his  tax  for  that  time,  and  not  to  tax 
him,  when  the  war  is  over,  to  make  that  money  good  in  any  other 
person's  hands,  which  became  nothing  in  his  own." 

But  the  miserable  effects  of  the  want  of  an  executive  government 
sufficiently  strong  were  not  here  to  cease,  not  to  cease  with  the  wrongs 
of  the  national  creditor.  The  discontents  of  the  soldiers  and  officers, 
which  had  in  1781  nearly  threatened  the  ruin  of  the  army  of  Ameri- 
ca, threatened,  two  years  afterwards,  the  very  ruin  of  its  freedom. 
On  the  approach  of  peace,  in  1783,  Congress,  it  was  feared,  possessed 
neither  the  power  nor  the  inclination  to  comply  with  its  engagements  ; 
and  the  prospect  was  very  melancholy  to  those  brave  men  who  had 
wasted  their  fortunes  and  the  prime  of  their  life  in  unrewarded  ser- 
vices. In  Congress,  the  business  of  the  army,  it  was  found,  advanc- 
ed slowly  when  intelHgence  of  peace  had  arrived.  The  army  were, 
as  may  be  supposed,  soured  by  their  past  sufferings,  their  present 
wants,  and  their  gloomy  prospects,  exasperated  by  neglect,  and  in- 
dignant at  the  injustice  shown  them ;  and  in  this  sullen  and  ominous 
state  of  things,  they  were  addressed  by  an  anonymous  writer,  proba- 
bly some  brother  soldier  who  felt  his  situation,  unworthy  as  it  cer- 
tainly was,  more  strongly  than  the  situation  of  his  country,  perilous 
as  it  immediately  must  be,  if  its  legislature  was  to  be  addressed  by 
exasperated  men  with  arms  in  their  hands,  at  the  close  of  the  Revo- 
lution. But  the  writer,  whoever  he  was,  could  produce  on  this  ofca- 
sion  the  "  thoughts  that  breathe  and  words  that  burn." 

*'  Yes,  my  friends,"  said  he,  "  that  suffering  courage  of  yours  was 
active  once  ;  it  has  conducted  the  United  States  of  America  through 
a  doubtful  and  bloody  war ;  it  has  placed  her  in  the  chair  of  indepen- 
dency, and  peace  returns  again  to  bless  —  whom  ?  A  country  will- 
ing to  redress  your  wrongs,  cherish  your  worth,  and  reward  your  ser- 
vices ?  A  country  courting  your  return  to  private  Hfe,  with  tears  of 
gratitude  and  smiles  of  admiration,  —  longing  to  divide  with  you  that 
independency  which  your  gallantry  has  given,  and  those  riches  which 
your  wounds  have  preserved  ?  Is  this  the  case  ?  Or  is  it  rather  a 
country  that  tramples  upon  your  rights,  disdanis  your  cries,  and  in- 
sults your  distresses  ?  Have  you  not  more  than  once  suggested  your 
wishes  and  made  known  your  wants  to  Congress,  —  wants  and  wishes 
which  gratitude  and  policy  should  have  anticipated,  rather  than  evad- 
ed? And  have  you  not  lately,  in  the  meek  language  of  entreating 
memorials,  begged  from  their  justice  what  you  could  no  longer  expect 
from  their  favor  ?  How  have  you  been  answered  ?  Let  the  letter 
which  you  are  called  to  consider  to-morrow  make  reply.     If  this, 


AMERICAN  WAR.  641 

then,  be  your  treatment  while  the  swords  you  wear  are  necessary  for 
the  defence  of  America,  what  have  you  to  expect  from  peace,  when 
your  voice  shall  sink  and  your  strength  dissipate  by  division,  —  when 
those  very  swords,  the  instruments  and  companions  of  your  glory,  shall 
be  taken  from  your  sides,  and  no  remaining  mark  of  military  distinc- 
tion left  but  your  wants,  infirmities,  and  scars  ?  Can  you,  then,  con- 
sent to  be  the  only  sufferers  by  this  revolution,  and,  retiring  from  the 
field,  grow  old  in  poverty,  wretchedness,  and  contempt  ?  Can  you 
consent  to  wade  through  the  vile  mire  of  dependency,  and  owe  the 
miserable  remnant  of  that  life  to  charity,  which  has  hitherto  been 
spent  in  honor  ?  If  you  can,  go,  and  carry  with  you  the  jest  of  To- 
ries and  the  scorn  of  Whigs,  —  the  ridicule,  and  what  is  worse,  the 
pity  of  the  world  !     Go,  starve,  and  be  forgotten  ! " 

Fortunately,  the  commander-in-chief,  Washington,  was  in  camp,  and 
contrived  to  pacify  the  brave  companions  of  his  glory,  even  while  he 
must  have  been  conscious  that  every  word  of  complaint  was  just,  and 
while  every  sentence  in  this  anonymous  address  must  have  been  a 
dagger  to  his  own  upright  heart.  He  entreated  them  not  to  take 
any  measures  which,  viewed  in  the  calm  light  of  reason,  would  lessen 
the  dignity  and  sully  the  glory  they  had  hitherto  maintained.  "  Let 
me  request  you,"  he  said,  "  to  rely  on  the  plighted  faith  of  your  coun- 
^try,  and  place  a  full  confidence  in  the  purity  of  the  intentions  of  Con- 
gress ;  that,  previous  to  your  dissolution  as  an  army,  they  will  cause 
all  your  accounts  to  be  fairly  liquidated,  as  directed  in  their  resolu- 
tions which  were  published  to  you  two  days  ago ;  and  that  they  will 
adopt  the  most  efiectual  measures  in  their  power  to  render  ample 
justice  to  you  for  your  faithful  and  meritorious  services.  And  let  me 
conjure  you,  in  the  name  of  our  common  country,  as  you  value  your 
own  sacred  honor,  as  you  respect  the  rights  of  humanity,  and  as  you 
regard  the  military  and  national  character  of  America,  to  express 
your  utmost  horror  and  detestation  of  the  man  who  wishes,  under  any 
specious  pretences,  to  overturn  the  liberties  of  our  couiitry,  and  who 
wickedly  attempts  to  open  the  flood-gates  of  civil  discord  and  deluge 
our  rising  empire  in  blood." 

The  officers  that  had  been  convened,  moved  by  the  entreaties  and 
expostulations  of  their  justly  beloved  and  revered  commander,  resolv- 
ed unanimously,  "  that  the  army  continued  to  have  an  unshaken  con- 
fidence in  the  justice  of  Congress  and  their  country,  and  were  fully 
convinced  that  the  representatives  of  America  would  not  disband  or 
disperse  the  army  until  their  accounts  were  hquidated,  the  balances  ac- 
curately ascertained,  and  adequate  funds  established  for  payment." 

But  the  representatives  of  America,  from  their  inability  to  manage 
the  different  State  legislatures  of  the  continent,  or  to  get  permanent 
funds  placed  within  their  disposal,  did  disband  and  disperse  the  army 
before  the  accounts  were  liquidated,  before  tTieir  balances  were  ascer- 
tain©!, or  adequate  funds  established  for  their  pajonent ;  that  is,  the 
81  3  J3  * 


8i2  LECTURE  XXXV. 

people  of  America,  for  want  of  an  executive  power  to  control  theii 
own  discordant  opinions,  jarring  interests,  and  selfish  passions,  were 
just  as  insensible  as  could  have  been  the  most  unprincipled  tyrants 
and  despots  of  the  earth  to  the  proper  feelings  of  humanity  and  the 
most  sacred  obligations  of  public  faith. 

It  was  in  vain  that  Congress  addressed  the  different  States  of  the 
American  Union.  "  These  debts  are  to  be  paid,"  they  said,  "  in  the 
fiist  place,  to  an  ally,  who  to  the  exertion  of  his  arms  in  support  of 
our  cause  has  added  the  succours  of  his  treasure,  and  who  to  his 
important  loans  has  added  liberal  donations  [the  king  of  France]  ; 
in  the  next  place,  to  individuals  in  a  foreign  country,  who  were  the 
first  to  give  so  precious  a  token  of  their  confidence  in  our  justice. 
Another  class  of  creditors  is  that  illustrious  and  patriotic  band  of  fel- 
low-citizens whose  blood  and  whose  bravery  have  defended  the  liber- 
ties of  their  country ;  who  have  patiently  borne,  among  other  dis- 
tresses, the  privation  of  their  stipends,  whilst  the  distresses  of  their 
country  disabled  it  from  bestowing  them ;  and  who  even  now  ask  for 
no  more  than  such  a  portion  of  their  dues  as  will  enable  them  to  re- 
tire from  the  field  of  victory  and  glory  into  the  bosom  of  peace  and 
private  citizenship,  and  for  such  effectual  security  for  the  residue  of 
their  claims  as  their  country  is  now  unquestionably  able  to  provide. 
The  remaining  class  of  creditors  is  composed  partly  of  such  of  our 
fellow-citizens  as  originally  lent  to  the  public  the  use  of  their  funds, 
or  have  since  manifested  most  confidence  in  their  country  by  receiv- 
ing transfers  from  the  lenders,  and  partly  of  those  whose  property 
has  been  either  advanced  or  assumed  for  the  pubKc  service." 

This  address  was  followed  by  a  very  able  and  affecting  letter  from 
Washington;  but  all  in  vain.  This  was  in  June,  1783.  Neither  the 
recommendations  of  Congress,  nor  the  counsels  and  entreaties  of  this 
parent,  this  protecting  genius  of  his  country,  received,  it  seems,  from 
the  provincial  legislatures,  the  consideration  which  the  public  exigence 
demanded,  nor  did  they  meet,  as  it  was  called,  *'  that  universal  assent 
which  was  necessary  to  give  them  effect." 

The  subject  was  again  taken  up  in  1786.  The  revenue  system  of 
1783  was  again  solemnly  recommended  by  Congress  to  the  several 
States,  and  they  were  implored  to  avoid  the  fatal  evils  which  must 
flow  from  a  violation  of  those  principles  of  justice  which  it  was  told 
them,  and  truly  told  them,  were  the  only  solid  basis  of  the  honor  and 
prosperity  of  nations.  They  were  implored  in  vain ;  and  Washington 
had  been  obhged,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  to  confess  that  America  was 
descending  from  the  high  ground  on  which  she  stood  into  the  vale  of 
confusion  and  darkness. 

At  length  a  new  government,  the  federal  government,  was  formed 
at  the  close  of  the  year  I'iSG,*  to  act  for  the  whole  continent;  to  con- 

*  It  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  remind  the  American  reader  that  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  went  into  operation  on  the  4th  of  March,  1789.    The  statement 


AMERICAN  WAR.  643 

fcrol,  on  particular  occasions  and  for  general  purposes,  the  diiferent 
provincial  legislatures.  And  when  this  government  was  once  formed 
f  (a  proper  image  of  executive  power),  resolutions  were  carried,  though 
still  with  the  greatest  difficulty,  for  the  funding  of  the  public  debt ;  that 
is,  for  providing  proper  payment  for  all  the  creditors  of  the  state,  mili- 
tary and  civil,  foreign  and  domestic. 

The  discussions  that  took  pjace  on  the  subject,  as  given  by  Mar- 
shall, are  remarkable.  To  endeavour  to  understand  them  and  re- 
flect upon  them  would  be  a  very  useful  exercise  to  any  one  who  hopes 
hereafter  to  interfere,  with  advantage  to  his  country,  either  in  the  criti- 
cism or  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.  To  this  discussion  I  can  only 
in  this  manner  allude.  I  could  have  wished  to  enter  into  it,  and  give 
you  some  general  idea  of  the  difficulties  with  which  the  more  wise  part 
of  the  American  legislators  had  to  struggle ;  but  I  have  occupied  you 
very  long  with  the  general  subject  already, — indeed,  too  long,  as  it  will 
be  thought  by  those  who  do  not  consider  how  important  in  the  concerns 
of  mankind  are  the  questions  which  have  been  more  or  less  connected 
with  the  observations  I  have  been  making :  how  far  the  depreciation 
of  the  paper  currency  may  be  fatal  to  a  national  cause,  when  main- 
tained against  a  foreign  or  domestic  oppressor ;  the  nature  of  paper 
money ;  the  obligations  of  public  faith,  public  gratitude,  national  hon- 
or ;  how  far  communities  may  be  trusted  with  the  government  of  them- 
selves ;  the  necessity  of  a  strong  executive  power,  lodged  somewhere 
or  other,  in  every  form  of  government  that  is  to  exhibit  any  proper  ad- 
herence to  the  principles  of  reason,  justice,  and  national  faith,  —  in 
every  form  of  government  that  is  to  advance  the  prosperity,  secure 
the  interests,  or  even  protect  the  freedom  of  any  civilized  society 
among  mankind. 


LECTUEE    XXXVI 


AMERICAN  WAR. 


I  SHALL  now  proceed  to  lay  before  you  other  particulars  which  I 
think  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  subject  to  which  I  adverted  in  my 
last  lecture,  the  necessity  of  executive  government.  I  do  so  because 
I  conceive  this  to  be  the  great  point  of  instruction  that  is  offered  by 

in  the  text  seems  to  have  reference  to  the  complete  organization  of  the  new  govern- 
ment during  the  first  session  of  Congress,  which  terminated  Sept.  29, 1789.  Marshall's 
Washington,  Vol.  v.  p.  222.  — N. 


644  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

the  history  of  America,  after  the  first  lessons  have  heen  given,  — 
those  that  are  of  a  very  opposite  nature,  —  those  which  I  have  pro- 
posed tc  you  in  former  lectures  :  the  injustice,  I  mean,  and  inexpedi- 
ency of  government  too  authoritative,  of  rule  too  arbitrary,  such  as 
Great  Britain  certainly  was  guilty  of  attempting  to  enforce  upon  her 
colonies  in  the  beginning  of  this  memorable  contest. 

Congress  was  at  first  only  a  committee,  as  I  have  already  noted,  — 
an  assembly  of  men  delegated  from  the  different  States  of  the  Ameri- 
can Union.  They  could  only  recommend  whatever  measures  they 
thought  expedient ;  they  could  enforce  none. 

For  some  time  these  recommendations  were  received  as  laws;  but 
at  length  you  will  see,  as  you  read  the  history  (you  will  have  collect- 
ed even  from  the  notices  I  have  been  able  already  to  aiford  you), 
how  miserable  were  the  efiects  produced  by  the  want  of  all  proper 
executive  power  in  the  government. 

At  last  a  sort  of  confederation  was  agreed  upon,  and  the  Congress 
was  avowedly  considered  as  the  head  of  the  whole  Union,  acting  for 
and  representing  all  the  different  States  of  the  continent.  This  con- 
federation may  be  called  the  second  stage  of  the  revolutionary  gov- 
ernment of  America. 

But  still  no  proper  executive  power  was  given  even  to  this  confed- 
eration, and  nothing  could  be  more  unfavorable  to  the  best  interests  of 
the  country  than  to  leave  the  confederated  government  so  weak  in  ex- 
ecutive power,  and,  in  fact,  thus  to  set  up  an  assembly  to  act  the  part 
of  a  government,  and  leave  it  in  the  mean  time  at  the  mercy  of  thir- 
teen other  distinct  sovereigns,  each  exercising  the  real  powers  of  gov- 
ernment in  different  provinces  of  the  same  country.  Yet  such  was 
the  fact,  and  for  some  years  continued  to  be  the  fact,  in  a  manner 
that  really  exercises  not  a  little  the  patience  and  good-humor  of  any 
one  who  sits  at  a  distance  and  reads  the  history  of  these  events. 

To  any  such  person,  this  celebrated  question  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment, that  is,  the  question  whether  there  should  be  a  general  govern- 
ment for  the  whole  continent,  appears,  I  had  almost  ventured  to  say, 
no  question  at  all ;  however,  it  must  have  agitated  America  at  the 
time,  and  continued  to  agitate  America  long  after.  To  suffer  thir- 
teen repubUcs  to  arise,  to  quarrel  among  each  other,  to  destroy  each 
other's  interests,  to  be  incapable  of  any  connection  with  the  rest  of 
the  world,  rather  than  combine  the  whole,  by  some  general  govern- 
ment, into  a  great  community  that  might  in  the  progress  of  things  be- 
come a  mighty  nation,  is  a  proposition  so  monstrous  and  extravagant, 
that  I  know  not  how  it  is  to  be  looked  upon  as  any  other  than  the 
most  important  specimen  which  the  history  of  the  world  affords  of  the 
influence  of  local  feelings,  long  established  associations,  and  all  those 
partial  views  and  jealousies  which  in  parishes,  corporations,  and  pub- 
lic meetings  we  see  so  often  occur,  and  which  are  always  so  justly  the 
ridicule  and  scorn  of  every  intelligent  member  of  the  community. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  645 

It  must  be  supposed,  indeed,  out  of  that  common  respect  which  is 
always  due  to  the  opinions  of  others,  that  the  principles  of  Hberty 
were,  somehow  or  other,  considered  as  involved  in  the  question :  and 
this  was  certainly  the  case.  The  anti-federalists  reasoned,  for  in- 
stance, each  in  their  particular  State,  after  the  following  manner :  that 
the  liberties  of  that  State  would  be  endangered  by  being  committed  to 
the  guardianship  of  a  general  legislature,  acting  at  a  distance,  and  with 
no  particular  regard  for  its  criticisms  or  complaints ;  that  this  general 
legislature  must  have  a  president,  this  president  a  senate,  and  that  he 
must  even  have  a  court,  executive  officers,  &c.,  &c. ;  that,  in  short, 
the  continent  of  America  would  be  exposed  to  all  the  calamities  (such 
they  thought  them)  of  a  king,  an  aristocracy,  a  regular  army,  as  in 
the  old  governments  of  Europe. 

But  if  such  be  their  reasonings,  as  they  certainly  were,  this  I  hold 
to  be  of  itself  a  lesson  for  all  those  who  love  liberty,  and  who  would 
extend  its  blessings  to  their  country.  M-en  are  not  to  be  pedants  in 
liberty,  any  more  than  in  virtue.  Though  they  are  not  to  be  oppress- 
ed by  tyrants,  they  must  at  least  be  governed  by  their  fellow-men. 
The  great  principles  of  independence  in  the  heart  of  man  are  to  be 
cherished  and  upheld ;  but  order,  prosperity,  the  purposes  of  society, 
must  be  accomplished.  The  many  must  delegate  the  government  of 
themselves  to  the  few.  Control,  executive  power,  must  be  lodged 
somewhere ;  and  the  question  is  not,  as  the  friends  of  liberty  some- 
times suppose,  how  the  executive  power  can  be  made  sufficiently  weak, 
but  only  how  it  can  be  made  sufficiently  strong,  and  yet  brought  with- 
in the  influence  of  the  criticism  of  the  community,  —  that  is,  in  other 
words,  how  it  can  secure  the  people  from  themselves,  and  yet  be  ren- 
dered properly  alive  to  feelings  of  sympathy  and  respect  for  them,  and 
alive  also  to  the  obligations  of  justice  and  good  faith,  and  to  sentiments 
of  honor.  This,  indeed,  is  a  problem  in  the  management  of  mankind 
not  easily  to  be  solved ;  but  it  is  the  real  problem,  the  proper  prob- 
lem, to  exercise  the  patriotism  of  wise  and  virtuous  men  ;  and  such 
men  are  not,  from  the  difficulty  of  it,  to  rush  headlong  into  any  ex- 
tremes, either  of  authoritative,  arbitrary  government  on  the  one  hand, 
or  mere  democracy  on  the  other. 

It  was  so  late  almost  as  the  year  1789,  before  the  people  of  influ- 
ence in  America  could  be  brought,  even  by  all  their  experience  of 
the  evils  of  inefficient  government,  properly  to  interest  themselves  in 
what  was  to  them  the  most  important  question  of  all  others,  —  the 
formation  of  some  general  government  for  the  whole  continent.  The 
confederation,  it  was  seen,  came  not  sufficiently  within  this  description, 
—  the  confederation  to  which  I  have  just  alluded,  and  called  the 
second  stage  of  the  revolutionary  government  of  America. 

The  mind  of  Washington  had  evidently  been  long  agitated  upon  the 
subject.  It  appears  from  his  letters,  that  at  one  period  he  was  in  a 
state  of  considerable  despair  at  the  situation  of  his  country ;  and  it 


640  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

was  painful  to  him,  he  said,  in  the  extreme,  to  be  obliged  to  think, 
that,  after  the  war  had  terminated  so  advantageously  for  America, 
wisdom  and  justice  should  be  still  wanting  to  its  people,  —  that,  after 
they  had  confederated  as  a  nation,  they  should  still  be  afraid  to  give 
their  rulers  sufficient  powers  to  order  and  direct  their  affairs,  —  rulers 
placed  in  such  very  particular  circumstances  of  transient,  delegated, 
and  responsible  authority. 

At  length  an  effort  was  made,  and  this  effort  was  ultimately  suc- 
cessful. You  will  see  the  particulars  in  Marshall.  But  the  difficul- 
ties that  opposed  themselves  are  very  edifying.  A  few  of  these  par- 
ticulars are  the  following. 

It  happened  in  1785,  that  the  provinces  of  Virginia  and  Maryland 
had  to  form  an  agreement  relative  to  their  own  commercial  interests  ; 
and  from  the  settlement  of  these,  they  proceeded  to  propose  to  all  the 
States  of  America  the  consideration  of  their  joint  interests  as  a  com- 
mercial nation.  This  at  length  ripened  into  a  scheme  for  assembling 
a  general  convention  to  revise  the  articles  of  confederation,  —  in  a 
word,  to  form  some  general  government  for  the  continent,  to  compre- 
hend not  only  its  commercial  concerns,  but  every  other  concern. 

A  convention  met  at  Annapolis,  but  it  consisted  only  of  delegates 
from  five  States.*  The  result  was  a  recommendation  for  another  con- 
vention at  Philadelphia  in  1787.  Now  the  question  was,  whether  this 
convention  would  ever  meet ;  if  it  did  meet,  whether  the  thirteen  in- 
dependent States,  or  republics,  would  forego  the  pleasure  and  privi- 
leges and  pride  of  separate  sovereignty,  for  the  good  of  the  continent, 
and  their  own  good,  properly  understood.  The  probability  was,  that 
they  would  not.  In  the  mean  time,  the  mind  of  Washington,  and  of 
all  wise  and  good  men,  was  in  a  state  of  the  utmost  gloom  and  anxie- 
ty. It  was  evident  that  the  recommendation  for  a  convention  to  form 
a  new  government  should  have  come  from  Congress,  —  from  the  con- 
federated government  already  existing,  —  not  from  any  particular 
State,  like  Virginia  or  Maryland ;  and  the  convention,  if  met,  could 
not  be  considered  as  a  legal  meeting.  But  again,  it  was  sufficiently 
evident,  that,  if  some  efficient  government  was  not  soon  established, 
the  licentiousness  of  the  people  would  very  soon  terminate  in  perfect 
anarchy.  Hot-headed,  presumptuous,  ignorant  men  were  many  of 
them,  particularly  the  young,  indisposed  to  all  control  whatever;  and 
the  critical  situation  of  things  was  extremely  increased  by  the  number 
of  persons  who  owed  money,  and  who  could  see  no  hope  or  comfort 
for  themselves,  but  in  the  absence  of  all  the  obligations  of  order  and 
law. 

At  length  commotions  agitated  all  New  England ;  and  in  Massa- 

*  Virginia,  Delaware,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  New  York.  Marshall  gives 
the  number  correctly  in  his  text,  but  in  a  note,  designating  the  States,  he  includes 
Maryland,  making  the  number  six.  This  is  a  mistake.  See  the  Address  of  the  Con- 
vention (Madison  Papers,  Vol.  ii.  p.  700).  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  64T 

chusetts  a  positive  insurrection  against  all  government  actually  took 
place.  Washington  wrote  to  his  friend,  Colonel  Humphreys,  —  "  For 
God's  sake  tell  me  what  is  the  cause  of  all  these  commotions  ?  Do 
they  proceed  from  licentiousness,  British  influence,  or  real  griev- 
ances?" —  "  From  all  the  information  I  have  been  able  to  obtain," 
said  the  colonel,  "  I  should  attribute  them  to  all  the  three  causes 
which  you  have  suggested ;  but  it  rather  appears  to  me  that  there  is 
a  licentious  spirit  prevailing  among  many  of  the  people,  a  levelling 
principle,  a  desire  of  change,  and  a  wish  to  annihilate  all  debts,  public 
and^private." 

General  Knox  said,  —  "  High  taxes  are  the  ostensible  cause  of  the 
commotion,  but  not  the  real.  The  insurgents  have  never  paid  any, 
or  but  very  little  taxes.  But  they  see  the  weakness  of  government. 
They  feel  at  once  their  own  poverty,  compared  with  the  opulent,  and* 
their  own  force ;  and  they  are  determined  to  make  use  of  the  latter  in 
order  to  remedy  the  former.  Their  creed  is,"  —  there  is  always  one 
of  some  kind  or  other,  —  "  that  the  property  of  the  United  States  has 
been  protected  from  confiscation  by  the  joint  exertions  of  all,  and 
therefore  ought  to  be  common  to  all." 

A  majority  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  was  described  by  Colo- 
nel Lee,  after  the  manner  of  General  Knox,  as  in  open  opposition  to 
the  government.  .  "  Some  of  the  leaders  avow,"  says  he,  "  the  sub- 
version of  it  to  be  their  object,  together  with  the  abolition  of  debts, 
the  division  of  property,  and  a  reunion  with  Great  Britain.  In  all 
the  Eastern  States  the  same  temper  prevails  more  or  less." 

"  The  picture  which  you  have  exhibited,"  replied  Washington, 
"  and  the  accounts  which  are  pubhshed,  exhibit  a  melancholy  verifi- 
cation of  what  our  transatlantic  foes  have  predicted ;  and  of  another 
thing,  perhaps,  which  is  still  more  to  be  regretted,  and  is  yet  more 
unaccountable,  —  that  mankind,  when  left  to  themselves,  are  unfit  for 
ilieir  own  government.  I  am  mortified  beyond  expression,  I  am  lost 
in  amazement,  when  I  behold  what  intrigue,  the  interested  views  of 
desperate  cnaracters,  ignorance  and  jealousy  of  the  minor  part,  are 
capable  of  effecting  as  a  scourge  on  the  major  part  of  our  fellow-citi- 
zens of  the  Union ;  for  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  the  great  body 
of  the  people  can  be  so  shortsighted." 

But  in  the  midst  of  all  the  perturbations  of  the  mind  of  Washington, 
the  even  tenor  of  its  justice  never  forsook  it ;  and  even  at  this  fearful 
moment,  his  letter  gives  a  lesson  to  all  the  governments  of  the  earth. 
^'  Know,"  says  he,  "  precisely  what  the  insurgents  aim  at.  If  they 
have  real  grievances,  redress  them,  if  possible,  or  acknowledge  the 

i'ustice  of  them,  and  your  inability  to  do  it  in  the  present  moment, 
f  they  have  not,  employ  the  force  of  government  against  them  at 
once.  If  tliis  is  inadequate,  all  will  be  convinced  that  the  superstruc- 
ture is  bad,  or  wants  support.  To  be  more  exposed  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world,  and  more  contemptible,  than  we  already  are,  is  hardly 


648  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

possible."  Such  were  Washington's  sentiments ;  and  in  the  history 
you  will  see  that  it  was  found  necessary  to  subdue  the  insurgents  by 
force. 

"  But  the  most  important  effect  of  this  unprovoked  rebellion,'-"  says 
Marshall,  "  was  the  deep  conviction  it  produced  of  the  necessity  of 
enlarging  the  powers  of  the  general  government,  and  the  consequent 
direction  of  the  pubHc  mind  towards  the  convention"  (I  have  just 
spoken  of)  "  which  was  to  assemble  at  Philadelphia."  At  last  it  was 
declared  in  Congress  "  to  be  expedient  that  a  convention  should  be 
held  to  render  the  federal  constitution  adequate  to  the  exigenci?s  of 
government  and  -the  preservation  of  the  union." 

This  recommendation,  which  legalized  the  original  scheme,  added 
to  the  consideration  of  the  rebellion,  inclined  at  length  the  States  of 
New  England  to  favor  the  measure ;  and  at  the  time  and  place  ap- 
pointed, the  representatives  of  twelve 'States  assembled; — Rhode 
Island  was  the  exception.  Washington  was  elected  president,  and 
the  doors  were  closed  ;  —  an  important  meeting  for  America.  On  the 
great  principles  which  should  constitute  the  basis  of  their  system,  not 
much  contrariety  of  opinion  is  understood  to  have  prevailed  ;  but  more 
than  once  there  was  reason  to  fear  that  all  would  be  lost  by  the  rising 
up  of  the  body  without  effecting  the  object  for  which  it  was  assembled. 
At  length  the  high  importance  of  the  union  prevailed  over  local  inter- 
ests ;  and  in  September,  ITSTj  the  constitution  was  presented  to  the 
consideration  of  the  different  States  of  the  whole  continent. 

But  neither  the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  scheme  of  government,  nor 
the  weight  of  character  by  which  it  was  supported  (Franklin,  Wash- 
ington, and  others),  gave  assurance  that  it  would  be  ultimately  re- 
ceived. Many  individuals,  it  seems,  of  influence  and  talents,  were 
desirous  of  retaining  the  sovereignty  of  the  States  unimpaired,  and 
reducing  the  union  to  an  alliance  between  thirteen  independent  na- 
tions. Many  thought  that  a  real  opposition  of  interests  existed  be- 
tween these  different  parts  of  the  continent.  Many  could  identify 
themselves  with  their  own  State  governments,  but  considered  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  as  in  some  respects  foreign.  Many 
thought  that  power  must  be  abused,  and  were  therefore  persuaded, 
they  said,  that  the  cradle  of  the  federal  constitution  would  be  the 
grave  of  republican  liberty.  Every  faculty  of  the  mind  was  strained 
on  the  subject  of  the  proposed  constitution,  to  procure  its  reception 
or  rejection.  To  decide  the  interesting  question,  men  of  the  best 
talents  of  the  several  States  were  assembled  in  their  respective  con- 
ventions. So  balanced  were  the  parties  in  some  of  them,  that,  even 
after  the  subject  had  been  discussed  for  a  considerable  time,  the  fate 
of  the  constitution  could  scarcely  be  conjectured.  In  many  instances, 
the  majority  in  its  favor  was  very  small ;  in  some,  even  of  the  adopt- 
ing States,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted,  a  majority  of  the  people  were 
in  opposition ;  in  all  of  them,  the  numerous  amendments  which  were 


AMERICAN  WAR.  649 

proposed*  sliow  that  a  dread  of  dismemberment,  i.ot  an  approbation 
of  the  system,  had  induced  an  acquiescence  in  it. 

At  length  the  conventions  of  nine,  and  subsequently  of  eleven, 
States  assented  to  and  ratified  the  constitution ;  and  this  most  impor- 
tant question,  on  which  it  was  so  difficult  to  obtain  unanimity,  and 
which  it  was  therefore  so  perilous  to  agitate,  was  thus  at  last  settled 
in  favor  (as  it  must  surely  be  thought)  of  America.  Washington 
was  unanimously  elected  President,  and  on  the  30th  of  April,  1789, 
delivered  his  first  speech  to  the  Senate  and  House  ^f  Representatives. 

I  have  given  you  this  slight  account  of  these  important  trans- 
actions to  induce  you  to  consider  them  yourselves ;  and  I  have  ex- 
pressed myself  in  the  words  of  Marshall,  shortening  and  selecting  dif- 
ferent sentences  from  his  work,  that  I  might  not  mislead  you  by  any 
words  of  my  own  on  subjects  so  delicate. 

No  doubt,  the  impression  on  my  mind  has  been  the  critical  state 
of  America  during  this  interregnum  between  the  peace  in  November, 
1783,  and  April,  1789,  —  the  perilous  nature  of  such  discussions, 
and,  as  I  have  so  repeatedly  observed,  the  paramount  necessity  of  a 
strong  executive  government  to  be  lodged  somewhere  or  other. 

It  may  be  obsei'ved,  that  I  draw  my  representations  from  Marshall, 
who  was  a  friend  to  Washington,  and,  like  him,  a  Federalist :  I  do  so. 
But  not  to  mention  that  there  is  no  greater  authority  than  the  opinion 
of  Washington,  vn  any  and  on  every  occasion,  I  must  confess  it  ap- 
pears to  me  sufficient  that  there  should  have  been  at  the  time  an 
Antifederalist  party  at  all.  Nothing  more  can  be  necessary  to  show 
the  incurable  nature  of  human  dissent ;  the  critical  nature  of  discus- 
sions of  government ;  the  doubtful  contest  which  general  principles 
must  always  have  'to  maintain  with  local  politics :  and  all  this  goes  to 
prove  the  total  necessity  of  that  very  executive  power,  to  escape  from 
the  dangers  of  which  must  have  been  the  real  aim  of  all  the  virtuous 
part  of  the  Antifederalists. 

While  the  new  constitution  was  offered  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
different  States  of  America,  a  book  was  published  under  the  title  of 
The  Federalist.  A  few  numbers  were  written  by -Mr.  Jay,  a  few 
more  by  Mr.  Madison,  three  by  Mr.  Madison  and  Mr.  Hamilton,  and 
the  rest  by  Mr.  Hamilton.f     These  papers  contain  a  very  calm  and 

*  Amendments  were  proposed  in  only  seven  States,  including  two  (North  Carolina 
and  Rhode  Island)  which  did  not  accede  to  the  new  frame  of  government  until  after  it 
had  been  some  time  in  operation ;  in  the  other  six,  Delaware,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jer- 
sey, Georgia,  Connecticut,  and  Maryhind,  the  Constitution  was  adopted  unconditionally. 
See  Journal  of  the  Convention  which  formed  the  Constitution  (Boston,  1819),  Supple- 
ment, pp.  391  -  462.  —  N. 

t  According  to  Gideon's  edition  of  the  Federalist,  first  published  in  1818,  which  is 
understood  to  have  been  issued  under  the  auspices  of  Mr.  Madison,  and  is  now  gener- 
ally received  as  the  standard  edition,  five  numbers,  viz.  2  to  5,  inclusive,  and  64,  were 
written  by  Mr.  Jay;  twenty-nine,  viz.  10,  14,  18  -  20,  37  -  58.  62,  and  63,  by  Mr.  Madi- 
Bon ;  and  the  remaining  fifty-one,  viz.  1,  6  -  9,  11  -  13,  15  -  17,  21  -  36,  59  -  61,  65  -  85, 
bj  Mr.  Hamilton.  —  N. 

82  3  c 


650  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

enlightened  discussion  of  all  the  material  provisions  of  the  ne  f  consti 
tution,  and  the  objections  that  had  been  urged  against  them ;  and  the 
work,  being  one  of  great  merit,  and  highly  creditable  to  the  states- 
men bj  whom  it  was  drawn  up,  is,  of  course,  represented  by  an 
American  writer,  Mr.  Bristed,  as  the  concentration  of  all  political 
wisdom,  ancient  and  modern.  "  In  depth  and  extent  of  political  wi* 
dom,  &c.,  &c.,  it  has  no  superior  in  all  the  world,"  &c.,  &c.*  It 
certainly  may  be  read,  even  now,  by  an  English  statesman  with  gieat 
advantage*:  such  discussions  as  are  alone  interesting  to  America  he 
will  easily  distinguish  from  the  rest,  and  may  pass  by ;  but  most  of 
them  bear  upon  corresponding  points  in  the  British  constitution,  and 
cannot  therefore  be  otherwise  than  instructive.  The  great  value, 
however,  of  these  chapters  seems  to  be  the  lesson  they  afford  to  all 
who  are  to  engage  in  the  concerns  of  mankind ;  for  they  shoAV  that 
differences  in  opinion,  of  the  most  unexpected  nature,  must  inevitably 
arise  among  them  ;  they  show  the  paramount  necessity,  above  every 
other  virtue,  of  the  virtue  of  patience,  to  those  who  would  enlighten 
mankind,  or  teach  them  to  pursue  their  own  interests.     The  reader 

*  The  Resources  of  the  United  States  of  America ;  or,  a  View  of  the  Agriculturalj 
Commercial,  Manufacturing,  Financial,  Political,  Literary,  Moral,  and  Religious  Ca 
pacity  and  Character  of  the  American  People.  By  John  Bristed,  Counsellor  at  Law, 
Author  of  the  Resources  of  the  British  Empire.    New  York:  1818.  —  pp.  156,  157. 

The  critique  on  the  Federalist  contained  in  the  work  here  cited  is  very  inadequately 
represented  by  the  few  words  produced  in  the  text.  It  is  but  just,  therefore,  both  to 
author  and  reader,  to  give  the  passage  in  full. 

"  In  depth  and  extent  of  political  wisdom,  in  the  philosophy  of  jurisprudence,  in 
comprehension  and  elevation  of  national  views,  in  high  and  blameless  honor,  in  pro- 
found and  luminous  ratiocination,  in  nervous  and  manly  eloquence,  in  lofty  and  incor- 
ruptible patriotism,  the  American  Federalist  has  no  superior,  and  very  few  equals,  in 
all  the  volumes  of  political  economy,  containing  the  lucubrations  of  the  greatest  sages 
and  statesmen  of  modern  Europe,  whether  of  England,  France,  Germany,  Italv,  Spain, 
or  Holland." 

In  assuming  that  the  writer  of  this  beau  morceau  was  "of  course"  an  American, 
Professor  Smyth  does  injustice  to  his  own  country.  From  an  autobiographical  In 
troduction  to  a  work  published  by  Mr.  Bristed  in  1822,  entitled  "Thoughts  on  the 
Anglican  and  American- Anglo  Churches,"  it  appears  tliat  he  was  by  birth  and  edu- 
cation an  Englishman;  that  the  credit  of  his  rhetorical  culture  is  due  to  "  St.  Mary's 
College,  Winton,"  —  "facility  of  composition  "  being  an  important  part  of  the  training 
at  this  institution ;  that  his  extensive  acquaintance  with  "  the  lucubrations  in  political 
economy  of  the  sages  and  statesmen  of  England,  France,  Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  and 
Holland"  commenced  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  "in  the  intervals  of  attendance 
on  the  medical  lectures  and  visiting  the  Infirmary,"  —  his  "  two  years  of  residence  in 
tliat  distinguished  school  of  instruction"  afFordinghim  leisure  to  engage  besides  in  the 
Study  of  Greek  iioetry,  metaphysics,  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Hclvetius,  and  other  writers 
of  this  school,  French,  English,  and  American;  and  that  his  erudition  in  "the  philoso- 
phy of  jurisprudence"  was  the  fruit  of  a  "cultivation  of  the"  kindred  "science  of 
special  pleading"  in  the  Inner  Temple,  where  he  completed  his  professional  educa- 
tion. On  being  called  to  the  English  bar,  conceiving  that  the  United  States  "opened 
an  inexhaustible  region  for  the  development  of  talents,"  he  took  a  voyage  "  to  see  this 
new  Atalantis^''^  and  after  "  a  few  years  of  sojourning  in  this  multitudinous  democracy,'* 
published  the  results  of  his  observation  in  the  comprehensive  work  from  which  Pro- 
fessor Smyth  quotes.  Thoughts,  &c.,  by  John  Bristed,  (New  York,  1822.)  pp.  1-43 
See  also  London  Quarterly  Review,  Vol.  xxi.  pp.  16,  17,  18,  24;  North  American 
Review,  Vol.  xi.  p.  200;  Watt's  Bibliotneca  Britannica,  (Edinburgh,  1824,)  Vol.  i 
\62  d.  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  651 

-will  see  in  these  numbers  of  the  Federalist,  that  the  authors  of  them 
have  found- it  advisable  to  exhibit  and  combat  political  mistakes,  and 
even  political  absurdities ;  to  anatomize  them,  and  pursue  them 
through  all  their  consequences,  to  a  degree  and  to  an  extent  that 
could  not,  a  priori,  have  been  thought  for  a  moment  necessary. 
And  certainly  it  is  continually  suggested  to  the  reader  that  a  strong 
executive  power  must  be  lodged  somewhere,  to  secure  reasonable  de- 
cisions upon  questions  of  general  import,  and  to  protect  the  public 
from  men  of  furious  tempers,  selfish  views,  and  perverse  understand- 
ings, such  as  must  inevitably  be  found,  and  often  with  too  great  influ- 
ence, in  every  community. 

In  the  constitution  that  was  at  last  accepted,  and  solemnly  ratified 
and  carried  into  execution,  a  few  main  points,  all  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance, were  happily  secured.  There  were  two  houses  of  legisla- 
ture, not  one  ;  the  members  of  the  Senate  were  chosen  for  six  years, 
not  two ;  and  there  was  to  be  an  executive  magistrate  chosen,  for 
four  years ;  the  federal  system  was  in  express  articles  established ; 
and  the  President  and  the  two  houses  were  the  legislature  of  the 
continent. 

You  are  now  to  observe  an  illustration  of  what  I  have  repeatedly 
laid  down  in  the  course  of  these  lectures:  that  the  lamentations 
of  good  men  on  the  subject  of  party  are  vain ;  that  parties  are  in- 
separable from  every  free  government ;  and  you  must  either  have 
parties  with  all  their  good  and  bad  effects,  or  no  freedom  of  thought 
or  speech,  as  in  Turkey,  or  any  other  state  where  parties  are  not  to 
be  found. 

In  America,  for  instance,  as  you  have  already  learned,  a  real  dif- 
ference of  opinion  existed,  —  the  Federalist  and  the  Antifederahst. 
And  this  difference  was  not,  I  apprehend,  of  a  merely  economical 
nature :  whether  the  continent  of  America  would  rise  faster  in  com- 
mercial and  agricultural  prosperity  by  being  divided  into  thirteen  dif- 
ferent sovereignties,  or  by  being  combined  into  one.  The  difference 
did  not,  and  could  not,  terminate  here ;  it  was  of  a  more  general  and 
radical  nature,  and  arose  from  different  views  in  the  science  of  politics. 
The  Antifederalists  were,  and  always  have  remained,  men  of  senti- 
ments more  violently  republican  than  the  Federalists,  —  men  who 
thought  mankind  might  be  managed  by  less  of  executive  authority 
than  the  Federalists  did ;  and  this  difierence  of  opinion  does  and  al- 
ways must  exist,  not  only  in  the  American,  but  in  every  other  free 
form  of  government ;  though  in  x'Vmerica  this  difierence,  it  must  be 
confessed,  is  exhibited  in  a  very  striking  manner,  —  it  requiring  a 
very  strong  passion  indeed  for  democracy,  to  suppose  that  the  feder- 
alist government  of  America  is  not,  and  has  not  always  been,  suffi- 
ciently republican. 

Such,  however,  I  believe  to  be  a  reasonable  view  of  the  case  be- 
fore us ;  and  you  will  see  the  new  constitution  of  America  no  soon- 


652  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

er  carried  into  execution  than  the  two  parties  make  their  appear 
ance  in  the  houses  of  legislature.  One  of  the  first  qu'estions  that 
came  before  them  was  that  to  which  we  have  alluded  at  such  length 
already  in  the  last  lecture,  —  the  providing  for  the  pubUc  debt  of 
America. 

Nc  expedient  was  possible  but  that  of  funding.  To  fund,  however, 
on  the  authority  of  the  federal  government,  was  to  enlist,  it  was 
thought,  on  the  side  of  the  federal  system,  all  those  who  were  thus  to 
receive  what  was  due  to  them,  and  all  others  to  whom  they  might 
ever  sell  or  bequeathe  their  securities ;  it  was  impossible,  therefore, 
that  such  a  measure  should  not  be  resisted  by  the  Antifederalists. 
They  ought,  indeed,  to  have  waived  their  principles  in  this  case,  for 
otherwise  it  was  impossible  to  maintain  the  most  indispensable  obli- 
gations of  public  gratitude  and  faith.  The  evils,  however,  of  the 
binding  system,  and  its  undoubted  influence  in  favor  of  arbitrary 
government,  supplied  them  with  ample  materials  of  honest  and  even 
accurate  argument,  as  far  as  it  went,  if  it  had  been  possible  to  pro- 
vide for  the  public  debt  in  any  other  way.  So  again,  in  a  subse- 
quent stage  of  the  same  question,  when  a  portion  of  the  funded  debt 
was  to  be  made  permanent,  and  not  to  terminate,  as  the  rest  was, 
at  the  end  of  twenty-five  years,  all  the  former  arguments  recurred, 
and  were  urged  with  even  more  earnestness,  and  indeed  weight,  than 
before. 

The  debates  were  very  animated  and  long.  It  will  be  very  improv- 
ing to  you  to  read  the  account  of  them  as  given  by  Marshall,  and  to 
observe  the  manner  in  which  this  great  question,  so  vital  to  every 
principle  of  American  honor,  and  even  honesty,  was  at  length  carried. 
It  was  carried,  to  say  the  truth,  by  a  mere  turn  of  local  interest  in 
one  of  the  States,  —  a  turn  so  unexpected,  that  it  might  become  al- 
most an  occasion  for  laughter  and  entertainment  to  those  philosophers 
(and  such  there  are)  who  can  find  a  topic  of  amusement  in  the  very 
trifling  and  unworthy  circumstances  which  sometimes  influence  the 
most  momentous  concerns  of  mankind. 

Hdvra  yeXoas,  kol  ivavra  kovis,  koX  Trdvra  to  firjdev. 

The  history,  in  a  few  words,  is  this :  —  A  very  able  report  on  the 
subject  had  been  made  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Colonel 
Hamilton.  After  a  very  animated  discussion  of  several  days,  a  reso- 
lution was  carried,  by  a  small  majority,  in  favor  of  funding  and  pay- 
ing the  debt,  according  to  his  rational  views,  —  that  is,  paying  the 
interest,  and  gradually  paying  the  principal.  But  soon  after,  North 
Carolina  acceded  to  the  constitution,  and  its  delegates,  on  taking  their 
seats,  changed  the  strength  of  the  parties ;  and  the  question  was  now 
lost  by  two  voices.  Observe  now  the  turn.  A  bill  was  brought  in 
for  fixing  the  seat  of  government,  and  it  was  at  last  agreed  that  some 
place  should  be  selected  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac.     The  result 


AMERICAN  W  \R.  653 

was  not  a  very  intelligible  result,  even  when  explained  by  Marshall ; 
—  I  cannot  now  stop  to  give  you  his  explanation ;  but  the  result  was, 
that  two  members  representing  districts  on  the  Potomac  went  over 
to  the  other  side,  and  the  resolution  was  now  carried,  as  it  had  been 
lost,  by  two  voices.  It  is  probable  these  delegates  thought  the  resi- 
dence of  the  President  and  government  of  America  in  their  province 
was  of  great  consequence  to  its  interests  ;  and  that,  if  the  question  of 
the  funded  debt  was  not  settled  in  the  affirmative,  there  would  ulti- 
mately be  no  President  or  American  government  to  reltde  on  the  Po- 
tomac, or  anywhere  else.* 

*  To  any  one  who  may  take  the  trouble  to  compare  the  substance  of  the  three 
preceding  pai-agraphs  with  the  authority  from  which  it  purports  to  have  been  derived 
(Marshall's  Life  of  Washington),  nothing  can  appear  more  extraordinary  and  un- 
accountable than  the  total  misconception  which  it  exhibits  with  regard  to  the  great 
question  in  controversy  on  the  occasion  here  refen'ed  to.  This  question,  deemed  "  so 
vital  to  every  principle  of  American  honor,  and  even  honesty,"  and  which,  after  various 
fortune  and  long  suspense,  "  was  at  length  carried  by  a  mere  turn  of  local  interest  in 
one  of  the  States,"  was,  —  not,  as  Prof.  Smyth  seems  to  suppose,  whether  Congress  should 
-provide  for  the  public  debt,  in  the  only  way,  as  he  justly  remarks,  in  which  it  was  possible 
to  provide  for  it,  namely,  by  funding,  —  but  ichether  the  general  government  should  as- 
sume, and  incorporate  with  the  proper  debt  of  the  Union,  the  debts  which  had  been  contracted 
during  the  Revolution  by  the  individual  States.  To  the  proposal  to  fund  the  national  debt 
there  was,  in  fact,  but  little  opposition,  —  the  necessity  of  some  provision  of  this  sort 
being  very  generally  admitted ;  and  there  Avas  never  the  slightest  ground  for  apprehen- 
sion as  to  the  ultimate  success  of  the  measure. 

It  was  in  the  debate  on  the  question  of  assuming  the  State  debts  and  funding  them 
in  common  with  the  national  debt,  and  expressly  in  opposition  to  this  measure,  that  the 
argument  noticed  in  the  text  was  adduced,  —  namely,  that  "to  fund  on  the  authority 
of  the  federal  government  was  to  enlist  on  the  side  of  the  federal  system  all  those  who 
were  thus  to  receive  what  was  due  to  them,"  &c. ;  or,  as  Marshall  more  accurately  states 
it,  "  that  the  general  government  would  acquire  an  undue  influence,  and  that  the  State 
governments  would  be  annihilated  by  the  measure";  since  "not  only  would  all  the  in- 
fluence of  the  public  creditors  be  thrown  into  the  scale  of  the  former,  but  it  would  ab- 
sorb all  the  powers  of  taxation,  and  leave  to  the  latter  only  the  shadow  of  a  govern- 
ment."    Thus  applied,  the  pertinency  of  the  argument  becomes  plain. 

In  the  "  subsequent  stage  of  the  same  question,"  as  it  is  termed,  the  proposition  was 
not,  as  Prof.  Smyth  conceives,  "  to  make  a  portion  of  the  funded  debt  permanent,  and 
to  terminate  the  rest  at  the  end  of  twenty-five  years,"  —  no  such  project  was  ever  ad- 
vanced in  any  quarter,  —  but  simply  to  make  the  whole  irredeemable,  except  at  certain 
slow  rates,  or  at  the  pleasure  of  government.  In  the  debate  on  this  occasion  there  Avas 
little  of  that  "  recurrence  to  former  arguments  "  which  the  text  supposes.  The  slight 
resistance  made  in  the  outset  to  the  principle  o^  funding  had  long  since  ceased,  and  it 
was  never  afterwards  renewed;  the  present  discussion  turned  upon  a  point  in  its  nature 
purely  collateral  and  incidental,  and  so  treated  by  the  opposition,  —  the  policy  of  im- 
posing restrictions  on  the  right  of  redemption. 

The  "  history  "  in  the  concluding  paragraph  is  defective  and  erroneous  in  several  par- 
ticulars. The  proper  history  is  briefly  this :  —  On  the  14th  of  January,  1790,  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury,  Col.  Hamilton,  in  conformity  to  a  resolution  of  the  House  near 
the  close  of  the  previous  session,  piTsented  a  '•  Plan  for  the  Support  of  the  Public  Cred- 
it," providing,  among  other  measures,  for  the  "  assumption  of  the  debts  of  the  particular 
States  by  the  Union,  and  a  like  provision  for  them  as  for  those  of  the  Union."  After  a 
very  animated  discussion  of  two  or  three  weeks  upon  this  point,  a  resolution  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Secretary's  views  was  carried  in  Committee  of  the  AVhole,  by  a  vote 
of  31  to  26;  and  subsequently,  a  series  of  resolutions  covering  the  whole  ground  em- 
braced in  the  Plan  was  reported  to  the  House.  During  these  proceedings,  North  Caro 
lina,  which  was  strongly  opposed  to  the  project  of  assumption,  was  without  any  repre- 
sentatives in  Congress,  having  acceded  to  the  Constitution  only  tlie  previous  November ; 
but  shortly  afterwards  two  members  came  in  from  that  State,  when,  with  their  aid,  and 

3c* 


654  LECTURE  XXX  Vi. 

What  I  have  now  said  will  afford  you  a  specimen  of  the  divisions 
to  which  the  American  houses  of  legislature,  even  while  Washington 
was  President,  were  necessarily  exposed.  But  every  iniportant 
measure  of  government,  as  you  will  easily  see,  might  very  naturally 
call  forth  the  operation  of  such  fundamental  principles  of  dissent  as  I 
have  mentioned :  the  taxes  that  were  to  be  laid,  whether  in  the  way 
of  excise  or  not ;  a  national  bank,  whether  it  was  to  be  established  or 
not  (in  this  last  instance,  even  the  competency  of  the  new  legislature 
legally  to  fornf  a  new  corporation  was  denied) ;  and  many  others  ;  a 
military  establishment,  for  instance.  Washington  did  not  deny  his 
assent  to  the  bill  for  regulating  this  military  establishment :  but  in  his 
diary  there  was  found  a  note  to  say,  that  he  thought  it  inadequate  to 
its  purposes,  as  no  doubt  it  was. 

In  March,  1791,  terminated  the  first  session  of  Congress*  under 
the  new  constitution. 

The  Federal  party  had  prevailed  at  the  first  elections ;  and  a  ma- 
jority of  the  members  were  steadfast  friends  to  the  new  system. 
Had  the  legislative  assemblies  of  the  new  government  been  uninflu- 
enced, says  Marshall,  by  the  previous  divisions  of  the  country,  the 

in  the  absence  of  some  and  by  a  change  of  votes  on  the  part  of  others  who  had  previously 
supported  it,  the  resolution  respecting  the  State  debts  was  recommitted  by  a  majority 
of  two,  29  to  27,  and  after  rencAved  discussion  was  finally  struck  out  by  the  same  ma- 
jority, on  a  full  vote  of  31  to  29.  A  bill  embracing  all  the  other  essential  features  of  the 
Secretary's  Plan  was  then  passed  and  sent  to  the  Senate,  where  a  provision  similar  in 

grinciple  to  that  rejected  by  the  House  having  been  added,  it  was  returned  to  this 
ranch  for  concurrence.  In  the  mean  time,  says  Marshall,  a  bill  establishing  a  tem-- 
porary  together  with  a  permanent  seat  of  government,  the  former  in  Philadelphia  and 
the  latter  on  the  Potomac,  having,  after  a  long  and  severe  contest,  passed  both  houses, 
through  a  compact  between  the  representatives  of  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  with 
the  friends  of  the  Potomac,  two  members  from  districts  on  this  river  were  thereby  con- 
ciliated and  brought  over  to  the  support  of  the  measure  respecting  the  State  debts ; 
through  this  change  of  influence  a  majority  in  its  favor  was  obtained  in  the  House,  and 
it  was  finally  carried,  not,  as  Prof.  Smyth  understands  Marshall  to  imply,  "  by  two 
voices,"  but,  as  the  Journals  of  Congress  show,  by  a  vote  of  34  to  28,  or  six  majority, 

Tlie  explanation  of  the  circumstances  by  which  this  result  was  brought  about,  which 
Prof.  Smyth  thinks  "not  very  intelligible,"  may  be  sufficiently  plain  to  those  who  con- 
sider that  compromises  of  the  sort  here  indicated  are  no  very  uncommon  phenomena 
in  legislation  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic.  "  It  has  ever  been  understood,"  says  Mar- 
shall, "  that  these  members  were  on  principle  in  favor  of  the  assumption  as  modified 
in  the  amendment  made  by  the  Senate;  but  they  withheld  their  assent  from  it,  when 
originally  pro[)osed  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  the  opinion  that  the  increase 
of  the  national  debt  added  to  the  necessity  of  giving  to  the  departments  of  the  national 
government  a  more  central  residence."  "  The  seat  of  government  will  concentrate 
the  public  paper,"  said,  in  the  course  of  debate,  one  of  these  members  (Mr.  Lee,  from 
Virginia) ;  "  hence  the  necessity  of  a  situation  from  whence  all  parts  of  the  Union  may 
be  equally  benefited."  This  object  being  now  attained,  through  the  compromise  by 
which  some  members  previously  desirous  of  a  different  locality  were  induced  to  vote 
in  favor  of  a  central  position,  the  result  in  regard  to  the  State  debts  naturally  followed. 

See  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington  (Philadelphia,  1807),  Vol.  v.  pp.  234-270. 
Gales's  Debates  and  Proceedings  in  Congress,  Vols.  i.  and  ii.,  1789-1791  (Washing- 
ton, 1834).  Journal  of  the  House  of  Kepresentatives,  1st  Congress,  2d  Session,  1790 
(Washington,  1826).     Gazette  of  the  United  States  for  1790.  —  N. 

*  The  first  Congress,  third  and  final  session;  the  first  session,  as  already  noticed 
(p.  64  {),  terminated  Sept.  29,  1789.    Marshall,  Vol.  v.  pp.  222,  305.  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  655 

many  delicate  points  wliich  they  were  called  upon  to  decide  must 
have  mingled  some  share  of  party  spirit  with  their  deliberations. 
But  in  the  actual  state  of  the  public  mind,  it  was  impossible  for  men 
not  to  be  much  disposed  to  impute  to  each  other  designs  unfriendly 
to  the  general  happiness.  As  yet  these  imputations  did  not  extend 
to  the  President:  but  divisions  had  found  their  way  even  into  his 
cabinet.  Differences  had  arisen  between  the  Secretary  of  State, 
Jefferson,  and  Colonel  Hamilton,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  all 
deduced,  in  fact,  from  the  federal  question.  All  opposition  to  the 
measures  of  government  was,  in  the  first  place,  levelled  at  Hamilton, 
and  at  the  Northern  members,  who  generally  supported  these  meas- 
ures. The  national  prosperity  and  the  popularity  of  the  government 
were  in  the  mean  time  advancing.  But  in  the  State  assemblies, 
especially  in  the  southern  divisions  of  the  continent,  serious  evidences 
of  dissatisfaction  were  exhibited,  which  showed  the  jealousy  entertain- 
ed by  the  local  sovereignties  of  the  powers  exercised  by  the  federal 
legislature. 

But  the  President  and  the  houses  of  the  federal  government  or  Con- 
gress met  again  in  October,  1791,  —  part  of  the  interval  having  been 
very  properly  employed  by  Washington  in  making  a  progress  through 
the  Southern  States,  which  were  always  most  adverse  to  the  federal 
system.  The  effect  of  the  President's  appearance  was  favorable ;  but 
the  hostility  to  the  government  was  diminished  rather  than  subdued. 

When  Congress  met,  questions  still  presented  themselves  that 
awakened  and  embittered  all  the  real  differences  of  opinion  that  ex- 
isted between  the  Federalists  and  their  opponents.  The  topics  in- 
sisted upon  by  the  latter  may  be  easily  conceived :  that  the  public 
debt  had  been  artificially  produced,  because  the  continent  had  adopt- 
ed debts  which  were  due  only  by  the  several  States  ;  *  that  the  banish- 
ment of  coin  would  be  completed  by  the  issue  of  bank  paper ;  that  the 
funding  and  banking  system  afforded  effectual  means  of  corrupting 
the  legislative  bodies ;  that  the  ultimate  object  of  all  the  system,  and 
of  its  friends,  was  to  change  the  present  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment into  that  of  a  monarchy,  on  the  form  of  the  English  constitu- 
tion ;  that  the  representatives  of  the  people,  on  the  federal  system, 
would  be  removed  at  such  a  distance  from  their  constituents,  that  they 
would  form  the  most  corrupt  government  on  earth ;  that  taxes  and 
tax-gatherers  had  already  made  their  appearance,  and  even  an  ex- 
cise ;  that  the  salaries  of  public  officers  were  too  high  ;  that  the  Presi* 

*  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  his  Report  on  the  Public  Credit,  in  January, 
1 790,  estimated  the  national  debt  at  $  54,124,464 ;  to  this  amount  the  assumption  of  the 
State  debts  added  less  than  two  fifths,  —  namely,  $  21,500,000.  There  could  have  been 
no  pretence,  of  course,  in  any  quarter,  that  the  public  debt  had  been  produced  by  the 
adoption  of  the  State  debts  ;  nor  does  Marshall  so  represent  the  matter :  his  language 

is,  —  "  It  was  alleged  that this  accumulation  of  debt  had  been  artificially  produced 

bj  the  assumption  of  what  was  due  from  the  States."  Life  of  Washington,  Vol.  v 
p.  346.  — N 


656  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

dent  had  levees,  and  Mrs.  Washington  evening  parties;  that  the 
American  people  were  thus  to  be  accustomed  to  the  pomp  and  man- 
ners of  European  courts. 

I  quote  these  passages  from  Marshall,  that  your  observation  may 
be  drawn  to  this  part  of  his  work.  A  love  for  civil  liberty  is  so  re- 
spectable at  all  times,  and  when  the  friends  of  civil  liberty  in  any 
country  make  mistakes,  those  mistakes  are  of  such  importance,  and 
operate  so  unfavorably  to  this  first  of  national  blessings,  that  you  can- 
not be  too  well  prepared  against  the  errors  into  which  men  may  fall 
on  subjects  of  this  nature.  You  cannot  be  rendered  too  expert  in 
detecting  the  fallacies  of  popular  reasonings  on  such  questions,  —  in 
seeing  the  manner  in  which  statements  may  be  exaggerated  by  feel- 
ings, honorable  as  well  as  base,  —  the  manner  in  which  principles  the 
most  noble  may  be  insisted  upon  with  a  disregard  to  particular  cir- 
cumstances, till  they  become  subversive  of  themselves. 

The  mistakes  of  those  who  are  friendly  to  harsh  government  and 
arbitrary  power  are  seldom  of  any  fatal  effect  to  their  particular  cause, 
for  their  measures  are  still  only  more  or  less  arbitrary ;  no  advantage 
can  commonly  be  hence  obtained  against  the  general  cause  of  arbi- 
trary power.  But  it  is  not  so  with  the  friends  of  the  liberties  of  man- 
kind. Do  they  relax  their  principles  or  exertions  ?  are  they  careless 
or  inert  ?  The  ground  they  desert  is  instantly  occupied  by  their  op- 
ponents, and  cannot  afterwards  be  recovered.  Do  they  urge  their 
principles  and  exertions  too  far  ?  are  they  too  active  and  impassion- 
ed ?  Their  measures  lead  to  inconvenience  or  calamity,  to  some  in- 
jurious disturbance  of  the  political  machine,  and  moderate  men  join 
the  side  of  their  opponents.  Their  injudicious  attempts  to  advance 
the  public  good  are  reprobated,  and  they  are  themselves  accused  of 
factious  selfishness,  or  ridiculed  for  enthusiasm  and  folly. 

The  cause  of  civil  liberty  has  to  depend,  not  only  on  the  virtues, 
but  on  the  wisdom,  of  mankind  ;  arbitrary  power,  only  on  their  neces- 
sities. The  advocates  for  the  one  have  always  to  prove,  first,  that 
their  own  intentions  are  pure,  and,  secondly,  that  their  measures  are 
calculated  to  advance  the  happiness  of  the  community  ;  the  supporters 
of  the  other  have  only  to  show  that  they  are  securing  its  peace  and 
order.  And  thus  it  happens,  as  I  have  so  repeatedly  intimated  in 
the  course  of  these  lectures,  that  civil  liberty  is  of  all  things  the  mc«t 
perishable  and  delicate ;  arbitrary  rule,  on  the  contrary,  the  most 
hardy  and  indestructible. 

I  will  encroach  upon  your  time  while  I  further  endeavour  to  en- 
force such  general  reflections  as  I  have  already  made  on  the  nature 
of  parties,  by  a  further  reference  to  the  work  of  Marshall,  and  to  the 
characters  he  gives  of  the  two  most  important  ministers  of  Washing- 
ton's cabinet.  These  two  characters  may,  perhaps,  serve  as  general 
descriptions  of  the  two  great  parties  of  America. 

Mr.  Secretary  Hamilton  had  long  served  his  country  in  the  field, 


AMERICAN  WAR.  657 

and  passed  from  the  camp  into  the  Congress,  where  he  remained  for 
some  time  after  the  peace  had  been  established.  In  the  first  situa- 
tion, he  had  fully  witnessed  the  danger  to  which  the  independence  of 
his  country  was  exposed  from  the  imbecility  of  government ;  in  the 
latter,  he  saw  her  reputation  lost,  and  her  best  interests  sacrificed, 
chiefly  from  the  same  cause.  Having,  therefore,  long  felt  the  mis- 
chiefs produced  by  the  State  sovereignties,  he  naturally  supported 
the  federal  government.  He  had  wished  the  executive  power  and 
the  Senate  more  permanent,  and  still  retained  and  openly  avowed  the 
opinion,  that  American  liberty  and  happiness  had  much  more  to  fear 
from  the  encroachments  of  the  great  States  than  from  those  of  the 
general  government.  These  opinions  will  become  your  own,  if  you 
should  ever  read  the  numbers  of  his  work, 'the  Federalist. 

Mr.  Secretary  Jefferson,  on  the  contrary,  had  retired  from  Co]> 
gross  before  the  depreciation  of  the  currency  had  produced  an  entire 
dependence  of  the  Congress  on  the  local  governments.  He  then  filled 
the  highest  offices  in  one  of  those  local  governments  (Virginia),  and 
about  the  close  of  the  war  went  to  France,  and  was  there  on  a  diplo- 
matic mission  while  the  first  clear  symptoms  were  appearing,  and  the 
first  steps  were  taking,  of  that  revolution  in  France  which  so  agitated 
the  minds  of  all  reflecting  men.  In  common  with  all  his  countrymen 
then  in  France,  Mr.  Jefferson  took  a  strong  interest  in  favor  of  the 
popular  cause,  and  from  his  prior  habits  of  thought,  the  men  with 
whom  he  associated,  and  a  residence  all  the  time  at  the  court  of  Yer- 
sailles,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  abuses  of  monarchy  should  be  ever 
present  to  his  mind,  and  that  he  should  suppose  liberty  (even  when 
he  returned  to  America)  could  sustain  no  danger  but  from  the  ex- 
ecutive power.  The  fears,  therefore,  of  Mr.  Jefferson  took  a  different 
direction  from  those  of  Colonel  Hamilton,  and  all  his  precautions  were 
used  to  check  and  limit  the  exercise  of  the  authorities  claimed  by  the 
general  government. 

I  shall  proceed  to  one  feature  of  difference  more.  The  war  left  in 
the  American  people,  very  naturally,  a  strong  attachment  to  France 
and  enmity  to  Great  Britain.  This  sentiment  was  universal,  and 
found  its  way  into  the  cabinet ;  but  Colonel  Hamilton  thought  that  no 
such  sentiment  should  influence  the  political  conduct  of  America ; 
Jefferson  maintained  the  contrary. 

The  press  was  not  silent.  The  Gazette  of  the  United  States  sup- 
ported the  measures  of  Hamilton  and  the  federal  government ;  the 
National  Gazette  was  the  paper  of  the  opposition.  These  papers  ar- 
raigned the  motives  of  those  they  differed  from  with  equal  asperity 
and  injustice. 

The  two  secretaries,  in  the  mean  time,  were  eternally  at  variance 

The  President  implored  and  admonished  in  vain ;  he  loved  the  men, 

he  respected  them ;  he  had  a  great,  a  sincere  regard  and  esteem,  he 

told  them,  for  both ;  his  earnest  wish,  his  fondest  hope,  was,  that,  inr 

83 


658  LECTURE  XXXVl. 

stead  of  wounding  suspicions  and  irritating  charges,  there  might  be 
liberal  allowances,  mutual  forbearances,  and  temporizing  yieldings  on 
all  sides.  "  Differences,"  said  he,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  the  At- 
torney-general,* "  in  political  opinions  are  as  unavoidable  as,  to  a  cer- 
tain point,  they  may  be  necessary ;  but  it  is  exceedingly  to  be  re 
gretted,  that  subjects  cannot  be  discussed  with  temper,  on  the  one 
hand,  or  decisions  submitted  to  on  the  other,  without  improperly  im- 
plicating the  motives  which  led  to  them ;  and  this  regret  borders  on 
chagrin,  when  we  find  that  men  of  abihties,  zealous  patriots,  having 
the  same  general  objects  in  view,  and  the  same  upright  intentions  to 
prosecute  them,  will  not  exercise  more  charity  in  deciding  on  the 
opinions  and  actions  of  each  other." 

Now  from  these  transactions  some  general  hints  may  be  drawn,  and 
references  made  to  our  own  politics.  It  is  often  said,  that  those  who 
are  in  administration  have  no  wish  but  the  emoluments  of  their  office, 
and  that  those  who  are  in  opposition  have  no  meaning  but  to  get  their 
share.  Such  are  the  views  often  taken  by  the  parties  of  each  other, 
or  rather  by  the  violent  men  in  each  party  of  each  other,  and  some- 
times by  very  sagacious  men,  as  they  conceive  themselves  to  be, 
among  the  public  at  large.  Yet 'in  America  we  see  the  same  appear- 
ances taking  place  as  with  us :  ministry  and  opposition  ;  government 
newspapers  and  opposition  newspapers ;  mutual  suspicions  and  invec* 
tives  ;  ribaldry  and  rage  ;  discontent  and  clamor;  and,  though  Hamil- 
ton himself  and  Knox  were  afterwards  obliged  to  resign  their  offices, 
from  the  inadequate  nature  of  their  salaries,  the  same  declamation 
about  the  emoluments  of  office  :  the  phenomena  are  just  the  same,  and 
therefore  the  shallowness  of  the  very  elegant  solution  that  I  have  just 
mentioned  of  such  political  occurrences  in  a  free  government,  the 
supposition  that  every  thing  is  on  each  side  a  mere  question  of  plun- 
der, need  not  further  be  insisted  upon. 

You  will  now  be  able,  I  conceive,  even  from  the  few  passages  I 
have  quoted,  to  form  a  general  idea  of  the  situation  of  America  dur- 
ing the  first  sitting  of  the  federal  government ;  and  you  will,  I  appre- 
hend, draw  the  conclusion  which  I  am  all  along  proposing  to  you,  — 
that  civil  liberty  may  be  endangered,  not,  as  in  general,  from  the 
strength^  but  sometimes  from  the  very  weakness,  of  the  executive 
power. 

Now  in  the  state  of  things  which  has  thus  in  a  general  manner 

♦  T 3  Alexander  Hamilton,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Aug:.  26, 1 792.  See  Marshall, 
Vol.  V.  Note  to  p.  358  ;  Sparks's  Writings  of  Washington,  Vol.  x.  pp.  283,  284. 

The  mistake  here  noted,  though  in  itself  quite  unimportant,  claims  a  moment's  ob- 
servation, as  illustrating  the  haste  with  which  the  present  lecture  was  manifestly  drawn 
up.  The  extract  in  the  text  was  taken  from  Marshall,  who  introduces  it  with" the  fol- 
lowing remarks :  — "  About  the  same  time  a  letter  was  addressed  to  the  Attorney- 
general  on  the  same  subject.  The  following  extract  is  taken  from  one  of  the  twenty- 
sixth  of  August  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury."  Professor  Smyth  evidently  glanced 
only  at  the  first  of  these  two  sentences  ;  hence  his  en*or  in  speaking  of  the  letter  which 
he  quotes  as  addressed  to  the  Attorney-general.  —  N. 


AMERICAN  WAR.  659 

been  exhibited  to  you,  the  French  Revolution  took  place.  You  will 
not  suppose  that  this  could  be  an  event  indifferent  to  America ;  that 
every  thing  which  assumed  the  form  of  executive  power  in  her  gov- 
ernment should  not  be  shaken  to  the  centre.  Happily,  the  first  Con- 
gress, or,  if  I  may  so  speak,  the  first  specimen  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment, was  terminated  in  March,  1793,*  while  Washington  could  be 
once  more  the  representative  of  that  executive  power ;  and  Washing- 
ton being  not  only  a  man  of  great  ability  and  patriotism,  but,  what 
was  of  even  still  greater  importance  at  the  time,  a  man  of  most  sober 
judgment,  America  and  her  government  escaped  the  injurious  influ- 
ence of  this  most  tremendous  event. 

It  is  not  within  the  limits  I  have  prescribed  to  these  lectures  to 
enter  into  transactions  of  this  kind :  whenever  I  advance  in  the  course 
of  history  so  far  that  the  French  Revolution  comes  in  sight,  I  turn 
upon  my  steps,  and  take  some  new  direction ;  and  this,  therefore,  I 
now  do.  I  do  so  the  more  readily,  because  on  the  subject  of  the  in- 
terference of  the  French  in  the  concerns  of  America  there  cannot  be 
two  opinions  ;  but  that  part  of  Marshall's  work  which  relates  to  affairs 
so  critical  cannot,  I  am  sure,  be  hereafter  overlooked  by  you. 

The  conduct  of  Washington,  indeed,  "  great  in  these  moments,  as 
in  all  the  past,"  remains  above  all  praise  ;  he  persuaded  his  country, 
he  enabled  his  country,  to  stand  aloof  from  the  unhappy  storm  of 
European  poUtics ;  he  resigned  his  popularity  to  accomplish  so  great 
an  end ;  and  he  maintained  the  constitution  over  which  he  presided 
by  a  serene  and  dignified  confidence  in  its  merits,  and  a  calm  exercise 
of  its  acknowledged  powers  and  authority.  He  was  insulted,  he  was 
resisted  in  his  own  executive  department  as  the  chief  magistrate  of 
America,  by  the  French  ambassador;  no  intemperate  expression, 
however,  escaped  him  in  his  official  communications,  either  to  his  own 
legislature  or  to  that  ambassador.  The  labors  of  the  press,  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  people,  the  intrigues  of  democratic  societies,  who 
voted  themselves  forsooth  the  guardians  of  American  liberty,  the 
natural  sentiments  of  hatred  to  England,  all  were  united  against  the 
temper  and  wisdom  of  Washington  ;  but  he  rose  superior  to  them  all. 
He  contented  himself  with  steadily  maintaining  the  principles  of  the 
laws  of  nations,  and  the  regulations  of  his  own  government ;  and  he 
then  laid  an  able  exposition  of  his  case  before  the  French  government, 
and  calmly  desired  the  recall  of  their  ambassador.  A  new  ambassar 
dor  was  sent  from  France ;  the  clouds  grew  lighter,  the  thunders  rolled 
away,  and  the  horizon  at  length  cleared  up,  discovering  the  President 
left  in  the  same  place  and  attitude  by  the  storm  in  which  the  storm 
had  found  him ;  but  the  countenances  of  all  wise  and  good  men  were 
instantly  turned  upon  him  with  the  most  animated  smiles  of  reverence 
and  love. 

*  The  second  Congress     The  first  Congress  terminated,  as  before  observed  (p.  654^ 
InMarch.  1791.  — N. 


660  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

Differences,  in  like  manner,  of  the  most  serious  nature  had  occur- 
red between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain ;  differences  which 
had  inflamed,  in  like  manner,  to  the  most  intolerable  degree,  «the 
members  of  the  legislature  and  the  different  parties  of  America.  The 
President  once  more  listened  to  the  tempest,  and,  after  w^atching  its 
progress  for  some  time,  decided  upon  his  measure.  He  addressed 
the  Senate  in  the  following  manner :  — 

"'  The  communications  which  I  have  made  to  you  during  your  pres- 
ent session,  from  the  despatches  of  our  minister  in  London,  contain  a 
serious  aspect  of  our  affairs  with  Great  Britain.  But  as  peace  ought 
to  be  pursued  with  unremitted  zeal,  before  the  last  resource,  which 
has  so  often  been  the  scourge  of  nations,  and  cannot  fail  to  check  the 
advanced  prosperity  of  the  United  States,  is  contemplated,  I  have 
thDught  proper  to  nominate,  and  do  hereby  nominate,  John  Jay,  as 
envoy  extraordinary  of  the  United  States  to  his  Britannic  Majesty." 

Scarcely  any  public  act  of  the  President  drew  upon  his  administra- 
tion a  greater  degree  of  censure  than  this :  this  censure  constitutes  a 
most  striking  part  of  his  merit.  The  result  was,  that,  instead  of  mak- 
ing a  war  with  England,  he  made  a  treaty  of  commerce. 

That  this  treaty  should  be  reprobated,  because  it  had  not  laid  Eng- 
land at  the  fget  of  America,  cannot  be  wondered  at.  In  points  of 
this  nature  all  nations  are  the  same,  equally  selfish  and  unreasonable. 
Town  and  country  meetings  (not  the  best  judges  of  such  subjects) 
were  everywhere  held.  The  mind  of  Washington  was  unusually 
anxious,  and  even  disturbed.  But,  at  length,  the  confidence  which 
was  felt  in  the  judgment  and  virtue  of  the  chief  magistrate  began 
silently  to  produce  its  proper  effect ;  and  though  the  majority  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  (the  more  popular  part  of  the  legislature) 
was  against  the  treaty,  a  clear  majority  of  the  people  (marvellous  to 
relate)  at  last  declared  themselves  in  favor  of  it,  —  that  is,  in  favor 
of  prosperity  and  peace. 

I  cannot  go  into  the  detail  of  the  merits  of  Washington.  In  the 
course  of  his  administration  he  had  to  assert  the  constitutional  rights 
of  the  executive  power  against  the  House  of  Representatives.  In  the 
year  1794,  he  had  to  issue  his  proclamations,  call  forth  the  militias, 
and  put  down  by  force  (every  lenient  measure  having  been  tried  in 
vain)  a  positive  insurrection  in  Pennsylvania ;  and  he  had  continued 
to  maintain  the  proper  exercise  of  authority,  the  principles  of  peace, 
of  national  justice,  and  of  civil  liberty,  till,  amid  the  wild  effusions  of 
virulence  and  folly,  he  was  at  last  himself  accused  even  of  peculation, 
and  of  plundering  the  public,  in  the  discharge  of  his  office :  it  was  even 
thought  necessary  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  should  produce 
his  accounts. 

The  period,  however,  at  length  arrived  when  Washington  thought 
he  might  retire,  —  when  the  situation  of  America  allowed  him,  as  he 
conceived,  to  consult  his  own  inclinations.     As  the  last  service  he 


AMERICAN  WAR.  661 

could  offer,  he  drew  up  a  valedictory  address,  in  which  he  endeavour- 
ed to  impress  upon  his  countrymen  those  great  political  truths  which 
had  been  the  guides  of  his  own  administration,  and  which  could  alone, 
in  his  opinion,  form  a  sure  and  solid  basis  for  the  happiness,  the  inde- 
pendence, and  the  liberty  of  America.  This  composition  is  not  un- 
worthy of  him,  for  it  is  comprehensive,  provident,  affectionate,  and 
wise.  You  will  conceive  the  topics  of  it :  gratitude  to  his  countrymen 
for  their  confidence  and  support  on  every  occasion  ;  the  necessity  and 
the  advantages  of  the  federal  system,  and  of  a  government  as  strong 
as  was  consistent  with  the  perfect  security  of  liberty.  "  Liberty," 
he  observed,  "  is  Httle  else  than  a  name,  where  the  govepment  is  too 
feeble  to  withstand  the  enterprises  of  faction,  to  confine  each  member 
of  the  society  within  the  limits  prescribed  by  the  laws,  and  to  maintain 
all  in  the  secure  and  tranquil  enjoyment  of  the  rights  of  person  and 
property";  that,  however  useful  might  be  the  spirit  of  party  (and 
he  thought  it  might  be  useful  in  governments  of  a  monarchical 
kind,  and  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  of  Hberty),  the  contrary  was  the 
case  in  governments  purely  elective ;  that  of  the  dispositions  and 
habits  which  lead  to  political  prosperity  religion  and  morality  were 
the  indispensable  supports ;  that  a  volume  could  not  trace  all  their 
connection  with  private  and  public  felicity ;  and  that,  whatever  might 
be  conceded  to  the  influence  of  refined  education  on  minds  of  peculiar 
structure,  reason  and  experience  both  forbade  men  to  expect  that 
national  morality  could  prevail  in  exclusion  of  religious  principle. 
He  insisted  that  good  faith  and  justice  were  to  be  observed  to  all  na- 
tions. "  Can  it  be,"  said  he,  "  that  Providence  has  not  connected 
the  permanent  felicity  of  a  nation  with  its  virtue  ?"  Respecting  the 
conduct  of  America  to  the  nations  of  Europe,  his  advice  was  impar- 
tiahty,  neutrality,  —  to  have  as  little  political  connection  as  possible. 
It  is  but  painful  to  observe  his  description  of  our  European  nations  :  — 
"  Why,"  says  he,  "  entangle  our  peace  and  prosperity  in  the  toils  of 
European  ambition,  rivalship,  interest,  humor,  or  caprice  ?  " 

"  The  sentiments  of  veneration,"  says  his  biographer,  "  with  which 
this  address  was  generally  received,  were  manifested  in  almost  every 
part  of  the  Union.  Some  of  the  State  legislatures  directed  it  to  bo 
inserted  at  large  in  their  journals,  and  nearly  all  of  them  passed 
resolutions  expressing  their  respect  for  the  person  of  the  President, 
their  high  sense  of  his  exalted  services,  and  the  emotions  with  which 
they  contemplated  his  retirement  from  office." 

I  must  conclude  my  account  of  Washington  by  observing  that  the 
behaviour  of  France  made  it  necessary  for  America  to  disturb  this 
great  man  once  more  in  his  retirement,  and  to  place  him  at  the  head 
of  her  mihtary  force.  Washington,  indeed,  expected  that  favorable 
alteration  in  the  conduct  of  France  which  afterwards  took  place  ;  but 
he  Uved  not  to  see  it ;  dying  in  December,  1799,  after  a  short  illness, 
and  resigning  his  spirit,  with  a  calm  and  untroubled  mind,  to  the  dis- 

3d 


662  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

posal  of  that  Almighty  Being  in  whose  presence  he  had  acted  his  im- 
portant part,  and  to  whose  kind  providence  he  had  so  often  committed, 
in  many  an  anxious  moment,  in  the  cabinet  and  in  the  field,  the  desti- 
nies of  his  beloved  country.  "  He  was  not,'*  he  said,  "  afraid  to  die."' 
To  the  historian,  indeed,  there  are  few  characters  that  appear  so 
little  to  have  shared  the  common  frailties  and  imperfections  of  human 
nature  ;  there  are  but  few  particulars  that  can  be  mentioned  even  to 
his  disadvantage.  It  is  understood,  for  instance,  that  he  was  once 
going  to  commit  an  important  mistake  as  a  general  in  the  field ;  but 
he  had  at  least  the  very  great  merit  of  listening  to  Lee  (a  man  whom 
he  could  not  like,  and  who  was  even  his  rival),  and  o^  not  committing 
the  mistake.  Instances  may  be  found  where  perhaps  it  may  be 
thought  that  he  was  decisive  to  a  degree  that  partook  of  severity  and 
harshness,  or  even  more ;  but  how  innumerable  were  the  decisions 
which  he  had  to  make,  how  difficult  and  how  important,  through  the 
eventful  series  of  twenty  years  of  command  in  the  cabinet  or  the  field !' 
Let  it  be  considered  what  it  is  to  have  the  management  of  a  revolu- 
tion, and  afterwards  the  maintenance  of  order.  Where  is  the  man 
that  in  the  history  of  our  race  has  ever  succeeded  in  attempting  suc- 
cessively the  one  and  the  other,  —  not  on  'a  small  scale,  a  petty  state 
in  Italy,  or  among  a  horde  of  barbarians,  but  in  an  enlightened  age, 
when  it  is  not  easy  for  one  man  to  rise  superior  to  another,  and  in 
the  eyes  of  mankind,  — 

"A  kingdom  for  a  stage, 

And  monarchs  to  behold  the  swelling  scene  "  ? 

The  plaudits  of  his  country  were  continually  sounding  in  his  ears,  and 
neither  the  judgment  nor  the  virtues  of  the  man  were  ever  disturbed. 
Armies  were  led^  to  the  field  with  all  the  enterprise  of  a  hero,  and 
then  dismissed  with  all  the  equanimity  of  a  philosopher.  Power  was 
accepted,  was  exercised,  was  resigned,  precisely  at ''the  moment  and 
in  the  way  that  duty  and  patriotism  directed.  Whatever  was  the 
difficulty,  the  trial,  the  temptation,  or  the  danger,  there  stood  the 
soldier  and  the  citizen,  eternally  the  same,  without  fear  and  without 
reproach,  and  there  was  the  man  who  was  not  only  at  all  times  virtu- 
ous, but  at  all  times  wise. 

The  merit  of  Washington  by  no  means  ceases  with  his  campaigns , 
it  becomes,  after  the  peace  of  1783,  even  more  striking  than  before ; 
for  the  same  man,  who,  for  the  sake  of  liberty,  was  ardent  enough  to 
resist  the  power  of  Great  Britain  and  hazard  every  thing  on  this  side 
the  grave,  at  a  later  period  had  to  be  temperate  enough  to  resist  the 
same  spirit  of  liberty,  when  it  was  mistaking  its  proper  objects  and 
transgressing  its  appointed  Hmits.  The  American  Revolution  was  to 
approach  him,  and  he  was  to  kindle  in  the  general  flame ;  the  French 
Revolution  was  to  reach  him  and  to  consume  but  too  many  of  his 
countrymen,  and  his  oivn  "  ethereal  mould,  incapable  of  stain,"  was 


AMERICAN   W    R.  663 

to  "  purge  off  the  baser  fire,  victorious."  But  all  this  was  done  :  he 
might  have  been  pardoned,  though  he  had  failed  amid  the  enthusiasm 
of  those  around  him,  and  when  liberty  was  the  delusion ;  but  the  foun- 
dations of  the  moral  world  were  shaken,  and  not  the  understanding  of 
Washington. 

To  those  who  must  necessarily  contemplate  this  remarkable  man  at 
a  distance,  there  is  a  kind  of  fixed  calmness  in  his  character  that  seems 
not  well  fitted  to  engage  our  affections  (constant  superiority  we  rather 
venerate  than  love);  but  he  had  those  who  loved  him  (his  friends  and 
his  family),  as  well  as  the  world  and  those  that  admired. 

As  a  ruler  of  mankind,  however,  he  may  be  proposed  as  a  model. 
Deeply  impressed  with  the  original  rights  of  human  nature,  he  never 
forgot  that  the  end  and  meaning  and  aim  of  all  just  government  was 
the  happiness  of  the  people,  and  he  never  exercised  authority  till  he 
had  first  taken  care  to  put  himself  clearly  in  the  right.  His  candor, 
his  patience,  his  love  of  justice  were  unexampled ;  and  this,  though 
naturally  he  was  not  patient,  —  much  otherwise,  highly  irritable. 
He  therefore  deliberated  well,  and  placed  his  subject  in  every  point 
of  view,  before  he  decided ;  and  his  understanding  being  correct,  he 
was  thus  rendered,  by  the  nature  of  his  faculties,  his  strength  of  mind, 
and  his  principles,  the  man  of  all  others  to  whom  the  interests  of  his 
fellow-creatures  might  with  most  confidence  be  intrusted ;  that  is,  he 
was  the  first  of  the  rulers  of  mankind. 

The  American  Revolution  is  a  great  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  and  nothing  but  the  appearance  of  the  French  Revolution,  so 
fitted,  from  its  tremendous  circuaistances  and  unknown  consequences, 
to  sweep  away  every  thing  else  from  the  curiosity  and  anxieties  of 
mankind,  could  have  made  men  insensible,  as  they  may  now  be,  to  an 
event  in  itself  so  striking  and  important.  By  the  American  Revolu- 
tion the  foundations  of  a  new  empire  are  laid,  immense  in  extent,  un- 
rivalled in  natural  advantages,  and  at  a  safe  distance  from  the  hostili- 
ties of  the  Old  World ;  a  new  empire  is  to  begin  its  course  where 
other  empires  have  ended,  with  all  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  relig- 
ious advantages  which  other  empires  have  attained  only  during  the 
time  that  has  elapsed  since  the  records  of  history  began.  A  recepta- 
cle is  now  opened  for  every  human  being,  of  whatever  country,  and 
whatever  be  his  disposition  or  fortunes,  opinions  or  genius.  What  is 
to  be'  the  result  of  such  an  admixture  and  collision  of  all  personal 
qualities  and  intellectual  endowments  ? 

The  government,  too,  is  founded,  not  only  on  a  popular  basis,  but 
on  a  basis  the  most  popular  that  can  well  be  conceived.  It  must 
even  be  confessed  that  in  America  is  to  be  made  a  most  novel  and 
important  experiment,  and  it  is  this :  —  with  how  small  a  portion  of 
restraint  and  influence  the  blessings  of  order  and  Christianity  can  be 
administered  to  a  large  community.  It  must  be  observed,  indeed, 
that  this  experiment  is  to  be  made  under  such  particular  advantages 


eQ4:  LECTURE  XXXVI. 

of  a  new  country  as  must  always  prevent  America  from  being  a  prece- 
dent for  older  states  and  empires.  This  is  true  ;  yet,  to  the  reasoners 
of  after  ages,  it  will  be  useful  to  learn  from  the  event  what  may  rea- 
sonably be  expected  from  mere  hifman  nature  when  placed  in  the 
most  favorable  situation,  and  what  it  is  that  government  may  properly 
attempt  to  do  for  mankind,  and  what  not.  This  I  think  will  hereafter 
be  shown,  when  all  the  attendant  circumstances  have  been  properly 
balanced  and  considered.     What,  however,  will  be  the  result  ? 

I  am  much  disposed  to  offer  this  subject  to  your  reflections,  and 
therefore,  as  a  conjecture,  though  an  obvious  one,  I  should  say 
(though  I  cannot  allude  to  what  may  be  said  of  a  contrary  nature) 
that  the  great  event  to  be  expected  is,  that  this  empir6  should  break 
up  into  two  or  more  independent  states  or  republics,  and  that  at  some 
distant  period  the  continent  of  America  may  be  destined  to  exhibit  all 
the  melancholy  scenes  of  devastation  and  war  which  have  so  long  dis- 
graced the  continent  of  Europe.  This,  however,  must  be  considered 
as  the  grand  calamity  and  failure  of  the  whole  ;  it  can  arise  only  from 
a  want  of  strength  in  the  federal  government,  —  that  is,  from  the 
friends  of  liberty  not  venturing  to  render  the  executive  power  suffi- 
ciently effective.  This  is  the  common  mistake  of  all  popular  govern- 
ments :  in  governments  more  or  less  monarchical  the  danger  is  always 
of  an  opposite  nature. 

In  th,e  mean  time,  I  know  not  how  any  friend  to  his  species,  much 
less  any  Englishman,  can  cease  to  wish  with  the  most  earnest  anxiety 
for  the  success  of  the  great  experiment  to  which  I  have  alluded,  for 
the  success  of  the  constitution  of  America.  I  see  not,  in  like  manner, 
how  ^ny  friend  to  his  species,  much  less  any  American,  can  forbear 
for  a  moment  to  wish  for  a  continuance  of  the  constitution  of  England, 
—  that  the  Revolution  of  1688  should  for  ever  answer  all  its  important 
purposes  for  England,  as  the  Revolution  of  1 776  has  hitherto  done  for 
America.  What  efforts  can  be  made  for  the  government  of  mankind 
so  reasonable  as  these,  —  a  limited  monarchy  and  a  limited  republic  ? 
Add  to  this  that  the  success  of  the  cause  of  liberty  in  the  two  coun- 
tries cannot  but  be  of  the  greatest  advantage  to  each,  —  a  limited 
monarchy  and  a  limited  republic  being  well  fitted,  by  their  comparison 
and  separate  happiness,  each  to  correct  the  peculiar  tendencies  to 
evil  which  must  necessarily  be  found  in  the  other.  Successful,  there- 
fore, be  both,  and  while  the  records  of  history  last,  be  they  both  suc- 
cessful !  that  they  may  eternally  hold  up  to  mankind  the  lessons  of 
practical  freedom,  and  explain  to  them  the  only  secret  that  exists  of 
all  national  prosperity  and  happiness,  the  sum  and  substance  of  which 
must  for  ever  consist  in  mild  government  and  tolerant  religion,  — 
that  is,  rationally  understood,  in  civil  and  religious  liberty. 

Mark  the  difierence  between  Europe  and  Asia.  What  is  it,  what 
has  it  ever  been  ?  Slavery  in  the  one,  and  freedom  in  the  other. 
Take  another  view,  more  modern  and  more  domestic.     Mist  is  in  th© 


AMERICAN  WAR.  665 

valley,  and  sterility  is  on  the  mountain  of  the  Highlander ;  his  land  is 
the  land  of  tempest  and  of  gloom,  but  there  is  intelligence  in  his  looks 
and  gladness  in  his  song.  On  the  contrary,  incense  is  in  the  gale, 
and  the  laughing  hght  of  Nature  is  in  the  landscape  of  the  Grecian 
island;  but 

"  Why  do  its  tuneful  echoes  languish, 
Mute  but  to  the  voice  of  anguish  ?  " 

Yet  where  was  it  that  once  flourished  the  heroes,  the  sages,  and  the 
orators  of  antiquity  ?  What  is  there  of  sublimity  and  beauty  in  our 
moral  feelings,  or  in  our  works  of  art,  that  is  not  stamped  with  the 
impression  of  their  genius  ? 

Give  civil  and  religious  liberty,  you  give  every  thing,  —  knowledge 
and  science,  heroism  and  honor,  virtue  and  power.  Deny  them,  and 
you  deny  every  thing :  in  vain  are  the  gifts  of  nature :  there  is  no 
harvest  in  the  fertility  of  the  soil ;  there  is  no  cheerfulness  in  the  radi- 
ance of  the  sky ;  there  is  no  thought  in  the  understandiRg  of  man ; 
and  there  is  in  his  heart  no  hope ;  the  human  animal  sinks  and 
withers ;  abused,  disinherited,  stripped  of  the  attributes  of  his  kind, 
and  no  longer  formed  after  the  image  of  his  God. 


NOTES 


^*  The  Notes  are  always  taken  from  Note-books  that  were  laid  on  the  table  of  the  Lecture- room. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

The  professorship  of  Modem  History  and  Languages  was  founded  by  George  the 
First,  in  1724,  on  the  recommendation  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  His  Grace  has  the 
merit  of  being  one  of  those  very  few  ministers,  since  the  times  of  the  Reformation,  whc 
have  endeavoured  to  amplify  the  means  and  extend  the  usefulness  of  the  literary  estab- 
lishments of  this  country. 

On  the  death  of  Dr.  Turner,  in  1762,  the  professorship  became  vacant,  and  the 
modesty  and  pride  of  Gray  at  last  yielded  to  the  influence  of  his  friends,  and  he  ap- 
plied to  Lord  Bute  for  the  situation.  It  was,  however,  given  to  the  tutor  of  Sir  James 
Lowther ;  and  the  most  distinguished  man  of  letters  then  in  the  University,  and  perhaps 
the  most  elegant  scholar  of  the  age,  was  left  to  his  poverty,  or  to  a  state  that  but  too 
much  resembled  it. 

At  a  subsequent  period,  while  he  was  still  pursuing  "  the  silent  tenor  of  his  doom," 
the  professorship  was  once  more  vacant.  It  must  ever  have  been  amongst  the  most 
pleasing  recollections  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  that  he  was  the  minister  whose  fortune 
it  was  to  have  directed  the  rays  of  royal  bounty  to  their  noblest  object,  and  to  have 
cheered,  with  a  parting  gleam,  the  twilight  path  and  closing  hours  of  the  poet  Gray. 

His  Grace  had  a  second  time  the  merit  of  making  an  honorable  choice  iij  the  late 
professor.  Dr.  Symonds.  From  him  the  chair  has  received  a  very  valuable  library. 
But  it  is  to  be  lamented,  that,  a  little  before  his  death,  he  destroyed  thp  lectures  he  had 
delivered,  and  all  his  historical  papers. 


LECTURES  I. -IV. 


I. 


Savage  and  civilized  life  may  each  exhibit  the  disgusting  extremes  of  opposite 
evils ;  but  it  is  in  vain'tb  fly  from  the  one,  to  be  lost  in  the  still  more  frightful  degrada- 
tion of  the  other;  not  to  say  that  the  propensities  and  capacities  and  irresistible  im- 
pulses of  our  nature  seem  clearly  to  indicate  that  we  are  not  intended  for  solitude  and 
torpor,  but  for  society  and  improvement. 

II. 

It  is  not  easy  to  lay  down  maxims  in  politics ;  man  is  such  a  compound  being  of 
reason  and  feeling,  so  alive  to  the  impression  of  the  moment,  so  entirely  at  the  mercy 
(in  his  political  capacity,  at  least)  of  the  present  uneasiness. . 

The  political  discourses  of  Hume  are  the  best  models  we  have  of  the  reasoning  that 
belongs  to  subjects  of  this  nature.  They  best  admonish  us  of  the  slow  step  with  which 
we  should  advance,  and  the  wary  distrust  with  which  we  should  look  around,  before  we 
think  that  we  have  reached  a  maxim  in  politics,  tliat  is,  a  general  principle,  on  the 
steady  efficiency  of  which,  in  real  practice,  we  may  always  depend. 

"  Civil  knowledge,"  says  Lord  Bacon,  "  is  conversant  about  a  subject  which  of  all 
others  is  most  immersed  in  matter,  and  hardliest  reduced  to  axiom." 


6QS  NOTES. 


III. 

Recueil  des  Historiens  des  Gaules  et  de  la  France. 

Religious  societies,  like  those  of  the  Benedictines,  have  often  been  stigmatized  as 
the  abodes  of  laziness  and  superstition ;  but  sweeping  accusations  are  seldom  just.  To 
this  society,  for  instance,  literature  is  indebted  for  works  of  the  most  serious  importance ; 
works  of  such  labor  and  extent,  that  they  have  been  begun  by  one  generation  of  men, 
and  left  to  be  prosecuted  and  finished  by  those  which  succeeded.  This  is  a  sort  of  ser- 
vice which  could  not  well  have  been  rendered  to  mankind  but  by  those  wlio  did  not 
labor  for  profit,  and  who  were  always  in  a  state  of  continued  existence,  by  being  linked 
together  as  members  of  the  same  society. 

IV. 

Charlemagne  undertook,  at  his  leisure,  to  learn  to  write.  "What  a  characteristic 
of  the  age  !  "  Sed  parum  prospere  successit,"  says  Eginhard,  "  labor  prseposterus  ac 
sero  inchoatus."  Of  such  a  man,  so  unlettered,  the  merit  is  the  greater,  afe  we  are  told, 
at  the  same  time,  that  he  attended  to  the  liberal  education  of  his  children ;  that  he  had 
books  read  to  him  while  at  table ;  that  he  acquired  the  Latin  language,  and  a  knowledge 
of  the  Greek ;  that'he  zealously  cultivated  the  liberal  arts,  and  bestowed  on  the  profes- 
sors every  mark  of  respect  and  honor ;  that  he  studied  the  sciences  of  rhetoric,  logic,  and 
astronomy ;  that  he  ordered  the  laws  of  his  subject  nations  to  be  drawn  up  and  reduced 
to  writing.  His  great  merit  seems  to  have  been,  that  he  knew  his  best  interests  and 
duties,  and  therefore  felt  for  the  people,  and  patronized  the  free  assemblies  of  the  state. 

V. 

Prologs  Legis  Salicoe. 

Placuit  atque  convenit  inter  Francos,  et  eorum  proceres,  ut  propter  servandum  in- 
ter se  pacis  studium,  omnia  incrementa  veterum  rixarum  resecare  deberent :  et  quia  ce- 
teris ge^tibus  juxta  se  positis  fortitudinis  brachio  praeminebant,  ita  etiam  legum  auc- 
toritate  praicellerent ;  ut  juxta  qualitatem  causarum  sumeret  criminalis  actio  terminum. 
Extiterunt  igitur  inter  eos  electi  de  pluribus  quatuor  vii'i  his  nominibus,  Wisogastus, 
Bodogastus,  Saiogastus,  et  Widogastus,  in  villis  quae  ultra  Rhenum  sunt,  Salehaim,  et 
Bodohaim,  et  Widohaim :  qui  per  tres  mallos  (markets)  convenientes,  omnem  causarum 
origincm  soUicite  discutiendo  tractantes,  de  singulis  judicium  decreverunt  hoc  modo. 

Anno  ab  incarnatione  Domini  nostri  Jesu  Christi  DCCXCVIII.,  indictione  sextS, 
dominus  Karolus  Rex  Prancorum  inclytus  hunc  libellum  tractatCls  legia  Salicae  scribere 
ordinavit. 

VI. 

The  conquered  Romans  were  indulged  by  the  Barbarians  in  the  free  use  of  their 
own  law  (the  Theodosian  Code),  especially  in  the  cases  of  marriage,  inheritance,  and 
other  important  transactions  of  life. 

VII. 

With  respect  to  property,  the  student  will  leara  the  situation  of  the  Romans  by  con- 
sulting the  thirtieth  book  of  Montesquieu,  from  the  fifth  chapter  to  the  sixteenth. 

The  Franks  seem  to  have  seized  onlv  on  a  part  of  their  lands,  probably  because,  in 
the  then  existing  state  of  society,  they  had  no  occasion  for  the  whole.  Tliose  of  the 
Northern  nations  who  settled  near  Italy  were  induced  or  obliged  to  treat  them  more 
liberally.  The  Burgundians,  for  instance,  took  two  thirds  of  the  land,  and  one  third 
of  the  bondmen. 

The  slaves  were  not  Romans,  but  those  unhappy  men  who  were  carried  into  captivity 
by  a  conquering  army,  retiring,  gs  was  often  the  case,  from  a  province  or  a  kingdom 
which  it  had  overrun. 

Freemen  among  the  Barbarians  seem  to  have  paid  no  taxes  themselves. 

Of  the  Romans,  some  seem  to  have  been  proprietors,  and  some  tributaries :  by  which 
term  was  probably  meant  those  who  paid  rent. 


LECTURES  I. -IV.  v  669 

When  the  Burgundian  empire  was  attacked  by  Clovis,  its  fall  was  delayed  by  the  as- 
sistance which  the  Burgundians  received  from  their  conquered  subjects,  the  Komans: 
one  instance  among  many  of  the  policy  of  all  mild  governpnent,  —  so  often  exhibited, 
but  in  vain,  to  the  humanity  of  those  who  direct  the  counsels  of  states  and  empires. 

The  Burgundians,  the  Lombards,  and  the  Visigoths  had  been  more  connected  with 
the  Romans ;  and  their  laws  and  their  codes  are,  therefore,  favorably  distinguished  from 
the  codes  of  the  more  simple  and  rude  Barbarians. 

• 

VIII. 

Many  efforts  seem  to  have  been  made  by  these  Barbarians  to  preserve  integrity  and 
despatch  in  the  judges,  and  other  officers  connected  with  the  administration  of  justice. 
This  is  the  great  difficulty.     "  Custodes  ipsos  quis  custodiet  ? " 

The  judges  must  be  few,  the  bar  intelligent,  the  public  interested  in  their  own  politi- 
cal happiness :  that  is,  the  judges  of  a  country,  like  all  other  human  beings,  can  be  kept 
virtuous  only  by  being  subjected  to  the  criticism  of  their  fellow-creatures. 

IX. 

These  ancient  Codes  and  Capitularies  remained  long  in  force  in  Germany,  longer 
in  Italy,  still  longer  in  France.  Their  authority  was  shaken  by  the  incursions  of  the 
Normans,  and  by  the  weakness  of  government  under  the  successors  of  Charlemagne. 

Curious  particulars  occur  in  these  Capitularies :  the  influence  of  the  clergy  more 
especially,  the  deep  and  dark  superstition  of  the  people,  and,  on  the  whole,  the  unhappy 
state  of  society. 

The  clergy,  however,  were  considered  as  the  patrons  and  guardians  of  justice  and 
humanity,  as  far  as  justice  and  humanity  were  then  understood.  "  Sacerdotes  Dei," 
says  one  of  the  laws  (30th*)  of  the  Visigoths,  "quibus  pro  remediis  oppressorum  vel 
pauperum  divinitus  cura  commissa  est,"  &c.,  &c.  This  was  a  law  of  one  of  their  princes 
in  the  year  670. 

X. 

Symptoms  of  the  feudal  system  appear  in  these  laws.  Of  the  9th  law  of  the  9th 
book  t  the  title  is,  —  "  De  his'  qui  in  exercitum  constituto  loco  vel  tempore  dejinito  non 
successerint,  aut  refugerint ;  vel  quae  pars  servorum  unimcujusque  in  eadem  expeditione 
debeat  proficisci."  But  quite  distinctly  about  the  year  801,  in  the  edicts  of  Charlemagne, 
cap.  1  :  J  —  "In  primis  quicunque  heneficia  habere  videntur, omnes  in  hostem  veniant." 
So  the  second.    And  again,  —  "  Omnis  liber  homo,"  &c.,  &c. 

XI. 

Particui^ars  of  an  amusing  nature  are  sometimes  found  in  these  ancient  documents. 
"  Si  quis  medicus,"  says  one  of  the  laws  of  the  Visigoths  who  possessed  Spain,  "  dum 
flebotomum  exercet,  et  ingenuum  debilitaverit,  centum  solidos  coactus  exsolvat.  Si 
vero  mortuus  fuerit,  continuo  propinquis  tradendus  est,  ut  quod  de  eo  facere  voluerint, 
habeant  potestatem."  §  The  Sangrados  of  Spain  seem  to  have  made  their  appearance 
early. 

XII. 

The  superstition  of  the  age,  as  may  be  supposed,  furnishes  many  laws  and  observ- 
ances and  ceremonies  that  may  make  the  reader,  in  his  happier  state  of  religious 
knowledge,  "smile  or  sigh,"  according  to  his  particular  temperament. 

The  intolerance  of  these  lawgivers  is  such  as  might  be  expected ;  for  the  Barbarian 
of  the  seventh  century  speaks  thus,  alluding  to  unbelievers  (a  title  in  all  probability 
then  easily  acquired) :  —  "In  virtute  Dei  aggrediar,  hostes  ejus  insequar,  gemulos  ejus 
persequar,"  &c.,  &c.,  till  he  renders  them  like  the  "pulverem  aut  lutum  sordidum 
platearum,"  &c.,  &c.    The  reason  why  his  fellow-creatures  are  to  be  thus  trampled  \nto 

*  Cod.  Leg.  Wisigoth.  Lib.  IL  Tit.  I.  cap.  xxx.  ed.  Lindenbrogii.  — N. 

t  Ibid.  Lib.  IX.  Tit.  II.  cap.  ix.  —  N. 

:  Capitulare  Anni  DCCCVII.     Capit.  Reg.  Franc,  ed.  Baluz.  Tom.  I.  col.  457.  —  N. 

§  Cod.  Leg.  Wiaigoth.  Lib.  XI.  Tit.  I.  cap.  vi.  —  N. 


670  NOTES. 

the  dust  is  much  the  same  that  would  have  been  given  by  the  barbarians  of  all  &abse- 
quent  centuries :  —  "  Ut  dum  fidcles  populos  in  religionis  sacrae  pace  possederim,  atquo 
infideles  ad  concordiam  religiosse  pacis  adduxerim,  et  mihi  crescat  in  gloria  prsemium; 
ut  virtutem  Dei  dilatem,  atque  augeam  regnum."  * 

XIII. 

AoAiNST  the  ift)or  Jews  there  was  an  edict,  "Ne  Judsei  sectam  suam  defendere  au 
deant,"  —  which,  it  seems,  was  "religioni  nostrse  insultantes,"  &c.t  Yet  were  law- 
giver? like  these  able  to  express  themselves,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  15th  law,  with  all 
the  fervor  of  eloquence  and  pietj^:  —  "  Juro  et  per  Jesum,"  &c.,  &c.    p.  2324 

XIV. 

In  these  Codes  and  Capitularies  may  be  seen  evidently  the  origin  of  many  of  the 
peculiarities  of  our  own  laws  and  customs,  and  the  practice  of  all  the  more  distinguish- 
ing rites  of  the  Roman  Catholic  communion:  the  services,  even  as  here  given,  are 
solemn  and  affecting. 

Lindenbrogius  and  Baluze  are  the  authors  where  every  thing  that  concerns  these 
subjects  is  to  be  found. 

On  the  feudal  system  I  have  made  a  few  observations  and  bound  them  up  separately 
with  Mr.  Butler's  note,  and  they  lie  on  the  table. 

XV. 

Progress  of  Society. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  Stuart,  in  his  criticisms  on  Dr.  Robertson,  was  6ut  too  much 
affected  by  feelings  of  personal  animosity :  he  was  a  man  of  powerful  but  irregular 
mind,  and,  in  his  differences  with  such  a  man  as  the  Principal,  must  have  been  in  the 
wrong.    I  have  understood  this  to  be  the  case. 

XVI. 

Mahomet. 

The  dreadful  alliance  of  military  and  religious  enthusiasm  has  often  been  exhibited 
on  tlie  theatre  of  the  world :  but  the  fact  is,  that  the  military  spirit  is  easily  associated 
with  any  strong  passion.  The  soldiers  of  the  Roman  republic  in  ancient  times,  and  of 
the  French  nation  in  our  own  times,  are  instances  to  this  effect ;  and  the  rulers  of  any 
state  should  be  very  careful  how  they  place  their  enemies  within  the  reach  of  any  union 
of  this  kind. 

For  the  life  of  Mahomet  we  have  to  depend  on  Abulfeda,  who  did  not  reign  till  1310, 
and  who  cannot  appeal  to  any  writer  of  the  first  century  of  the  Hegira.  This  is  a  dis- 
agreeable circumstance.  —  See  Gibbon,  note,  Chap.  50. 

XVII. 

^  The  French  peers  seem  never  to  have  been  satisfied,  unless  the  origin  of  their  dis- 
tinction was  lost  in  the  obscurity  of  the  earliest  ages. 

A  reasonable  opinion  is  delivered  by  the  President  Hfenault,  in  the  Life  of  Hugh 
Capet.    Montesquieu  may  be  consulted,  and  Mably 

XVIII. 

The  rise  of  the  Norman  empire  in  Sicily,  in  the  relation  of  which  history  becomes 
romance,  should  also  be  considered.    It  may  be  read  in  Gibbon. 

XIX. 

The  history  of  the  Albigenses,  and  the  crusade  against  them,  arc  deserving  of  at 

*  Cod.  Leg.  Wisiffoth.  Lib.  XII.  Tit.  II.  cap.  i.  —  N.        t  Ibid.  Lib.  XII.  Tit.  III.  cap.  ix.  —  N. 
I  Ibid.  Lib.  XII.  Tit.  m.  cap.  XV.  —  N. 


LECTURES  l.-IV.  671 

tention.  An  account  may  be  found  in  Pore  Daniel,  or  rather  in  Velly.  But  the 
French  writers  must  always  be  read  with  due  allowance,  when  the  principles  of  civil 
and  religious  liberty  are  concerned. 

These  heretics,  the  Albigenses,  were  among  the  precursors  of  the  Reformation. 
Their  manners  and  opinions  have  been  probably  misrepresented  and  vilified.  Their 
fate  and  history  are  melancholy  and  interesting. 

The  subject  seems  properly  stated  by  Dr.  Ranken,  in  his  late  History  t  f  France ;  and 
it  is  here  that  the  student  will  in  the  most  ready  manner  acquire  a  proper  idea  of  it. 

XX. 

St.  Louis  {Louis  the  Ninth,  of  France). 

The  penal  provisions  of  St.  Louis  bear  a  sanguinary  and  ferocious  character. 

The  efforts  which  he  made  for  the  serfs  became,  from  their  very  feebleness,  an  honor 
to  the  legislator,  and  an  additional  disgrace  to  the  age. 

The  serf,  says  the  lawgiver,  may  be  pursued  wherever  he  flies  for  liberty.  But  all 
causes  of  serfage  are  to  be  decided  by  the  ordinary  judges  of  the  crown. 

In  all  cases,  where  the  proofs  for  and  against  the  serfage  are  equal,  let  the  decision 
be  in  favor  of  liberty. 

Let  the  child  of  a  serf  and  a  freewoman  be  free  like  the  mother :  "  a  new  and  extra- 
ordinary favor,"  says  the  historian. 

XXI. 

With  respect  to  the  more  early  jurisprudence  of  France,  it  may  be  observed,  that 
the  ancient  Codes  and  Capitularies  had  fallen  into  disuse ;  ancient  customs,  which  had 
always  existed  along  with  them,  multiplied  as  they  declined.  Written  collections  of 
these  were  often  made. 

The  monarchs  of  the  Capetian  race,  when  they  gave  their  fiefs,  prescribed  by  charter 
the  terms  on  which  they  were  to  be  held.  The  result  of  the  whole  was,  that  each 
seigniory  had  its  particular  usages. 

Among  such  various  systems  of  jurisprudence,  the  "  establishments  of  St.  Louis  " 
have  always  been  considered  with  great  respect,  on  account  of  their  wisdom  and  an- 
tiquity. 

In  1453,  Charles  the  Seventh  made  an  effort  to  reduce  the  various  customs  of 
France  into  some  form,  and  to  ascertain  their  nature:  a  measure  of  such  difficulty,  that 
it  lingered  till  the  reign  of  Louis  the  Twelfth,  and  was  not  completed  till  1609."  The 
whole,  when  finished  and  sanctioned,  was  called  "  Coutumier  de  France,"  and  has  been 
edited  by  Richebourg,  in  four  volumes  folio. —  See  Butler's  Horae  Juridicae. 

xxn. 

Power  of  the  Pope. 

Charlemagne  elected  the  Pope,  and  was,  therefore,  supreme ;  but  the  Pope  had 
anointed  Charlemagne,  and  was,  therefore,  supreme  also.  The  scale  'of  power  was 
thus  left  to  incline  to  the  one  side  or  the  other. 

The  steps,  by  which  the  power  of  the  Pope  became  a  despotism  so  complete,  ara 
marked  with  sufficient  minuteness  by  Giannone,  in  his  ecclesiastical  chapters,  par- 
ticularly  in  his  fifth  chapter  of  his  nineteenth  book,  which  will  supply  adequate  ir  ■ 
formation. 

The  first  great  point  was  to  exempt  the  clergy  from  secular  jurisdiction,  and  this 
was  at  length  accomplished. 

The  second,  to  include  within  the  description  of  clergy  all  who  had  ever  received  the 
tonsure. 

The  third,  to  draw  all  causes  within  their  jurisdiction  which  involved  any  breach  of 
faith ;  for  where  there  was  a  breach  of  faith,  there  was  sin,  and  therefore  the  soul  was 
concerned,  and  therefore  the  Church. 

The  fourth,  to  bring  all  testaments  within  their  jurisdiction ;  for  testaments,  it  seems, 
were  a  matter  of  conscience.  Add  to  this,  that  the  testator  was  to  be  buried  by  the 
Church,  and  his  soul  to  be  put  into  a  state  of  rest  and  quiet ;  his  movables  were  there- 
fore to  be  seized,  in  the  first  place,  to  put  the  Church  into  a  state  of  rest  and  quiet  also 


672  NOTES. 

He  might,  too,  have  made  bequests  to  the  Church :  a  point  which  the  Church  were, 
therefore,  to  ascertain. 

Again,  if  among  the  litigants  there  was  a  clergyman,  the  cause  was  to  be  referred  to 
the  Churcli. 

Then  the  Church  was  to  be  appealed  to,  if  the  civil  lawyers  disagreed,  —  a  circum- 
stance which  might  certainly  happen ;  for  the  Jews,  in  a  similar  case,  had  always,  it 
was  observed,  applied  to  the  Levites. 

Then  they  were  to  supply  the  defects  of  negligence  and  partiality  in  the  secular 
judges. 

Then  they  were  to  take  cognizance  of  all  causes  where  the  poor  and  strangers,  where 
wards  and  widows,  were  concerned ;  for  of  such  they  considered  themselves  as  pro- 
tectors. 

Next,  they  insisted  that  many  crimes,  such  as  bigamy  and  usury,  were  not  only,  in 
strictness,  of  an  ecclesiastical  nature,  but  were  at  least  liable  to  both  jurisdictions,  the 
spiritual  as  well  as  the  temporal ;  and  therefore  they  took  care  to  exert  proper  speed 
and  arrive  at  the  offender  first. 

Lastly,  all  cases  where  matrimony  was  concerned;  for  matrimony  was  a  sacrament. 

All  this  was  accompanied  by  the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition,  which  was  established 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  which  originated  in  a  natural  but  most  unfortunate  mis- 
Jake,  that  heresy  was  a  crime  that  must  at  all  events  be  prevented  and  punished.  The 
civil  power,  before  the  appearance  of  the  Inquisition,  had  proceeded  to  fine,  imprison- 
ment, and.  at  last,  death ;  so  rapid  is  the  dreadful  march  of  intolerance !  But  when 
the  preaching  friars,  and  the  friars  minores,  the  Dominican  and  Franciscan  orders,  had 
sprung  up,  the  Dominicans  were  soon  ready  to  execute  any  commission  of  inquir}'^  into 
heresy ;  and  the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition  was  immediately  in  a  state  of  activity,  and 
arrayed  in  all  its  tremendous  apparatus  of  familiars,  inquisitors,  torturers,  and  execu- 
tioners. 

Finally,  it  was  not  only  in  spiritual,  but  temporal  matters,  that  the  ecclesiastical 
power  was  to  be  supreme.  Princes  were  to  be  summoned  to  Rome  to  purge  them- 
selves of  their  crimes.     The  Pope  himself  was  to  be  the  lord  of  the  universe. 

The  means  by  which  such  a  system  of  jurisdiction  was  extended  and  established  ap- 
pear to  have  been  the  different  processes  of  spiritual  punishment,  ending  at  last  in  total 
excommunication ;  a  sentence,  of  the  horrors  of  which  no  one  now  can  have  the  slight- 
est conception. 

xxni. 

In  Dryden's  play  of  Sebastian,  Act  ii.  Scene  1,  may  be  found  the  image  applied  by 
Hume  to  the  clergy  of  every  age  and  description. 

DoRAx  to  the  Mufti. 

"Content  you  with  monopolizing  heaven, 
And  lei  this  little  hanging  ball  alone ; 
For,  give  you  but  a  foot  of  conscience  there, 
And  you,  like  Archimedes,  loss  the  globe." 

The  image  is  not  too  strong,  when  applied  to  the  clergy  of  the  Dark  A^es.  Hume  was 
a  reader  of  Dryden's  plays,  and  probably  borrowed  in  this  instance,  but  without  ac- 
knowledgment. 

XXIV. 

"When  Charlemagne  was  no  more,  the  Saxons  rushed  out  in  every  direction,  as  did 
afterwards  the  Danes  and  Normans;  and  they  were  able,  from  the  "almost  incredible 
lightness  of  their  vessels,  their  desperate  seamanship  and  hardy  courage,  to  be  a  mora 
dreadful  torment  to  the  peaceful  inhabitants  of  Eurojic  than  even  the  Northern  con- 
querors themselves  had  been.  They  established  themselves  in  Sicily,  a  large  division 
of  France,  in  England,  &c.,  &c. 

XXV. 

In  the  history  of  the  free  and  commercial  cities,  there  are  various  traits  of  the  opera- 
tions of  the  principle  of  utility. 


LECTURES  I. -IT.  673 


XXVI. 

SoJiE  idea  must  be  formed  by  the  student  of  a  very  fatiguing  portion  of  history :  the 
times  of  the  Hanseatic  league,  the  struggles  of  the  Emperors  and  Popes,  &c.,  &c 
Pfeffel  may  be  consulted,  and  Gibbon.  The  student,  through  all  the  different  dynas 
ties  noted  down  in  Pfeffel,  must  mark  well  the  relative  power  and  pretensions  of  the 
Popes  and  Emperors :  the  effort  of  the  See  to  deprive  the  Emperors  of  the  nomination 
to  the  vacant  benefices,  to  transfer  to  the  Holy  See  the  election  even  of  the  Emperoi 
lumself,  &c.,  &c. 

Gregory  the  Seventh  was  the  great  hero  of  this  species  of  warfare  against  the  im- 
provement and  happiness  of  society.  Excommunication  was  the  great  engine  by 
which  the  Papal  See  performed  its  wonders.  The  Popes,  even  while  arrogating  to 
themselves  the  right  of  dethroning  Emperors,  had  the  hardiness  to  reason,  —  "  Officii 
nostri  est  regem  investire :  ergo  quem  meritum  investimus,  immeritum  quare  non  di- 
vestiamus  ? " 

It  is  the  misery  of  mankind,  that  there  is  no  cause  so  unreasonable,  for  which  some- 
thing like  reasoning  may  not  be  produced.  It  is  thus  that  men  originally  good  are 
often  led  step  by  step  into  serious  faults,  and  that  bad  men  can  affect  to  palliate  and 
even  convert  their  crimes  into  virtues. 

In  the  course  of  this  struggle,  Conrad,  king  of  the  Romans,  and  heir  to  the  Emperor, 
appeared  against  him  in  arms.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  unhappy  father  appealed  to  the 
rights  of  his  crown,  and  the  common  feelings  of  human  nature.  "  I  acknowledge  not," 
said  this  abominable  son,  "  either  for  my  emperor  or  father,  one  who  is  excommuni- 
cated." 

xxvn. 

The  reign  of  Frederic  the  Second  should  be  particularly  noticed,  as  it  exhibits  the 
lengthened  and  intrepid  resistance  of  a  most  accomplished  and  able  prince  to  the  Pa- 
pal See.  Innocent,  when  Pope,  was  no  longer  his  friend.  The  official  character,  as 
usual,  triumphed  over  the  natural  feelings  of  the  man. 

XXVIII. 

The  towns  and  cities,  the  great  hope  of  mankind  at  this  period,  acquired  freedom 
and  importance  gradually  and  insensibly.  By  Henry  the  Fifth  and  Lothaire  they 
were  'converted  each  into  a  sort  of  little  republic,  and  their  number  was  multiplied. 
The  artisans  were  enfranchised,  &c.,  &c.,  till  men  who  had  once  been  objects  of  sale 
and  transfer  emerged  at  length  from  their  unnatural  degradation. 

XXIX. 

Frederic  was  a  great  patron  of  the  cities  of  the  Empire. 

It  is  a  trait  of  these  times,  that  Frederic,  even  in  the  cities  he  patronized,  exercised 
the  power  of  uniting  in  marriage,  as  he  pleased,  the  children  of  the  principal  citizens. 

XXX 

Gibbon  has  made  several  observations  on  the  different  Emperors  of  these  different 
dynasties,  and  on  their  contests  in  Italy. 

Giannone  should  likewise  be  consulted.  His  work  is  a  History  of  Naples ;  but  many 
parts  may  be  selected  of  great  general  interest  and  importance. 

The  observations  of  Pfeffel,  on  the  great  interregnum  of  twenty-three  years  between 
Frederic  the  Second  and  Rodolph,  should  be  particularly  considered. 

XXXI. 

The  most  extraordinary  man  of  his  age  was  Louis  the  Ninth  (St.  Louis),  unitr^ 
the  magnanimity  of  the  hero  and  the  simplicity  of  the  child. 

The  student  can  scarcely  be  excused,  if  he  does  not  turn  aside  to  look  at  the  account 
of  his  expedition  given  by  Joinville,  especially  as  Mr.  Johnes  has  so  laudably  employed 
oimself  in  rendering  it  accessible  to  every  reader  by  a  new  translation,  accompanied  by 

85  3e 


674  NOTES. 

extracts  from  the  notes  and  dissertations  of  the  indefatigable  Du  Cange.  The  knights, 
the  raonarch,  and  their  followers  are  shown  in  the  faithful  mirror  of  their  ordinary  con- 
duct.    The  picture  is  the  picture  of  ancient  manners  and  opinions. 

The  Lord  de  Joinville  is  no  philosopher,  but  he  incidentally  supplies  materials  to 
tlwse  who  are.  "  The  king,"  says  he,  "  summoned  all  the  barons  to  Paris  to  renew 
their  oath  of  fealty  and  homage ;  but  I,"  says  Joinville,  "  who  was  not  his  man,  would 
not  take  the  oath."  This  passage  has  often  been  quoted,  to  show  that  the  under- vas- 
sals owed  fidelity  and  homage  to  their  own  immediate  lords  only  and  exclusively :  an 
•mportant  distinction,  very  favorable  to  disorder,  &c. 

XXXII. 

In  another  passage,  notice  is  taken  of  what  were  called  "  the  pleadings  at  the  gate  " ; 
and  the  second  dissertation  from  Du  Cange,  quoted  by  Mr.  Johnes,  exhibits  concisely 
the  natural  progress  of  jurisprudence,  from  the  first  audience  of  complaints  by  the 
kin{^>:s  themselves,  to  the  dispensation  of  justice  by  their  governors  and  deputies ;  the 
establishment  of  courts  of  justice  in  their  palaces;  and,  lastly,  the  subdivision  of  the 
Parliament,  or  great  court  of  justice,  into  different  courts  or  chambers. 

'Again,  in  the  instructions  of  St.  Louis  to  his  son,  given  by  Joinville,  the  king  says, 
"  Maintain  such  liberties  and  franchises  as  thy  ancestors  have  done ;  for,  by  the  riches 
and  power  of  thy  principal  towns,  thy  enemies  will  be  afraid  of  affronting  or  attacking 
thee,  —  more  especially  thy  equals,  the  barons  or  such  like."  These  last  words  illus- 
trate and  enforce  the  reasonings  of  philosophical  writers  on  these  times. 

In  the  narrative  of  Joinville  we  see  the  readiness  and  confidence  with  which  the  cru- 
saders converted  every  operation  of  the  general  laws  of  the  Deity  into  marks  of  the  par- 
ticular interference  of  Heaven.  This  has  always  been  one  of  the  characteristics  of  en- 
thusiasm. 


LECTURES  v.,  VI. 

In  reading  these  Lectures  on  the  subject  of  England,  I  took  occaBion  to  introduce 
the  following  remarks. 

I. 

We  are  now  in  possession  of  some  valuable  publications  from  the  pen  of  Sir  James 

Mackintosh  on  the  subject  of  English  history.  These  octavo  volumes  are  intended  by 
the  editor  for  the  general  reader,  and  are  proposed  as  a  sort  of  popular  history. 

But  the  fact  is,  that  the  mind  of  this  eminent  man  of  letters  is  of  too  philosophic  a  na- 
ture, too  generalizing,  and  too  enlightened,  to  admit  of  his  writing  for  any  one  who  can 
be  described  by  any  such  term  as  the  general  reader.  These  are  not  books,  unassum- 
ing as  they  may  look,  that  he  who  runs  may  read ;  he  who  reads  must  move  slowly  and 
stop  often.  Sir  James  is  one  who  necessarily  thinks  in  a  manner  that,  however  it  may 
afterwards  reward,  will  assuredly  first  require,  the  best  thinking  of  any  man  who  means 
to  be  benefited  by  what  he  reads. 

T  must  mention,  too,  that  there  is  an  air  of  uncertainty  about  the  pages  of  these  littlo 
volumes,  that  renders  them  very  agreeable.  It  is  evidently  quite  impossible  to  know, 
as  we  proceed,  what  we  are  ncxl  to  find,  —  that  is,  what  a  man  so  enlightened  and  80 
able  may  think  it  worth  his  while  to  observe. 

We  shall  probably  lose  the  great  work  which  Sir  James  projected  as  a  continuation 
of  Hume.  This,  on  every  account,  is  for  ever  to  be  lamented ;  no  one  ever  had  access 
to  such  materials,  or  was  so  fitted  to  use  them.  But  the  present  cabinet  volumes  will, 
no  doubt,  present  to  us  the  most  valuable  comments  on  the  most  important  characteri 
and  periods  of  our  history ;  —  but  these  are  treatises  on  history,  not  histories. 

Since  I  wrote  what  you  have  just  heard,  this  illustrious  man  of  letters  has  sunk  into 
the  grave,  from  a  slight  accident  and  immaturely.  No  loss  can  be  so  great  to  the 
literary  world.  His  understanding  was  of  so  superior  a  quality,  his  memory  so  aston- 
ishing, and  his  disposition  so  truly  courteous  and  obliging,  that  he  was  always  able  and 
always  willing  to  iu^truot  every  person  who  approached  him.    And  on  every  occasioOi 


LECTURES  v.,  VI.  675 

his  entire  sympathy  with  the  great  interests  of  mankind,  and  his  enlightened  compre- 
hension of  them,  were  distinctly  marked.  He  was  one  of  those  whom,  for  the  benefit 
of  others,  one  could  have  wished  exempt  from  the  common  lot  of  humanity.  One  could 
have  said  to  him,  as  do  the  Persians  to  their  king,  —  "  Live  for  ever."  He  should  have 
been  exempted,  too,  from  the  common  cares  of  our  existence,  and,  instead  of  having  to 
make  provision  for  the  day  that  was  going  over  him,  should  have  had  nothing  to  do 
but  to  read,  to  think,  and  to  write.  Men  of  these  great  intellectual  powers  should 
not,  like  their  fabled  prototype,  be  chained  to  their  rock  with  the  vultures  to  tear 
them.  ^ 

Some  papers  remain,  which  will  afford  a  melancholy  indication  of  what  under  favor- 
able circumstances  he  might  have  done :  what  he  has  done,  however,  is  of  great  value 
and  will  live.  He  can  be  properly  estimated  only  by  those  who  were  fortunate  enough 
to  know  him. 

n. 

Op  Mr.  Hallam's  Constitutional  History  I  spoke  in  the  following  manner  in  n/f 
lectures  in  November,  1828. 

Mr.  Hallam's  Constitutional  History  of  England  I  must  earnestly  recommend,  for 
it  is  a  work  of  great  research,  great  ability,  great  impartiality,  often  of  very  manly 
eloquence ;  the  work  of  an  enlightened  lawyer,  an  accomplished  scholar,  and  a  steady 
assertor  of  the  best  interests  of  mankind.  It  is  a  source  of  great  satisfaction  to  me 
that  such  a  work  exists,  for  every  page  is  full  of  statements  and  opinions  on  every  topic 
and  character  of  consequence  since  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh ;  and  these  senti- 
ments and  opinions  are  so  learned  and  well  reasoned,  that  I  am  quite  gratified  to  think 
that  the  student  can  now  never  want  a  guide  and  an  instructor  worthy  to  conduct  and 
counsel  him  in  his  constitutional  inquiries.  Mr.  Hallam  is,  indeed,  a  stern  and  severe 
critic,  and  the  student  may  be  allowed  to  love  and  honor  many  of  our  patriots,  states- 
men, and  divines  in  a  more  warm  and  unqualified  manner  than  does  Mr.  Hallam ;  but 
the  perfect  calmness  of  Mr.  Hallam's  temperament  makes  his  standard  of  moral  and 
political  virtue  high,  and  the  fitter  on  that  account  to  be  presented  to  youthful  minds. 

There  are  objectionable  passages,  and  even  strange  passages,  more  particularly  in 
the  notes ;  but  they  are  of  no  consequence  in  a  work  of  so  vast  a  range,  and  of  so  much 
merit.  And  Mr.  Hallam  may  have  given  offence,  which  could  never  have  been  his  in- 
tention, to  some  good  men,  to  whom  their  establishments  are  naturally  so  dear ;  but  I 
see  not  how  this  was  to  be  avoided,  if  he  was  to  render  equal  justice  to  all  persons  and 
parties,  all  sects  and  churches,  in  their  turn,  —  and  if  he  was  to  do  bis  duty,  as  he  has 
nobly  done,  to  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  his  country. 

III. 

The  story  of  England  has  of  late  been  illustrated  by  many  intelligent  and  laborious 
inquirers.  We  have  had  the  Roman  Catholic  case  stated  by  Dr.  Lingard,  an  author 
of  original  inquiry  and  vigorous  mind,  —  certainly  a  very  skilful  controversial  writer. 
For  similar  reasons  we  may  now  consider  ourselves  as  in  possession  of  the  republican 
case,  during  the  times  of  Charles  the  First;  for  Mr.  Godwin  has  dedicated  four  volumes 
to  the  sul)jcct,  and  for  this  express  purpose.  A  new  edition  of  Burnet  has  been  given 
us.  The  History  of  Clarendon  has  at  last,  very  creditably  to  our  sister  University, 
been  piosented  to  the  public  in  its  original  state.  Miss  Aikin  has  drawn  up  interesting 
Memoirs  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  James  the  First,  and  an  important  work  on  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  First:  she  is  a  diligent  and  sagacious  writer.  There  are  treatises  com- 
ing out,  volume  after  volume,  by  a  most  entertaining  and  learned  antiquarian,  Mr. 
D'Israeli.  And  we  have  fierce  and  eloquent  orations  on  the  merits  and  demerits  of 
the  great  personages  of  our  history,  ecclesiastical  and  civil,  Laud,  Clarendon,  and 
others,  in  the  different  reviews  by  which  our  periodical  literature  is  now  distinguished 

There  are  several  very  agreeable  and  sensible  publications  by  Lord  John  RusselL 
Recently  has  been  published  a  posthumous  work  of  Mr.  Coxe,  a  literary  laborer  ta 
whom  the  historical  student  is  so  much  indebted,  —  the  Pelham  Papers :  they  supply 
the  information  that  has  been  so  long  wanted,  with  respect  to  the  politicb  and  charac- 
ters of  the  members  of  the  Pelham  and  Newcastle  administrations. 


676  NOTES. 

IV. 

Edward  the  Confessor's  Laws, 

The  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor  are  lost.  The  great  Alfred  was  a  legislator ;  andf 
Edward  the  Confessor  is  represented  as  having  revised  and  improved  the  laws  of  his 
predecessor,  Edgar,  and  therefore  probably  of  Alfred,  rather  than  as  having  instituted 
any  code  of  his  own.  It  i^ght  have  been  thought,  therefore,  that  some  information 
on  this  subject  might  be  obtained  from  any  writings  that  respected  Alfred.  There  is 
a  life  of  him  by  the  monk  Asserius,  and  there  are  laws  of  his  which  are  come  down  to 
us,  and  which  may  be  seen  in  Wilkins;  but  neither  in  the  work  of  his  biographer,  nor 
in  these  laws  of  Alfred,  can  any  thing  be  found  which  may  enable  us  to  understand 
what  were  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor. 

It  may,  perhaps,  give  the  student  some  insight  into  the  nature  of  an'  inquiry  like  this, 
if  he  takes  the  trouble  of  following  the  subject  through  one,  at  least,  of  the  notes  of  a 
leai-ned  antiquarian. 

Eadmerius  is  a  monkish  writer,  who  gives  the  history  of  his  own  age,  of  "William  the 
First  to  AVilliam  Rufus  and  Henry  the  First :  his  work  was  edited  by  the  learned  Sel- 
den.  Now  it  is  known  that  William  the  First  entered  into  some  agreement  with  his 
sul)jects  respecting  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor;  and  it  might  be  expected  that 
Eadmerius,  when  he  gives  the  history  of  the  reign  of  William,  would  also  have  given 
us  some  account  of  this  remarkable  code.  But  in  the  course  of  the  history,  the  monk, 
with  more  than  the  stupidity  of  a  monk,  instead  of  giving  us  these  laws,  observes,  that 
he  "forbears  to  mention  what  was  promulgated  by  William  with  respect  to  secular 
matters."  So  here  we  have  a  complete  disappointment.  This  gives  occasion  to  his 
editor,  Selden,  in  a  note,  to  consider  the  subject  more  at  length. 

Selden  produces  a  passage  from  the  Lichfield  Chronicle,  a  very  ancient  monkish 
writing,  from  which  it  appears  that  the  Conqueror,  in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign, 
granted  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor  to  the  intercession  of  his  English  subjects,  — 
"ad  preces  communitatis  Anglorum";  and  that  twelve  men  were  chosen  from  each 
county,  who  were  to  collect  and  state  what  these  laws  were ;  and  that  what  they  said 
was  to  be  written  down  by  the  Archbishop  of  York  and  Bishop  of  London.  Here, 
then,  we  have  a  fact  connected  with  the  subject. 

Another  monkish  historian,  Roger  Hoveden,  who  lived  under  Henry  the  Second  and 
John,  gives  the  same  account,  and  he  subjoins  the  laws  themselves  at  full  length. 
From  him  they  are  published  by  "Wilkins ;  and  here,  tlien,  we  might  suppose  that  we 
had  reached  the  object  of  our  inquiry.  But  not  so.  When  we  come  to  peruse  them, 
there  is  little  to  be  found  which  could  make  them  so  dear  to  the  English  commonalty; 
and  by  looking  at  the  eleventh  head,  on  Dane-gelt,  we  perceive  the  name  of  William 
the  younger,  or  of  William  Rufus,  which  shows,  as  Selden  observes,  that  they  are  of  a 
later  date  than  the  time  of  the  Conqueror,  or  at  least  most  unskilfully  interpolated. 
This,  therefore,  on  the  whole,  is  also  a  disappointment. 

Selden  has  therefore  recourse,  in  the  next  place,  to  Ingulphus,  who  was  a  sort  of 
secretary  to  the  Conqueror.  Ingulphus,  at  the  end  of  his  History,  tells  us  that  he 
brought  the  code  of  Edward's  laws,  which  William  had  authorized  and  renewed,  from 
London  to  his  own  abbey  of  Croyland,  for  the  purpose  of  securing,  as  he  says,  the  so- 
ciety from  the  penalties  which  were  contained  in  it  "  in  the  following  manner."  And 
now,  then,  we  might  expect  once  more  to  find  the  laws  all  subjoined.  But  here  the 
History  ends,  and  the  laws  are  wanting  in  the  MS. 

But  a  new  attempt  is  made  by  the  illustrious  antiquarian,  —  for  these  valuable  men 
are  possessed,  at  least,  of  the  virtue  of  patience,  —  and  in  a  later  MS.,  written,  he 
thinks  about  the  year  1200,  he  finds  a  code  at  the  end  of  it,  which  from  the  title  should 
be  the  code  recpiired.  This  code  he  gives,  and  endeavours  to  translate.  It  is  also 
given  by  Wilkins,  and  translated  still  more  completely.  But  our  disappointments  are 
not  here  to  cease.  Even  this  copy  of  the  code  must  surely  be  materially  imperfect. 
We  look  in  vain  for  those  general  provisions  of  protection  to  the  subject,  which  must 
have  made  these  laws  so  dear  to  our  ancestors. 

Finally,  it  is  collected  from  the  monkish  historians,  that  Henry  the  First,  to  ingra- 
tiate himself  with  his  subjects,  granted  them  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor.  A 
code  of  Henry's  laws  has  come  down  to  us,  and  may  be  seen  in  Wilkins.  But  it  is  a 
grant  of  Edward's  laws  that  we  find  here  mentioned,  and  no  detail  of  the  laws  them- 
selves. Here,  then,  we  have  once  more  a  disappointment,  and  further  research  seema 
at  an  end. 


LECTURES  v.,  VI.  677 

The  code  of  Henry  was,  no  doubt,  to  a  certain  extent  modified  and  meliorated  ac- 
cording to  this  favorite  model ;  but  of  the  model  itself  no  further  knowledge  can  be  ob 
tained.  Our  lawyers  and  antiquarians  are,  therefore,  left  to  conclude  that  these  cele^ 
brated  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor  may  now  be  imaged  to  us  by  what  is  called  '•  the 
common  law  of  the  land,"  or  the  unwritten  collection  of  maxims  and  customs  which 
are  transmitted  from  lawyer'to  lawyer  and  from  age  to  age,  and  have  obtained  recep 
tion  and  usage  among  our  courts  and  judges. 

V. 

Charters. 

The  9th  of  Henry  the  Third  is  the  final  one,  and  that,  therefore,  which  is  always 
commented  upon. 

Of  the  whole  thirty-eight  clauses,  about  one  half  respect  merely  tlie  oppressions  of 
the  feudal  system.  But  by  the  words  of  the  thirty-eighth  clause,  the  feudal  tyranny, 
wherever  relaxed  between  the  king  and  his  vassals,  was  to  be  relaxed  betweeji  the  su- 
perior and  inferior,  through  all  the  links  of  the  feudal  suboi-dination. 

And  of  the  thirty-eight  clauses,  some  were  of  a  general  nature. 

By  the  ninth  and  thirtieth,  an  effort  was  made  for  the  benefit  of  commerce ;  protec- 
tion afforded  to  the  trading  towns,  foreign  merchants,  &c.,  &c.        * 

The  eleventh,  twelfth,  thirteenth,  seventeenth,  twenty-fourth,  twenty-eighth,  and 
thirty-fourth  were  intended  for  the  better  administration  of  justice. 

In  the  twenty-sixth  may  be  seen  the  first  effort  that  was  made  to  procure  for  an  ac- 
cused person  a  trial,  —  that  is,  in  other  words,  to  protect  the  subject  from  arbitrary  im- 
prisonment. 

Yet  so  slow  is  the  progress  of  civil  liberty,  that  the  first  principles  of  the  most  obvi- 
ous justice  could  not  be  secured  till  some  centuries  afterwards,  by  the  proper  fitting  up 
of  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second. 

The  thirty-seventh  clause  runs  thus :  —  "  Scutagium  de  catcro  capiatur  sicut  capi 
solebat  tempore  regis  Henrici  avi  nostri."  And  in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Second  the 
scutage  was  moderate. 

The  important  point  of  the  levying  of  money  was  thus  left  in  a  very  imperfect  state. 
But  in  the  confirmation  of  the  charters  by  Edward  the  First,  it  was  distinctly  stated 
that  no  money  should  be  levied  upon  the  subject,  except  hf  the  common  assent  of  all 
the  realm,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  realm. 

The  celebrated  statute,  "  De  tallagio  non  conoedendo,"  is  shown  by  Blackstone  to  be 
probably  nothing  more  than  a  contemporary  Latin  abstract  of  the  two  French  charlers 
themselves,  and  not  a  statute. 

The  most  striking  clause  of  all,  so  well  known,  so  often  quoted,  so  justly  celebrated, 
runs  thus :  —  "  Nullus  liber  homo  capiatur,"  &c.,  &c.,  "  nisi  per  legale  judicium  parium 
suorum  vel  per  legem  terras,"  &c.,  &c. 

This  twenty-ninth  clause  contains  a  general  description  of  a  free  constitution.  Dr. 
Sullivan,  in  his  Lectures  on  the  Laws  of  England,  has  made  it  the  subject  of  a  com- 
ment through  all  its  words  and  divisions:  that,  in  the  first  place,  it  secures  the  personal 
liberty  of  the  subject;  in  the  next,  the  full  enjojonent  of  his  property,  &c.,  Sec,  And 
certainly,  while  the  spirit  of  this  clause  is  preserved,  civil  liberty  must  be  enjoyed  by 
Englishmen :  whether,  however,  this  spirit  shall  be  preserved,  depends  upon  their  pre- 
serving their  own  spirit.  The  book  of  Dr.  Sullivan  is  worth  looking  at.  You  may  see 
from  the  contents  what  parts  are  more  particularly  deserving  of  your  attention. 

The  Charter  of  the  Forest  speaks  volumes  to  those  who  can  reflect  on  what  they  read. 

Obs.-?rve  the  words  of  the  tenth  clause :  —  "  Nullus  de  caitero  amittat  vitam  vel  mem- 
bra pro  A  ;natione  nostra.  Sed  si  quis  captus  fuerit,  &c.,  &c.,  jaceat  in  prisona  nostra 
per  unum  annum,"  &c.,  &c.  Offences  in  the  forest  must  have  been,  before  this  time, 
often  punished  by  the  loss  of  life  or  limb,  when  murder  was  not. 

Observe,  too,  the  clauses  which  concede  the  restoration  of  whole  tracts  of  land  to 
their  former  state,  —  tracts  which  had  been  reduced  to  forests. 

That  tbe  kings  of  these  days,  and  no  doubt  their  barons,  should  have  been  so  inter- 
ested in  hunting  as  to  be  guilty,  for  the  sake  of  it,  not  only  of  robbery  and  tyranny,  but 
of  maiming  men  and  even  putting  them  to  death,  is  no  slight  proof  of  the  value  of 
those  elegant  arts  and  that  more  extended  system  of  inquiry  and  knowledge,  in  conse- 
quence of  which  the  manly  exercises  are  left  to  fill  their  place,  and  not  more  than  theit 
place,  in  the  circle  of  human  anxieties  and  amusements. 

3e* 


678  .  NOTES. 

Our  game  laws  and  our  country  gentlemen  are  the  regular  descendants  of  the  forest 
laws  and  barons  of  ancient  times.  They  are  thought  by  many  to  bear- some  marks  of 
their  iron  original. 

In  the  fourth  clause  of  Magna  Charta  are  these  words:  —  "Et  hoc  sine  destructione 
et  vasto  (waste)  hominum  vel  rerum  " :  that  is,  the  laborers  and  the  stock  are  summed 
up  together;  no  distinction  made  between  them. 

The  barons,  the  assertors  of  their  own  independence,  though  they  felt  for  freemen  and 
those  below  them,  were  but  too  insensible  tp  the  situation  of  the  villeins,  —  to  the  heavy 
system  of  slavery  which  tliey  saw,  or  rather  did  not  see,  darkening  with  its  shade  the 
fair  fields  of  their  domain. 

In  like  manner  were  the  English  nation,  in  our  own  times,  twenty  years  in  abolish- 
ing the  slave  trade ;  and  if  the  whole  kingdom  had  been  equally  accustomed  to  the 
trade  as  were  the  ports  of  Bristol  and  Liverpool,  they  would  have  been  twenty  centuries. 

The  eflect  of  habit  in  banishing  all  the  natural  feelings  of  mercy,  justice,  benevolence^ 
as  in  the  instances  of  slave-dealers,  banditti,  supporters  of  harsh  law3,  penal  statutes 
against  Dissenters,  &c.,  &c.,  is  perfectly  frightful. 

VI. 

There  is  a  book  by  Daines  Barrington,  Observations  on  the  Ancient  Statutes, 
which  should  be  considered.  It  is  often  descriptive  of  the  manners  of  the  times,  of  the 
views  and  opinions  of  our  ancestors :  it  is  even  entertaining. 

The  conclusion  which  the  student  should  draw  is,  the  good  that  might  be  done,  or 
might  be  at  least  most  honorably  and  virtuously  attempted,  by  any  legislator  or  lawyer 
who  would  turn  his  attention  to  our  statute-book,  procure  the  repeal  of  obsolete  stat- 
utes, endeavour  to  make  our  law  proceedings  less  expensive,  —  in  short,  not  acquiesce 
in  the  general  supposition,  that  no  improvements  can  be  introduced  into  our  laws  and 
our  administration  of  them.  Much  good  might  be  done  by  patient,  intelligent  men  ; 
but  the  most  sullen,  and  unenlightened,  and  unfeeling  opposition  must  be  more  or  less 
expected  from  our  courts  of  law,  and  all  who  are  connected  with  them. 

"  Truths  would  you  teach,  or  save  a  sinking  land," 

«—  that  is,  would  you  improve  laws,  and  keep  people  from  being  ruined,  — 

"  All  fear,  none  aid  you,  and  few  understand." 

This  note  was  written  in  the  year  1808,  and  the  author  has  since  lived  to  see  and 
admire  the  humane  and  intelligent  efforts  of  Sir  Samuel  Eomilly,  Sir  James  Mackin- 
tosh, Mr,  Peel,  and  Mr.  Brougham. 

VII. 

Sir  John  Fortescue,  Chancellor  to  Henry  the  Sixth. 

Two  treatises  of  his  have  come  down  to  us,  that  seem  quite  decisive  of  the  question 
relati)»e  to  our  monarchy,  as  understood  in  early  times,  —  whether  arbitrary  or  not.. 
The  first  is  De  Laudibus  Legum  Anglise. 

The  distinction  that  the  Chancellor  eveiywhere  makes  is  between  "power  royal 
and  "  power  politique,"  that  is,  arbitrary  monarchy  and  limited ;  and  he  lays  !t  down, 
that  the  kings  of  England  are  not  like  other  kings  and  emperors,  but  are  limited. 

(Translation  quite  close  and  exact.) 

Chap.  9th.  "For  the  king  of  England  cannot  alter  nor  change  the  laws  of  his  realm 
a;  his  pleasure.  For  why?  he  governeth  his  people  by  power,  not  only  royal,  but  also 
politi([ue.  If  liis  power  over  them  were  royal  only,  then  he  might  change  the  laws  of 
nis  realm,  and  chsft-ge  his  subjects  with  tallage  and  other  burdens  without  their  consent; 
and  such  is  the  dominion  that  the  civil  laws  purport,  when  they  say.  The  prince  his 
pleasure  hath  the  force  of  a  law.  But  from  this  much  diffcreth  the  power  of  a  king 
whose  government  over  his  pcojjle  is  politique,  for  he  can  neither  change  laws  without 
the  consent  of  his  subjects,  nor  yet  charge  them  with  strange  impositions  against  their 
wills,"  &c.,  &c.  —  "Nam  non  potest  rex  Angliaj,  ad  libitum  suum,"  &c.,  &c. 

In  Chapter  18th,  he  observes:  —  "  Sed  non  sic  AnglijB  statuta  oriri  possunt,"  &c. 
"But  statutes  cannot  thus  pass  in  England,  forsomuch  as  they  are  made  not  only  by 


LECTURES  v.,  VI.  679 

the  prince's  pleasure,  but  also  by  the  assent  of  the  whole  realm :  so  that  of  necessity 
they  must  procure  the  wealth  of  the  people,  &c.,  &c.,  seeing  they  are  ordained  not  by 
the  device  of  one  man  alone,  or  of  a  hundred  wise  counsellors  only,  but  of  more  than 
three  hundred  chosen  men,  &c.,  &c.,  as  they  that  know  the  fashion  of  the  Parliament 
of  England,  and  the  order  and  manner  of  calling  the  same  together,  are  able  more  dis 
tinctly  to  declare,"  &c.,  &c. 

The  young  prince  (Henry's  ^n,  Prince  Edward),  to  whom  the  discourse  is  addressed, 
asks,  —  Since  the  laws  of  England  are,  as  he  sees,  so  good,  why  some  of  his  progeni- 
tors have  gone  about  to  bring  in  the  civil  laws,  &c. 

•  In  those  laws,  says  the  Chancellor,  "  the  prince's  pleasure  standeth  in  force  of  a  law : 
quite  contnu-y  to  the  decrees  of  the  laws  of  England,"  &c.,  &c.  But  "  to  rule  the  peo- 
ple by  government  politique  is  no  yoke,  but  liberty  and  great  security,  not  only  to  the 
subjects,  but  also  to  the  king  himself."  And  to  show  this,  the  Chancellor  considers 
''  the  inconveniences  that  happen  in  the  realm  of  France  tlirough  regal  government 
alone."  He  then  treats  of  "  the  commodities  that  proceed  of  the  joint  government 
politique  and  regal  in  the  realm  of  England."  Then,  "  a  comparison  of  the  worthiness 
of  both  the  regiments." 

The  whole  work  is  very  concise,  but  full  of  curious  matter. 

VIII. 
Original  Insignijicancy  of  the  House  of  Commons, 

In  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Richard  the  Second  we  find  the  following  pas- 
sage :  — 

"  As  to  the  aid  the  king  demanded  of  his  Commons  for  the  defence,  &c.,  &c.,  the 
Commons  said,  That  in  the  last  Parliament  in  his  first  year,  the  same  things  were 
shown  unto  them  in  behalf  of  the  king,  &c.,  &c. ;  that  in  hopes  of  the  promise  held  out 
to  them  to  be  discharged  of  tallage  for  a  great  time  after,  they  granted  a  greater  sum 
than  had  been  given  to  any  king  to  be  levied  in  so  short  a  time,  &c.,  &c. ;  and  after 
their  grievous  losses,  and  the  low  value  of  their  corn  and  other  chattels,  they  concluded 
with  praying  the  king  to  excuse  them,  not  being  able  to  bear  any  charge  for  pure  pov- 
erty {pur  pure  poverte).  To  all  which  Monsieur  Richard  le  Scrop"  (who,  it  seems, 
was  steward  of  the  household)  "  answered,  making  protestation,  That  he  knew  of  no 
such  promise  made  in  the  last  Parliament,  and,  saving  the  honor  and  reverence  due  to 
the  king  and  lorck,  what  the  Commons  said  was  not  true  {le  (lit  de  la  Comune  en  celle 
partie  ne  contient  mye  verite)."  This,  at  a  time,  when,  if  such  language  had  been  used 
by  Monsieur  le  Scrop  to  the  lords,  the  floor  of  the  assembly  would  have  been  instantly 
covered  with  gauntlets. 

When  the  feudal  system  declined,  the  power,  which  could  not  then  be  occupied  by 
the  Commons,  (the  nobility  had  been  swept  away  by  the  civil  wars,)  fell  into  the  pos- 
session of  the  crown,  a  natural  and  constant  claimant.  The  liberties  of  England  were 
therefore  in  great  danger,  when  princes  so  able  as  those  of  the  house  of  Tudor  were  to 
be  followed  by  princes  so  arbitrary  as  those  of  the  house  of  Stuart. 

The  two  great  efforts  of  Henry  the  Seventh  were,  first,  to  destroy  the  power  of  the 
aristocracy ;  secondly,  to  amass  treasures  to  render  the  crown  independent :  his  ambi- 
tion and  avarice  ministered  to  each  other.  But  the  first  point  he  could  not  attempt  to 
carry  without  advancing  the  power  of  the  commons.  He  could  not,  for  instance,  open 
the  way  to  the  lords  to  alienate  their  lands,  without  giving  the  commons  an  oppor- 
tunity of  purchasing  them,  —  that  is,  of  turning  their  mercantile  affluence  into  consti- 
tutional importance.  The  second  point,  however,  was  of  a  different  nature.  He  could 
not  amass  the  treasures  which  he  wished,  without  encroaching  upon  the  exclusive  right 
of  Parliament  to  levy  money ;  and  if  the  practices,  pretences,  and  prerogatives,  which 
he  introduced,  advanced,  and  renewed,  had  not  been  resisted  by  our  ancestors  in  the 
time  of  Charles  the  First,  the  liberties  of  England  must  gradually  have  decayed. 

Sir  Thomas  More,  when  young,  resisted"  Henry  the  Seventh's  demand  fi-om  the 
Commons  of  about  three  fifteenths  for  the  marriage  of  his  daughter:  the  king  actually 
threw  More's  father,  then  a  judge,  into  the  Tower,  and  fined  him  one  hundred  pounds. 
Had  not  the  king  died,  Sir  Thomas  was  determined  to  have  gone  over  sea,  thinking, 
"  that,  being  in  the  king's  indignation,  he  could  not  live  in  England  without  great  dan- 
ger." —  See  Roper's  Life. 

The  Life  of  Henry  the  Seventh  has  been  written  by  Lord  Bacon.  Such  a  man  as 
Bacon  can  never  write  without  profitably  exercising,  sometimes  the  understanding 


680  NOTES 

sometimes  the-  imagination  of  his  reader ;  yet,  on  the  whole,  the  work  will  disappoint 
him.  The  circumstances,  indeed,  in  which  Lord  Bacon  was  placed,  rendered  it  im- 
possible for  him  to  exercise  the  superior  powers  of  his  mind  with  any  tolerable  free- 
dom. He  wrote  his  History  of  Henry  the  Seventh  during  the  period  of  his  disgrace 
under  the  reign  of  James  the  First.  It  was  not  for  Lord  Bacon  to  reprobate  the  rob- 
beries of  Henry  the  Seventh,  when  he  had  himself  received  money  for  the  perversion 
of  justice,  or,  at  least,  had  been  accused  and  disgi-aced  for  corrupt  practices  and  con- 
nivances. It  was  not  for  Lord  Bacon  to  assert,  as  he  had  once  done,  the  popular 
principles  of  the  English  constitution,  while  writing  under  the  eye  of  a  monarch  like 
James  the  First,  one  not  only  impressed  with  the  divine  nature  of  his  prerogative,  but 
one  to  whose  humanity  he  owed  his  liberty  at  the  time,  and  the  very  means  of  his  sub- 
sistence. The  faults  of  ordinary  men  may  be  buried  in  their  tombs ;  but  the  xery  frail- 
tie?  of  men  of  genius  may  be  the  lamentation  of  ages. 

The  laws  of  Henry  the  Seventh  merit  the  consideration  of  the  student.  It  was  the 
intention  of  these  laws  to  advance  the  husbandry,  manufactures,  and  general  com- 
merce of  the  country.  The  observations  of  Lord  Bacon,  and  the  subsequent  criticisms 
of  Hume,  will  afford  the  student  a  lesson  in  that  most  difficult  and  important  of  all 
practical  sciences,  the  science  of  political  economy. 

On  the  subjects  that  belong  to  this  science,  it  may,  I  think,  be  observed,  that,  from 
the  extent  and  variety  of  the  points  to  be  considered,  the  first  impressions  are  almost 
always  wrong.  Practical  men,  as  they  are  called,  are  therefore  pretty  generally  mis- 
taken on  all  such  subjects ;  particularly  where  they  think  themselves  exclusively  en- 
titled to  decide.  Practical  men  are  fitted,  and  Jitted  onhj^^  to  furnish  facts  and  details, 
which  it  is  afterwards  the  business,  and  the  proper  business,  of  the  philosopher  or 
statesman  to  make  the  foundation  of  his  general  reasonings  and  permanent  laws. 

So  fallacious  are  first  impressions,  so  remote  and  invisible  is  often  the  general  prin- 
ciple that  ought  ultimately  to  decide  us,  that  even  the  philosopher  himself  must,  on 
such  subjects,  be  much  indebted  to  experience.  Our  ancestors  could  not  be  inferior  in 
understanding  to  ourselves :  wlio  could  be  superior  to  Lord  Bacon  1  Yet  the  laws  of 
Henry  the  Seventh,  which  Lord  Bacon^extols,  and  which  would  appear  wise,  perhaps, 
to  the  generality  of  men  at  this  day  (1808),  are  shown  by  Mr.  Hume  to  be  founded  on 
narrow  views,  and  to  be  the  very  reverse  of  what  Lord  Bacon  supposed  them  to  be. 

It  is  on  account  of  Mr.  Hume's  observations  on  the  subjects  of  poUtical  economy, 
that  the  appendices  of  his  History  are  so  valuable.  Different  portions  of  his  work  are 
likewise  in  this  manner  rendered  valuable,  more  particularly  the  estimates  Avhich  he 
gives  of  a  reign  when  he  comes  to  the  close  of  it.  Look  at  his  account  of  the  miscel- 
laneous transactions,  for  instance,  of  Edward  the  Second.  "  The  kingdom  of  Eng- 
land," says  he,  "  was  afflicted  with  a  grievous  famine,"  «S:;c.,  &c.  And  then  he  goes  on, 
in  a  few  words,  to  lay  down  all  the  proper  principles,  which  were  afterwards  so  beauti- 
fully drawn  out  and  explained  by  Adam  Smith  in  his  Dissertation  on  the  Corn  Laws, 
and  wliich  required  all  the  authority  of  the  minister,  the  late  Mr.  Pitt,  to  enforce  upon 
the  community,  and  even  upon  the  houses  of  Parliament  themselves,  while  men  were 
everywhere  raving  about  "  monopolizers  of  corn,"  "  the  necessity  of  fixing  proper  rates 
to  the  price,"  &c.,  «Sbc.  This  was  the  expedient  of  the  Parliament  of  Edward  the 
Second. 

The  necessities  of  the  state  during  the  wars  that  began  in  the  year  179-3  have  brought 
tha  science  of  political  economy  into  more  general  attention,  and  haA^e  served,  very 
forcibly,  to  display  the  merits  of  the  two  great  instructors  of  our  English  ministers  and 
reasoners,  Hume  and  Smith.  The  public,  however,  have  still  much  to  learn ;  and 
when  our  young  men  of  rank  and  property  have  dismissed  their  academical  pursuits, 
or  rather  wliencver  they  liave  an  opportunity,  they  should  apply  themselves  to  the 
■^udy  of  political  economy,  the  science  of  the  prosperity  of  mankind,  a  study  of  all 
-ihers  the  most  interesting  and  important.  A  young  man  of  reflection  may  find  that 
^e  principles  of  ])olitical  economy  partake  of  the  nature  of  literature,  as  described  by 
Jicero,  "  moviiig  along  with  him,"let  him  go  and  do  what  he  will,  by  night,  by  day,  ia 
the  town,  in  the  country,"  &c.,  &c. 


LECTURE  VII.  681 

LECTURE  Vil. 
1819. 


It  is  many  years  since  I  drew  up  this  lecture,  and  I  now  read  with  pleasure  a  note 
in  Mr.  Hallam's  Middle  Ages,  when  treating  of  the  same  period. 

*'  I  would  advise,"  says  he,  "  the  historical  student  to  acquaint  himself  with  these 
transactions  [the  Flemish  insurrections],  and  with  the  corresponding  tumults  at  Paris. 
•They  are  among  the  eternal  lessons  of  history;  for  the  unjust  encroachments  of  courts, 
the  intemperate  passions  of  the  multitude,  the  ambition  of  demagogues,  the  cruelty  of 
victorious  factions,  will  never  cease  to  have  their  parallels  and  their  analogies ;  while 
the  military  achievements  of  distant  times  afford,  in  general,  no  instruction,  and  can 
hardly  occupy  too  little  of  our  time  in  historical  studies."  —  Page  S>,  chap.  i.  part  2. 

Joinville  and  Froissart  must  be  read  for  graphic  representations  of  these  and  former 
times. 

n. 

At  the  accession  of  Philip  de  Yalois,  the  great  fiefs  of  Burgundy,  Flanders,  and 
Brittany  were  all  that  had  not,  in  some  way  or  other,  been  connected  with  the  crown. 

III. 

The  great  founder  of  the  French  monarchy  was  Philip  Augustus.  He  wrested  from 
the  English  their  possessions,  then  amounting  to  a  third  of  the  kingdom. 

IV. 

Whatever  the  feudal  system  lost  seems,  in  France,  to  have  been  acquired  by  the 
monarchy.  The  independence  and  sovereignty  of  the  barons  insensibly  declined ;  the 
jurisprudence  of  the  country  gradually  passed  into  the  courts  of  the  sovereigns. 

The  States- General  were  occasionally  assembled,  and  appear  to  have  represented 
the  weight  and  authority  of  the  whole  community.  In  this  body  were  found,  as  a  dis- 
tinct part,  the  commons^  the  representatives  of  the  cities  and  towns. 

If  the  power  that  Avas  flowing  from  the  feudal  system  to  the  crown  could  have  been 
in  part  intercepted  by  the  courts  of  law  and  the  assemblies  of  the  nation,  the  result 
would  have  been  a  free  and  mixed  constitution.  Such  was  the  result  in  England  from 
beginnings  not  more  promising. 

A  comparison  of  the  different  circumstances  that  operated  upon  the  constitutions  of 
the  two  countries  should  be  made  by  the  student,  as  he  reads  the  history.  The  Abb6 
de  Mably  will  be  of  great  use ;  and  two  notes  in  Robertson.  See  his  Charles  the  Fifth, 
notes  38,  39. 

V. 

Historians,  with  the  exception  of  Hume,  are  so  ignorant  of  the  modern  science  of 
political  economy,  —  particularly  all  original  historians,  —  that  their  narratives  can  oe 
appealed  to,  on  such  subjects,  only  with  the  greatest  circumspection.  They  state 
their  fiicts,  and  generally  add,  without  authority,  such  consequences -as  they  conceive 
must  of  course  have  followed.     Their  relations  are  therefore  filled  with  impossibilities 

VL 

French  Uistory. 

Vellt  is  the  great  historian  of  the  early  part  of  the  annals  of  this  great  kingdom  * 
Villaret  continued  the  work;  afterwards  Gamier:  it  has  not  yet  reached  the  more  in- 
teresting parts  of  the  French  history.  Villaret  is  considered  by  Baron  Grimm  (a  veir 
competent  judge)  as  one  of  those  few  writers  who  have  been  able  to  continue  a  worK 

86 


682  NOTES. 

with  more  success  than  a  successful  predecessor.     The  work  was  paid  by  the  volume, 
and  probably  thus  rendered  longer  than  necessary. 

Jacquerie,  —  There  is  a  short  account  of  this  insurrection  given  by  Froissart;  that  is, 
some  of  the  shocking  facts  are  given.  About  the  same  time  broke  out  the  rising  of  the 
people  under  Wat  Tyler.  A  more  philosophic  notice  of  these  insuiTections  in  France 
and  England  is  taken  by  Hume. 

In  these  cases  the  people  seem  in  their  claims  (not  in  their  conduct)  to  have  been  right ; 
they  were  endeavouring  to  throw  off  the  state  of  villeinage,  or  at  least  some  of  the  op- 
pressions of  it.  The  subject,  however,  is  of  a  general  nature.  The  inequalities  of  con- 
dition, as  they  take  place  in  society,  have  always  appeared  to  the  lower  orders  an  in- 
tolerable injustice.  From  reasonable  views  and  claims,  they  have  often  proceeded  to 
those  that  were  not  reasonable :  and  the  grossest  doctrines  of  liberty  and  equality  have 
often  made  their  appearance,  as  they  always  will,  when  the  minds  of  the  vulgar  are  i^' 
Q  state  of  fermentation. 

Yet  it  must  be  observed,  that  to  men  of  refinement  a,nd  sensibility,  still  more  to  men 
of  sarcastic  nature,  the  inequalities  of  condition  seem  so  pregnant  with  evil,  that  the 
most  affecting  defl|amations,  as  in  the  works  of  Rousseau,  have  been  produced  by  the 
contemplation  of  them ;  while,  in  Swift  and  others,  they  have  given  occasion  to  the 
most  piercing  invectives  under  different  disguises. 

In  men  of  a  more  speculative  turn  (Godwin,  for  instance),  they  have  urged  men  to 
the  contrivance  of  political  systems,  and  the  most  unreasonable  impatience  under  every 
existing  system.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  from  this  source  were  derived  most  of  the 
evils  of  the  late  French  Revolution. 

Metaphysical  speculation,  at  least  that  sort  of  philosophy  which  hopes  and  presumes 
whatever  it  pleases  of  human  nature,  and  has  a  calm  and  persevering  logic  for  ever  at 
hand,  —  such  speculation  and  philosophy  were  never  silenced  completely^  till  the  refuta- 
tion of  Godwin  appeared  in  Mr.  Malthus's  first  Essay  on  Population. 

Books  like  Godwin's,  harmless  and  almost  ridiculous  as  they  may  be  in  ordinary 
times,  are  no  longer  so  when  the  times  are  of  a  different  description. 

*4  T£L. 

Conquests  in  France^  ^c 

Self-estimation  in  a  nation,  as  in  an  individual,  is  necessary  to  the  virtue  and 
dignity  of  the  human  character.  But  it  is  productive  in  each,  sometimes  of  follies, 
sometimes  of  serious  faults.  It  should  be  the  result  of  slow  and  gradual  inferences  of 
the  understanding,  as  much  as  possible;  and  not  be,  as  it  commonly  is,  a  passion  of 
the  heart. 

In  a  nation,  as  in  an  individual,  it  leads  to  irritable  jealousy,  unaccommodating  and 
offensive  haughtiness,  selfishness,  violence,  injustice. 

Its  common  direction  is  that  of  military  glory  ;  and  as  far  as  such  a  principle  is 
necessary  to  national  defence  and  independence,  it  is  indispensably  requisite  to  a  vir- 
tuous people. 

Far  different  has  been  its  general  operation,  as  seen  in  the  history  of  mankind,  as 
seen  in  the  times  of  our  Edwards  and  our  Henries.  The  kings  and  heroes  of  our  land 
were  transformed  into  destroyers  and  oppressors. 

VIIL 

The  work  of  De  Lolme  is  too  indiscriminate  a  panegyric  on  the  English  constitu- 
tion. But  his  great  position  is,  in  the  main,  not  unreasonable:  That  the  difference 
of  the  constitutions  of  France  and  England  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  original  difference 
in  the  power  of  the  crown,  —  to  the  power  of  the  crown  being  f/reater  in  England. 

In  England,  as  the  barons,  however  powerful,  were  far  inferior  to  the  king,  a  very 
large  proportion  of  the  whole  landed  property  must  have  passed  through  the  hands  of 
William  the  Conqueror,  and  been  granted  on  his  own  terms.  They  could  not,  there- 
fore, struggle  against  the  crown  for  their  own  liberties  without  assistance,  and  without 
struggling  at  the  same  time  for  those  of  their  inferiors.  The  whole  community  was 
thrown  into  one  scale. 

There  were  many  circumstances  favorable  to  England,  which  the  student  must  con- 
■ider:  he  will  find  them  in  Millar,  more  particularly. 

The  sceiie  of  the  contest  was  an  island,  where  the  influence  of  commerce  was  likely 


LECTURE  VII.  683 

to  be  soon  felt,  and  the  cities  and  towns  become  important.  The  necessity  of  a  military 
force  constantly  ready  to  oppose  invasion  was  not  so  pressing,  and  the  excuse  for  a 
standing  army  not  so  plausible.  England,  being  a  country  less  extensive,  did  not  so 
readily  fall  into  great  principalities  5  the  union  of  the  whole  was  more  natural  and  ira- 
Inediate.  The  ditferent  parts  of  the  Parliament  could  sympathize  with  each  other;  and 
the  whole  had  thus  a  better  chance  to  maintain  its  existence  and  authority. 

The  crown  was  not,  as  in  France,  transmitted  from  father  to  son  for  three  centuries 
Usurpations,  disputed  successions,  &c.,  &c.,  were  in  P^ngland  all  favorable  ;  for  whatever 
mduced  or  compelled  the  wearers  of  the  crown  to  make  use  of  the  Parliaments  was  fa 
rorable. 

This  is  the  general  principle;  the  detail  may  be  seen  in  Millar;  the  particular  situa 
tion  of  William  Rufus,  Henry  the  First,  Stephen,  «&;c.,  —  all  favorable  to  the  existence 
and  authority  of  the  Parliaments.  Even  in  the  civil  wars  the  Parliaments  were  ap 
pealed  to  by  each  party  in  its  turn. 

The  danger,  no  doubt,  was  when  the  aristocracy  had  been  consumed  in  the  civil 
wars,  and  Henry  the  Seventh  and  Henry  the  Eighth  had  not  only  the  opportunity,  but 
the  ability,  to  seize  all  the  authority  that  seemed  now  left  without  an  occupant,  or 
rather,  to  enforce  and  extend  all  the  natural  authority  of  the  crown,  when  there  was 
nothing  left  to  oppose  it.  But  the  Parliaments  had  in  the  mean  time  got  established,  and 
their  authority  had  become  identified  in  the  minds  of  the  community  with  the  nature 
of  all  just  and  legitimate  government. 

The  virtues  as  well  as  the  vices  of  our  kings  tended,  in  a  military  age,  to  render 
them  expensive :  and  neither  their  domains  nor  exactions  could  provide  for  their  follies, 
in  the  one  instance,  or  their  ambition  in  the  other.  They  had  continually  to  summon 
Parliaments  for  fresh  supplies.  The  nation  was  thus  made  wise  (that  is,  jealous  of  tho 
power  of  their  princes)  in  the  only  way  in  which  a  nation  can  ever  be  made  wise,  by 
their  own  personal  sufferings  and  inconveniences. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  Parliaments  were  on  one  occasion  or  another  guilty  of 
every  crime  which  they  could  commit  against  their  country,  but  that  of  parting  with 
the  right  of  taxation.  Reason,  justice,  humanity,  they  disposed  of  to  the  strongest; 
but  in  defence  of  their  property  they  united  the  qualities  of  the  fabled  beings  of  antiqui- 
fy,  and  had  the  eyes  of  Argus  and  the  hands  of  Briareus. 

The  primitive  House  of  Commons  consisted  of  burgesses  only.  But  the  deputies 
irom  the  counties,  as  being  deputies,  came  in  time  to  sit  and  deliberate  along  with 
them ;  and  these  deputies  were  interested  in  the  taxes  that  were  to  be  paid  hy  the 
landed  gentry.     The  great  barons  and  peers  were  great  landed  proprietors  also. 

Tenths  and  fifteenths  were  taxes  on  private  property,  subsidies  on  real  and  personal 
property. 

The  great  proprietors  thus,  fortunately,  became  interested  in  opposing  the  illegal  ex 
pedients  of  the  crown  for  raising  money  from  the  subject ;  and  in  the  general  manage- 
ment of  the  taxation  of  the  community,  no  general  assessment  could  be  made  without 
the  concurrence  of  the  representatives  of  every  species  of  property. 

The  weaker  house  must  have  long  derived  considerable  advantage  from  this  connec- 
tion and  common  interest  with  the  House  of  Lords. 

Nothing  can  be  more  amusing  than  to  observe  the  language  and  feelings  of  terrified 
poverty  with  which  the  Commons  approached  their  betters,  as  they  would  have  been 
called,  when  money  was  wanted  from  them. 

In  France,  though  the  national  assemblies  or  States- General  expired,  they  could  not 
be  obliterated  from  its  history.  Some  vestiges  of  their  power  still  survived  :  among 
others,  the  registering  of  the  king's  edicts,  which  descended  to  the  Parliaments,  —  not 
analogous  to  our  Parliaments,  but  legal  bodies,  who  claimed  the  exercise  of  this  power 
in  the  absence^  that  is,  during  the  interval  of  the  sittings,  of  the  States-General. 

Of  this  remnant  of  their  power  advantage  was  taken  many  centuries  afterwards,  in 
the  late  Revolution.  So  important  are  even  the  decayed  forms  of  a  free  constitution; 
or  rather,  so  much  does  and  must  always  depend  on  the  spirit  of  the  community,  and 
the  interpretation  which  the  same  things  receive,  according  as  that  spirit  does  or  does 
not  exist. 

In  Tacitus  we  see  that  the  multitude  took  a  part  in  the  national  councils.  Even  in 
these  simple  and  rude  times  much  difficulty  and  delay  were  the  result.  These  as- 
Bemblies,  in  the  progress  of  society,  came  naturally  to  be  composed  of  the  great  landed 
proprietors ;  afterwards  of  those  who  held  benefices  and  fiefs.  The  common  people 
were  thus  excluded.  But  when  there  arose  in  the  community  a  new  part  of  the  popu* 
lation,  which  was  neither  vassal  nor  lord,  nor  came  under  any  of  the  existing  distinc 


684  NOTES. 

tions,  —  still  more,  when  a  contrivance  had  presented  itself  (that  of  representation)  by 
which  the  will  of  the  people,  or  any  free  j^art  of  it,  could  be  expressed  as  in  the  original 
assemblies,  but  without  the  original  delay  and  difficulty,  —  it  then  became  clear  that 
an  addition  ought  to  be  made  to  the  existing  national  assemblies,  whatever  they  might 
be,  not  only  on  grounds  of  civil  expediency  or  natural  right,  but  even  of  original  pre- 
scription ;  that  is,  the  people  were  now,  through  the  medium  of  their  representatives,  to 
be  readmitted. 

Paragraphs  are  often  to  be  found  in  Hume  inconsistent  with  the  general  effect  pro- 
duced by  his  History.  At  the  end  of  his  reign  of  Edward  the  Third,  he  sums  up  his 
general  estimate  thus:  —  "A  great  prince  rendered  the  monarchical  power  predomi- 
nant. The  weakness  of  a  king  gave  reins  to  the  aristocracy.  A  superstitious  age  saw 
the  clergy  triumphant.  The  people,  for  whom  chiefly  government  was  instituted,  and 
who  chiefly  deserve  consideration,  were  the  weakest  of  the  whole."  '•  Naturam  expel- 
las  furca,"  &c.,  »&c.  Hume,  though  a  party  writer,  was  still  a  man  of  humanity  and 
good  sense. 

The  following  specimen  may  be  given  of  the  discordance  that  often  exists  between 
different  historians,  —  between  Rapin  and  Hume,  for  instance. 

Mr.  Hume,  in  his  account  of  the  deposition  of  Richard  the  Secoi>d,  and  of  the  arti- 
cles of  accusation  exhibited  against  him,  makes  the  following  observation :  —  "  There 
is,  however,  one  circumstance  in  which  his  conduct  is  visibly  different  from  that  of  his 
grandfather  [Edward  the  Third] :  He  is  not  accused  of  having  imposed  one  arbitrary 
tax,  without  consent  of  Parliament,  during  his  whole  reign." 

But  on  turning  to  the  History  of  Rapin,  the  fifteenth  article  of  the  accusation  of  the 
Commons,  as  there  exhibited,  expressly  charges  Richard  with  illegal  impositions, — 
"  Qu'il  avoit  impose  des  taxes  sur  ses  sujets  de  sa  seule  autorite." 

The  student  is  now  desired  to  observe  the  extreme  nicety  which  belongs  to  all  in- 
vestigations of  this  nature,  and  to  all  quotations  of  histoinans. 

For  another  or  second  reader  of  history  might  now  come  and  say,  that  Rapin  had 
said  nothing  of  the  kind:  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  fifteenth  article,  as  given  by  Rapin 
ran  thus :  — 

"Art.  15.  Whereas  the  kings  of  England  used  to  live  upon  the  revenues  of  the  king- 
dom and  patrimony  of  the  crown  in  time  of  peace,  without  oppression  of  their  people ; 
that  the  same  king,  during  his  whole  time,  gave  the  greatest  part  of  his  revenue  to  un- 
worthy persons,  and  imposed  burdens  upon  his  subjects,  granted  as  it  were  every  year, 
by  which  he  excessively  oppressed  his  people  and  impoverished  his  kingdom,  not  em- 
ploying these  goods  to  the  advantage  of  the  nation,  but  prodigally  wasting  them  in  os- 
tentation, pomp,  and  glory ;  owing  great  sums  for  victuals  and  other  necessaries  of  his 
own  house,  though  his  revenues  were  greater  than  any  of  his  progenitors." 

What  is  there  here,  the  second  student  would  say,  of  the  king's  imposing  taxes  on 
his  own  authority  % 

And  while  these  two  students  might  stand,  each  quoting  Rapin,  and  appealing  to 
the  very  books  they  had  perhaps  seen  not  an  hour  before,  another  and  a  third  reader 
of  history  might  also  come  forward  and  say  that  the  first  student  was  right;  that  h© 
had  just  read  the  fifteenth  article  in  Rapin's  History,  and  that  it  was  expressed  as  he 
had  stated,  and  in  the  following  words :  —  "  That  he  had  laid  taxes  upon  his  subjects 
by  his  own  authority." 

What  a  perplexity  and  contradiction  are  here !  Yet  it  would  turn  out,  upon  exami- 
nation, that  these  three  students  or  readers  of  history  were,  in  a  certain  sense  of  the 
word,  all  right. 

For  the  first  had  quoted  the /b/io  edition  of  Rapin,  given  in  the  original  French. 

The  second  had  quotea  thefolio  edition  of  Rapin,  as  translated  by  Tindal.  But  it 
hajijiens,  that  Tindal  very  properly  takes  the  trouble,  on  this  occasion,  not  of  translat- 
ing Rapin,  but  of  translating  the  original  articles  of  accusation  from  the  Rolls  of  Par- 
liament; and  the  fifteenth  article,  when  translated  from  the  real  original,  gives  not  the 
words  of  Rapin,  hut  runs  to  the  length  and  exhibits  the  words,  as  presented  by  Tindal, 
•*  Whereas  the  kings  of  England,"  &c.,  &c. 

Finally,  the  third  student  might  have  been  quoting  the  common  octavo  edition  of 
Rapin  in  English,  where  the  fifteenth  article  is  not,  as  in  Tindal's  folio  translation,  a 
translation  of  the  original  Roll  of  Parliament,  but  a  mere  translation  of  the  French  of 
Rapin,  the  French  of  the  first  folio  edition,  which  is  wrong,  and  Rapin's  own  view  of 
the  case,  —  "  Qu'il  avoit  impos6  des  taxes  de  sa  seule  autorite.' 

Supposing  now,  therefore,  that  recourse  was  had,  after  the  example  of  Tindal,  to  the 
only  real  authority,  the  Rolls  of  Parliament  (they  are  published  with  the  Journals,  and 


LECTURE   VII.  685 

therefore  easily  accessible) ;  and  then  the  important  words  in  the  fifteenth  article  will 
be  found  to  be  these :  — 

"  Non  solum  magnam,  immo  maximam  partem  dicti  patrimonii  sui  donavit  etiam 
personis  indignis,  verum  etiam  propterca  tot  onera  concessionis  subditorum  imposuit  quasi 
annis  singulis  in  regno  suo,  quod  valde  et  nimium  excessive  populum  suum  oppressit, 
in  depauperationem  regni  sui,"  &c.,  «&.c. 

Now  in  these  words,  "  tot  onera  concessionis  subditorum,"  &c.,  there  is  a  sufficient 
obscurity  to  admit  of  a  different  interpretation  by  a  Whig  like  Rapin,  or  a  Tory  like 
Hume,  though  the  latter  seems  far  more  justified  in  his  representation  than  the  for- 
mer ;  for  it  is  the  prodigality  of  the  king,  rather  than  the  illegality  of  his  conduct,  that  is 
evidently  all  throughout  the  articles  the  great  burden  of  the  accusation,  —  that  he  had 
wasted  the  money  of  the  people  of  England,  rather  than  that  he  had  offended  agair.st 
their  constitutional  rights. 

There  is  a  History  of  Louis  the  Eleventh,  by  Duclos,  a  work  that  was  much  noticed 
in  France;  but  it  seems  to  be  justly  observed  by  a  late  French  writer  (Chamfort),  that 
it  is  written  in  a  spirit  far  too  complaisant,  very  different  from  that  with  which  the 
Memoirs  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  &c.,  (by  the  same  author,)  are  composed. 

The  fiict  is,  that  the  philosophy  of  the  history  of  this  reign  (Louis  the  Eleventh)  can- 
not be  found  in  the  work  of  Duclos.  It  is  said,  indeed,  that  it  was  the  object  of  the 
reign  to  break  down  the  power  of  the  great,  and  to  keep  them  from  tyrannizing 
over  the  people  :  which  is  probably  what  was  said  by  Louis  himself,  for  it  is  always 
said  on  such  occasions.  It  is  observed,  too.  that  the  royal  authority  has  ever  since  been 
advancing  by  the  motion  which  was  impressed  upon  it  by  Louis  the  Eleventh.  But 
the  steps  by  which  all  this  was  done,  and  the  consequences,  are  nowhere  exhibited  to 
the  reader. 

Duclos,  before  his  History  went  to  publication,  had  to  receive  the  approbation  of  a 
licenser ;  and  it  was  in  vain,  therefore,  that  he  was  competent  both  to  write  well  and 
think  well. 

Philosophical  instruction  must  be  still  gathered  from  Comines,  whose  omissiona 
Duclos  intended  to  supply,  as  well  as  to  cori-ect  his  mistakes  ;  "  though  they  are  not 
commonly  of  great  consequence,"  he  tells  us.  Duclos  had  all  the  facts  before  him,  and 
he  gives  them 

Montesquieu  is  understood  to  have  devoted  much  time  to  the  subject ;  but  there  is  a 
strange  story  of  his  losing  his  manuscripts  by  an  accident,  and  of  his  then  abandoning 
all  further  tlioughts  of  the  work. 

Philip  de  Comines  is  the  author  read.  Much  of  his  work,  particularly  the  latter  part 
of  it,  should  be  read.  The  important  features  of  it  are  the  fate  of  the  house  of  Bur- 
gundy, and  the  unjust  encroachments  of  Louis  the  Eleventh  on  the  dominions  of  his 
neighbours  and  the  constitution  of  his  country. 

Comines  came  not  into  the  service  of  Louis  till  he  had  been  twelve  years  on  the 
throne. 

It  cannot  be  now  understood  by  what  felicity  of  original  temperament,  or  by  what 
influence  of  reflection,  the  historian  himself  could  be  a  lover  of  the  people  and  a  lover 
of  virtue,  though  a  courtier  from  his  infancy,  the  servant  of  the  most  base  and  selfish 
of  princes,  and  living  in  habits  of  business  and  society  with  many  of  the  most  licen- 
tious and  unprincipled  of  men. 

"Is  there  any  king,"  he  says,  "or  prince  upon  earth  who  has  power  to  raise  one 
penny  of  money,  except  on  his  demesnes,  without  the  consent  of  the  poor  subject  who 
is  to  pay  it,  but  by  tyranny  and  violence  ? " 

"  King  Charles  the  Seventh,"  he  says,  in  another  place,  "  has  laid  a  great  load  both 
upon  his  own  and  the  souls  of  his  successors,  and  given  his  kingdom  a  wound  which 
will  bleed  a  long  time ;  and  that  was,  by  establishing  a  standing  army." 

The  manners  of  these  dreadful  times  in  France,  during  the  factions  of  the  houses  of 
Orleans  and  Burgundy,  and  the  reign  of  Louis  the  Eleventh,  may  be  seen  in  Brantorae 
and  more  conven'ently  in  Wraxall's  Memoirs  of  the  House  of  Valois. 


3p 


686  NOTES. 

LECTURES  IX.,  X. 


Calvin,  in  his  letter  to  the  Protector  Somerset,  observes,  after  describing  two  sorts 
of  troublesome  people,  Gospellers  and  Papists  (probably),  that  both  the  one  and  the 
other  ought  to  have  the  sword  drawn  upon  them.  "Alii  cerebrosi,  sub  Evangelii 
nomine ;  alii  in  superstitionibus  Antichrist!  ita  obduraverunt,"  &c.  Of  these  he  de- 
clares, —  "  Merentur  quidem  tum  hi,  tum  illi,  gladio  ultore  coerceri,  quem  tibi  tradidit 
Dominus."  —  Page  67  of  Calvin's  Epistles,  Geneva  edit.  1575.  See  Collier's  Church 
History,  Part.ii.  b.  4,  page  284,  edit.  1714. 

Bucer,  writing  to  Calvin,  says,  —  "  At  quomodo  Serveto  lemas  haereseon  et  perti- 
nacissimo  homini  parci  potuerit,  non  video."  —  Vide  same  edition  Of  Calvin's  Epistles, 
page  147. 

II. 

Intolerance.    Written  in  1810. 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  it  was  only  the  bloody  Queen  Mary  and  Bishop  Bon- 
ner who  put  people  to  death  on  account  of  their  religious  opinions,  —  that  the  Prot 
estants  were  incapable  of  such  enormities. 

This  is  not  so,  and  Protestants  should  know  it.  Many  were  put  to  death  in  the  time 
of  the  brutal  Henry  the  Eighth.  But  there  were  some  even  in  the  time  of  Edward  the 
Sixth,  though  not  for  Popery;  more  than  one  hundred  and  sixty  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic communion  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth ;  sixteen  or  seventeen  in  the  time  of  James 
the  First ;  and  more  than  twenty  by  the  Presbyterians  and  Republicans.  These  are 
t^e  facts. 

Arians  and  Anabaptists,  for  -instance,  were,  some  of  them,  actually  burned.  Puri 
tans  and  sectarians  were,  some  of  them,  hanged.  These  seem  instances  of  direct  and 
distinct  intolerance. 

But  with  regard  to  others,  sanguinary  penal  laws  were  made,  and  Papists  executed 
under  them,  on  supposed  principles  of  state  necessity.  It  remains,  then,  to  be  con- 
sidered how  for  this  state  necessity  existed. 

Some  of  the  particulars  may  be  noted  briefly  hereafter,  and  they  may  serve  to  put 
good  men  on  their  guard  against  the  workings  of  their  own  nature  on  all  subjects  con- 
nected with  their  religious  opinions.  But  in  the  first  place,  in  page  398  of  Fuller's 
Church  History,  the  text  of  King  Edward's  Diary  is  given.  "  May  2nd,  1550.  —  Joane 
Boohcr,  otherwise  called  Joane  of  Kent,  was  burnt  for  holding  that  Christ  was  not  in- 
carnate of  the  Virgin  Mary,  being  condemned  the  year  before,"  &c.  This  is  the  text. 
Fuller  himself  writes  a  century  afterwards,  and  his  comment  is  this:  —  *'An  obstinate 
heretic,  maintaining,  &c.,  &c.  She,  with  one  or  two  Arians,  were  all  who  (and  that 
justly)  died  in  this  king's  reign,  for  their  opinions."  —  "And  that  justly"!  says  Fuller. 

In  Heylin's  Church  History,  pages  88  and  89,  may  be  seen  the  particulars  of  this 
horrible  transaction.  Cranmer  and  Ridley  were  unhappily  distinguished  in  it.  The 
king  was  averse,  and  said  Cranmer  must  be  answerable  to  God,  if  he  (the  king)  signed 
the  death-warrant. 

George  Paris  was  burned  for  Arianism  on  the  25th  of  April  following,  1551. 

A  further  reference  may  be  made  to  cases  where  no  plea  of  state  necessity  could 
have  been  urged.  Observe  the  conduct  of  Elizabeth  and  her  advisers,  or  rather  of 
Elizabeth,  the  daughter  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

In  page  549  of  Collier's  History,  Volume  ii.,  an  account  is  given  of  the  Anabaptists, 
taken  from  Stow.  A  conventicle  had  been  discovered ;  twenty-seven  seized ;  four  were 
recovered,  and  brought  to  a  recantation.  The  "damnable  and  detestable  heresies" 
which  they  recanted  were  these :  —  "  1.  That  Christ  took  not  flesh  of  the  substance  of 
the  blessed  Virgin  Mary.  2.  That  infants  born  of  faithful  parents  ought  to  be  re- 
baptized.  3.  That  no  Christian  man  ought  to  be  a  magistrate,  or  bear  the  sword  or 
office  of  authority.    4.  And  that  it  is  not  lawful  for  a  Christian  man  to  take  an  oath." 

Ten  Dutchmen  and  one  woman  were  brought  into  the  consistory  at  St.  Paul's,  and 
condemned  to  the  stake.  The  woman  was  recovered,  and  the  government  "was  so 
merciful"  as  to  banish  the  rest.    This  clemency  giving  encouragement,  two  of  the 


LECTURES  IX.,  X.  68T 

same  nation  and  heterodoxies  were  burned  in  Smithficld.  Pox,  the  martjrologist, 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  queen  in  their  behalf,  "to  mitigate  the  rigor,"  "to  change  the 
punishment,"  "  to  respite  the  execution  for  a  month  or  two,  that  learned  men  might 
bring  them  off  their  heresy."  A  reprieve  was  granted ;  Fox's  expedient  tried  without 
success ;  and  they  were  therefore  burned.  The  above  account  is  abridged  and  given  in 
the  words  of  Collier. 

In  Fullers  Church  History,  to  which  he  refers,  Book  IX.,  page  104,  edit.  1655,  Fox's 
letter  is  given;  it  does  him  the  highest  honor,  all  circumstances  considered ;  it  is  tem- 
perate, conciliating,  humane  ;  in  a  word,  it  is  Christian.  He  observes,  —  "Erroribus 
quidem  ipsis  nihil  possit  absurdius  esse,  &c. ;  sed  ita  habet  humanae  infirmitatis  conditio, 
si  divina  paululum  luce  destituti  nobis  relinquimur,  quo  non  ruimus  pracipites  1 " 
"  Istas  sectas,  &c.,  idone^  comprimendas  correctione  censeo.  Verum  enim  vero  igni- 
bus  ac  flammis  pice  ac  sulphure  gestuantibus  viva  miserorum  corpora  torrefacere  ju- 
dioii  magis  csecitate  quam  impetu  voluntatis  errantium,  durum  istud  ac  Romani  magis 
exempli  esse  quam  Evangelicee  consuetudinis  videtur,"  &c.,  &c.  ''  Quamobrem,  &c., 
supplex  pro  Christo  rogarem,  &c.,  ut  vitro,  &c.,  miserorum  parcatur,  saltern  ut  horrori 
obsistatur,  atque  in  aliud  quodcunque  commutetur  supplicii  genus.  Sunt  ejectiones, 
&c.,  sunt  vincula,  t&c.,  &c.,  ne  piras  ac  flammas  Smithfieldianasf  &c.,  &c.,  sinas  nunc 
recandesccre." 

The  words  that  follow  in  Fuller  are  these  (Fuller  wrote  in  the  time  of  the  Common 
wealth,  and  was  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England) :  —  "  This  letter  was  written  by 
Mr.  John  Fox  (from  whose  own  hand  I  transcribed  it),  very  loath  that  Smithfield, 
formerly  consecrated  with  martyrs'  ashes,  should  now  be  profaned  with  heretics',  and 
desirous  that  the  Papists  might  enjoy  their  own  monopoly  of  cruelty  in  burning  con- 
demned persons.  But  though  Queen  Elizabeth  constantly  called  him  her  Father  Fox, 
yet  herein  was  she  no  dutiful  daughter,  giving  him  a  flat  denial.  Indeed  damnable 
were  their  impieties,  and  she  necessitated  to  this  severity,  who  having  formerly  punished 
some  traitors,  if  now  sparing  these  blasphemers,  the  world  would  condemn  her,  as  be- 
ing more  earnest  in  asserting  her  own  safety  than  God's  honor.  Hereupon  the  writ  De 
hmretico  comburendo  (which  for  seventeen  years  had  hung  only  up  in  terrorem)  was  now 
taken  down  and  put  in  execution,  and  the  two  Anabaptists  burned  in  Smithfield  died 
in  great  horror  with  crying  and  roaring." 

it  may  not  be  amiss  to  exhibit  for  perusal  this  horrible  writ.  William  Sawtre  Vas 
the  first  victim,  in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  1401. 

Form  of  the  Writ  De  Hceretico  Comburendo,  from  Fitzherbert's  Natura  Brevium,  2d  VoL 
p.  269,  ninth  edition. 

"  The  king,  &c..  to  the  mayor  and  sheriffs  of  London,  greeting :  Whereas  the  vener- 
able father  Thomas  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  primate  of  all  England,  and  legate  of 
the  apostolic  see,  with  the  consent  and  assent  of  the  bishops  and  his  brothers  the  suf- 
fragans, and  also  of  the  whole  clergy  of  his  province  in  his  provincial  council  assembled, 
tlie  orders  of  law  in  this  behalf  requisite  being  in  all  things  observed,  by  his  definitive 
sentence  pronounced  and  declared  William  Saivtre  (sometime  chaplain,  condemned 
for  heresy,  and  by  him  the  said  William  heretofore  in  form  of  law  abjured,  and  him  the 
said  William  relapsed  into  the  said  heresy)  a  manifest  heretic,  and  decreed  liim  to  be 
degraded,  and  hath  for  that  cause  really  degraded  him,  from  all  clerical  prerogative 
and  privilege,  and  hath  decreed  him  the  said  William  to  be  left,  and  hath  really  left 
him,  to  the  secular  court,  according  to  the  laws  and  canonical  sanctions  set  forth  in  thir 
behalf,  and  holy  mother  the  Church  hath  nothing  further  tc  ex  in  the  premises :  \r'< 
therefore,  being  zealous  for  justice,  and  a  lover  of  the  Catuohc  r.iith,  willing  to  maiT»- 
tain  and  defend  holy  Church,  and  the  rights  and  liberties  thereof,  and  (as  much  as  in 
us  lies)  to  extirpate  by  the  roots  such  heresies  and  errors  out  of  our  kingdom  ci  Eng- 
land, and  to  punish  heretics  so  convicted  with  condign  punishment;  and  being  mind- 
ful that  such  heretics  convicted  in  form  aforesaid,  and  condemned  according  to  the  law 
divine  and  human  by  canonical  institution,  and  in  this  behalf  accustomed,  ought  to  be 
burnt  with  a  burning  flame  of  fire,  command  you,  most  strictly  as  we  can  firmly  on- 
joining,  that  you  commit  to  the  fire  the  aforesaid  William,  bemg  in  your  custody,  in 
some  public  and  open  place  M'ithin  the  liberties  of  the  city  aforesaid,  before  the  people 
publicly,  by  reason  of  the  premises,  and  cause  him  really  to  be  burnt  in  the  same  fire, 
m  detestation  of  this  crime,  and  to  the  manifest  example  of  other  Christians :  and  this 
you  are  by  no  means  to  omit,  under  the  ptyil  falling  thereon.     Witness."  &c. 

This  writ  was  used  nearly  word  for  word  by  Elizabeth,  when  she  put  to  death  the 


688  NOTES. 

two  Anabaptists  in  the  seventeenth  or  eighteenth  year  of  her  reign.  The  writ  may  be 
readily  seen  by  turning  to  Collier's  Church  History,  in  the  fifteenth  page  of  the  preface 
to  the' second  folio  volume,  edition  1714.  This  Protestant  princess  could  sign  the  fol- 
lowing dreadful  words :  — 

"  Nos  igitur,  ut  zelator  justitia;,  et  fidei  Catholicse  defensor,  volentesque  Ecclesiam 
sanctam  ac  jura  et  libertates  ejusdem  et  fidcm  Catholicam  manu  tenere  et  dcfendere, 
ac  hujusmodi  hsereses  et  errores  ubique  (quantum  in  nobis  est)  eradicare  et  extirpare, 
ac  hcereticos  sic  convictos  animadversione  condigna  puniri,  attendentesque  hujusmodi 
hajreticos  in  forma  prajdicta  convictos  et  damnatos,  juxta  leges  et  consuctudines  regni 
nostri  Anglic  in  hac  parte  consuetas,  ignis  incendio  comburi  debere:  Vobis  praecipimus 
quod  dictos  Johannem  Peters  et  Henricum  Turwert,  in  custodia  vestrA  existentes,  apud 
West  Smithfield  in  loco  publico  et  aperto,  ex  caus&  pra^missa,  coram  jxipido  igni  comviitti^ 
ac  ipsos  Johannem  Peters  et  Henricum  Turwert  in  eodem  igne  realiter  comburi  faciatis, 
in  hujusmodi  criminis  detesfationem,  aliorumqne  hominum  exemplum,  ne  in  simile  crimen 
labantur,  et  hoc  sub  periculo  incumbenti  nullatenus  omittatis. 

*'  Teste  regiua  apud  Gorambury  decimo  quinto  die  Julii. 

"Per  ipsam  reginam. 
•  "Elizabeth." 

Such  are  the  facts.  There  is  here  no  terror  of  Papists,  —  of  men  intending  by  mobs 
to  overthrow  the  government.  The  case  is  simply  a  case  of  intolerance ;  and  thus, 
though  every  consideration,  that  should  have  influenced  the  understanding  and  affected 
the  feelings  of  Elizabeth  and  her  counsellors,  had  been  urged  by  Fox  in  the  most  un- 
obtrusive and  respectful  manner,  "  In  igne  realiter  comburi  faciatis,"  says  the  writ,  "  in 
hujusmodi  criminis  detestationem." 

It  is  therefore  impossible  to  impute  the  violent  and  sanguinary  laws  and  executions 
of  this  reign  to  mere  motives  of  stat^  policy.  The  Roman  Catholic  writers  do  not 
make  this  mistake.  Yet  they  do  in  tneir  own  instance.  Father  Parsons,  in  his  Re- 
ply to  Fox,  "  made  it  appear,"  as  he  supposed,  "  that  many  of  them  [the  Protestant 
martyrs]  died  for  treason ;  some  were  notoriously  scandalous  and  wicked  persons ; 
others  distracted,  and  no  better  than  enthusiasts,"  &c.,  &c.  These  are  his  excuses.  — 
Bodd's  Church  History,  page  463. 

Observe  now  what  these  penal  laws  were,  and  what  the  horrible  consequences. 

Elizabeth  comes  to  the  throne  in  1.558.  In  the  fifth  year  of  her  reign  she  asserts  her 
supremacy;  it  was  made  death  to  deny  twice  this  supremacy.  Now  this  supremacy  of 
the  Pope  is  a  point  of  religious  faith  with  the  Roman  Catholics ;  Bishop  Fisher  and 
Sir  Thomas  More,  as  she  and  her  Parliaments  knew,  died  for  it.  No  effort  was  made 
to  disentangle  the  civil  obligations  due  to  the  sovereign  from  the  religious  obligation  due 
to  the  Pope,  as  the  head  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  the  supposed  immediate 
descendant  and  representative  and  vicegerent  of  Christ  here  on  earth. 

On  this  account,  from  1571  to  1594,  were  put  to  death  twelve  persons,  seven  gentle- 
men and  five  clergymen.  Their  names  are  given,  page  320,  part  iv.  b.  3,  vol.  ii.,  of 
Dodd's  Church  History.    Dodd  is  the  Roman  Catholic  historian. 

In  the  thirteenth  year  of  her  reign,  1570,  the  bringing  in  of  the  Pope's  bulls,  or  other 
superstitious  things,  was  made  death.  In  the  twenty- third  year  it  was  made  death  to 
withdraw  any  from  the  established  religion,  it  was  also  made  death  to  be  so  per- 
suaded or  withdrawn.  In  the  twenty-seventh  year,  1585,  Jesuits,  seminary  priests,  and 
other  such,  were  ordered  out  of  the  kingdom,'and,  if  remaining  in  the  realm,  were  to 
be  punished  with  death,  as  were  even  those  who  harboured  them 

The  result  of  acts  like  these  was,  that  from  1581  to  1603  no  less  than  one  hundred 
and  twenty  of  the  secular  clergy  were  put  to  death  for  exercising  their  sacerdotal  func- 
tions as  Roman  Catholics.  Their  names  are  given  in  Dodd,  page  321.  Twenty-four 
suffered  in  the  year  1588,  the  year  of  the  Spanish  invasion.  Sixty  of  them,  after  that 
year,  when  all  danger  was  at  an  end,  and  even  the  plea  of  state' necessity  no  longer 
existed. 

Thirty-three  different  persons  were  put  to  death  for  entertaining  and  assisting  priests 
of  the  Roman  communion,  yeomen  and  gentlemen.  Twelve  for  being  reconciled  to 
the  Roman  communion.  The  names  of  all  these  appear  in  Dodd,  pages  321, 322,  323. 
Three  Jesuits  also  suffered  for  exercising  their  sacerdotal  functions.  Forty  priests 
were  banished  in  1585,  after  having  been  condemned.  Twenty  (clergymen,  gentle- 
men, and  Jesuits)  were  condemned,  and  were  either  pardoned  or  died  in  prison,  from 
the  year  1581  to  16)0.     Their  names  are  given. 

That  is,  on  the  whole,  more  than  one  hurylred  and  sixty  persons  were  put  to  death 
in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  for  being  priests,  or  for  acting  as  priests ;  for  harbour- 
ing priests ;  for  converting,  or  beinc  converted  :  lastlv.  for  dc.nvinrf  thp.  minrpmar.v 


LECTURES  IX.,  X.  689 

In  May,  1579,  Matthew  Hammond,  having  first  lost  his  ears  for  opprobrious  lan- 
guage to  the  queen,  was  burned  for  blasphemy  and  heresy  at  Norwich.  In  1583,  Elias 
Thacker  and  John  Copping,  Brownists,  were  hanged  at  Bury.  John  Lewes  was 
burned  at  Norwich.     These  and  others  are  clear  cases  of  religious  intolerance. 

The  sanguinary  and  violent  laws  enacted  in  this  reign,  and  not  only  enacted,  but 
put  into  execution,  are  excused  upon  the  plea  of  state  necessity,  —  the  tyrant's  plea  at 
all  times,  and  not  sufficient ;  though  these  times,  and  Elizabeth's  situation,  were,  no 
dcubt,  very  peculiar.  The  Roman  Catholics  in  Mary's  reign,  Bonner  in  particular, 
had  excuses  (such  as  they  were)  always  ready,  and  talked  of  retaliation,  though  they 
were  not  b  :rned  at  Smithfield  as  the  Protestants  were. 

The  Protestants  insisted  that  theirs  was  the  true  faith ;  the  Papists,  that  theirs  was 
not  only  the  true,  but  the  ancient  faith ;  and  in  justice  even  to  the  Roman  Catholics, 
bigoted  and  bloody  as  they  were,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  Protestants  were 
the  assailants,  that  they  were  the  innovators,  the  disturbers,  the  propagators  of  new 
opinions,  &c. 

The  Roman  Catholics  could  always  say  to  the  Protestants,  "  Christ  left  his  church 
behind  him.  What  church  but  ours  ?  Did  not  the  church  which  Christ  left  begin  to 
exist  till  the  days  of  your  Luther  1 "     Such  was  their  plausible  language. 

But  the  subject  of  toleration  was  not  understood.  The  offences  of  each  party  may 
be  compared,  and  the  atrocities  of  the  one  may  be  more  ^emendous  than  the  cruelties 
of  the  other :  —  they  certainly  were.  The  guilt,  howeverfof  putting  to  death  their  fel- 
low-creatures must  be  shared  by  both,  and  should,  though  in  different  degrees  and  to  a 
different  extent,  be  an  eternal  warning  to  ourselves  of  the  original  tendencies  of  the 
human  mind  on  these  subjects. 

"  What  could  be  more  provoking  to  the  court,"  says  Collier  (a  nonjuror,  but  a  Prot- 
estant), "  than  to  see  the  queen's  honor  [Queen  Mary's]  aspersed,  their  religion  in- 
sulted, their  preachers  shot  at  in  the  pulpit,  and  a  lewd  imposture  played  against  the 
government  ?  Had  the  reformed  been  more  smooth  and  inoffensive  in  their  behaviour, 
had  the  eminent  clergy  of  that  party  published  an  abhorrence  of  such  unwarrantable 
methods,  it  is  possible,  some  may  say,  they  might  have  met  with  gentler  usage,  and 
prevented  the  persecution  from  flaming  out."  —  Collier,  Part  ii.,  b.  5,  page  371. 

"  The  governors  of  the  Church,"  says  Heylin  (a  Protestant  writer  also),  "  exasperated 
by  these  provocations,  and  the  queen  [Mary]  charging  Wyatt's  rebellion  on  the  Prot- 
estant party,  they  both  agreed  on  the  reviving  of  some  ancient  statutes,  made  in  the 
time  of  King  Richard  the  Second,  Henry  the  Fourth,  and  Henry  the  Fifth,  for  the  se- 
vere punishment  of  obstinate  heretics,  even  to  death  itself."  —  Heylin,  page  47. 

"The  heretics  themselves,"  said  Bonner,  "put  one  of  their  own  number  [Servetus] 
to  a  cruel  death.  Is  it  a  crime  in  us,  if  we  proceed  against  them  with  the  like  severi- 
ty ?  "  —  Heylin,  page  48. 

"Heretics  themselves,"  one  of  the  Catholic  tracts  observed,  "did  not  scruple  burning 
Dissenters,  when  the  government  was  on  their  side.  Some  Arians  and  Anabaptists, 
condemned  to  the  fire  by  the  Protestants,  were  no  less  remarkable  for  the  regularity  of 
their  lives,"  &c.,  &c.  —  Collier,  page  383. 

The  truth  is,  no  pleas  of  state  policy,  reprisals,  &c.,  &c.,  are  to  be  listened  to.  In- 
tolerance is  at  the  bottom  of  all  such  proceedings,  —  intolerance,  more  or  less,  from 
the  bloody  writs  of  our  ancestors,  and  their  abominable  fires  in  Smithfickl,  down  to 
our  own  penal  or  disabling  statutes  against  Dissenters  or  Roman  Catholics,  in  Eng- 
land or  Ireland. 

James  the  First  died  in  March,  1625;  became  king  in  1603.  In  1612,  Francis  La- 
tham, a  Roman  Catholic,  was  executed  on  account  of  the  supremacy.  He  distinguitned 
clearly  between  the  civil  obedience  which  he  owed  James,  his  king,  and  the  obedience 
which  he  owed  his  spiritual  sovereign,  the  Pope ;  but  in  vain.  He  was  hanged  at  Ty 
burn,  December  5.  The  particulars  of  his  examination  and  execution  are  instructive, 
but  very  disgraceful  to  the  Bishop  of  London  (I^ng)  and  the  government.  They  are 
given,  page  369  of  Dodd's  second  volume. 

N.  Owen,  a  gentleman  of  good  account,  was  long  confined  in  prison,  and  at  last  con- 
demned to  die,  for  refusing  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy.  He  suffered  May 
17,  1615.  —  Dodd,  pase  427. 

William  Brown  suffered  at  York  in  1605,  "  for  being  instrumental  in  proselyting  the 
king's  subjects  to  the  Roman  communion."  —  Dodd,  page  431. 

Robert  Drury,  Matthew  Fletcher,  and  twelve  or  thirteen  others,  were  put  to  death 
on  different  accounts  connected  with  their  sacerdotal  functions.  —  Do  id's  Church  His 
tory,  T)age  525.  and  his  refei-ences.  377,  &c. ;  vide  the  Index. 

87  3f*     .       • 


690  NOTES.    • 

During  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Pirst.  and  the  time  of  the  Rebellion,  on  account  of 
their  sacerdotal  character,  two  suffered  in  1628,  one  in  1634,  one  in  1641,  six  in  1642, 
two  in  1643,  three  in  1644,  one  in  1645,  four  in  1646  and  1651,  and  two  in  1654. — 
Vide  Dodd,  Vol.  iii.  page  172. 

Tliese  facts  are  very  disgraceful  to  the  Presbyterians  and  Republicans.  Charles 
would  not  have  put  Roman  Catholics  to  death  on  accoimt  of  their  religion ;  it  is  there- 
fore the  Commons  who  must  be  responsible  for  these  enormities. 

Charles  the  Second.  —  At  page  356,  &c.,  of  Dodd,  there  are  several  very  affecting 
speeches  of  those  who  suffered  for  Oates's  plot.  About  seventeen  were  exe.  oited  on 
account  of  it,  most  disgracefully. 

Nicholas  Postgate,  and  seven  others,  suffered  on  account  of  orders  in  167S.  Four- 
teen others  were  condemned,  but  reprieved  and  pardoned. 

These  horrible  executions  and  condemnations  must  have  been  more  or  less  occa- 
sioned by  the  insanity  of  the  nation  on  the  subject  of  Popish  plots,  more  particularly 
Oates's  plot.  They  show  the  nature,  not  only  of  intolerance,  but  ,of  public  alarms, 
popular  cries,  &c.,  &c. 

The  case  of  the  Covenanters  might  next  be  referred  to,  —  one,  surely,  of  intolerance 
exercised  by  the  more  powerful  sect. 

Judge  Bfackstone,  in  his  4th  book,  chap.  4,  states  the  laws  that  so  long  remained  in 
force  against  the  Papists.  "  Of  which,"  says  he,  "  the  President  Montesquieu  observes, 
that  they  are  so  rigorous,  tho%h  not  professedly  of  the  sanguinary  kind,  that  they  do 
all  the  hurt  that  can  possibly  be  done  in  cold  blood.  But  in  answer  to  this,"  says 
Blackstone,  "it  may  be  observed  that  these  laws  are  seldom  exerted  to  their  utmost 
rigor;  and  indeed,  if  they  were,  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  excuse  them.  For  thev 
are  rather  to  be  accounted  for  from  their  history,  and  the  urgency  of  the  times  whicli 
produced  them,  than  to  be  approved,  upon  a  cool  review,  as  a  standing  system  of  law." 
This  account  and  history  of  them  he  then  gives,  and  at  last  ventures  to  say,  that,  "  if  a 
time  should  ever  arrive,  and  perhaps  it  is  not  very  distant"  (this  was  written  between 
the  years  1755  and  1765),  "when  all  fears  of  a  Pretender  shall  have  vanished,"  &c.,  &c- 
"  it  probably  would  not  then  be  amiss  to  review  and  soften  these  rigorous  edicts,"  &c. 

The  present  reign  (of  George  the  Third)  has  been  a  reign  of  concession,  that  is,  a 
reign  of  progressive  civil  wisdom  and  progressive  religious  knowledge  on  these  sub- 
jects. The  question  is  at  length  debated,  among  all  reasonable  men,  as  properly  a 
qiiestion  of  civil  policy.  The  nature  of  religious  truth  and  the  rights  of  religious  in- 
quiry arc  better  understood  than  they  were  by  our  ancestors.  These  are  held  sacred, 
in  theory  at  least.  And  therefore  all  that  now  remains  to  be  observed  is,  that  no  real 
conversions  can  be  expected  to  take  place,  while  penal  statutes  or  test  acts  exist ;  be- 
cause, while  these  exist,  the  point  of  honor  is  against  the  conversion. 

The  members  of  the  Roman  Catholic  or  Dissenting  communions  will  gradually  be- 
come more  and  more  like  the  members  of  any  more  enlightened  establishment,  in  their 
views  and  opinions,  when  civil  offices  and  distinctions  are  first  laid  open  to  them,  but 
in  no  other  way.  Those  of  them  who  are  of  some  condition  or  rank  in  life,  or  of  m- 
perior  natural  talents,  will  first  suffer  this  alteration  in  their  views  and  opinions ;  then 
successful  merchants  and  manufacturers ;  —  and  this  sort  of  improvement  will  propagate 
downward  At  length  the  clerical  part  will  be  gradually  improved  in  their  views  and 
opinions,  like  the  laity.  The  outward  and  visible  signs  of  the  worship  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  or  Dissenting  communion  may  alter,  or  may  in  the  mean  time  remain  the 
same ;  but  the  alteration  in  their  minds  and  tempers  will  have  taken  place,  sufficiently 
for  all  civil  purposes,  gradually,  insensibly,  and  with  or  without  acknowledgment  or 
alteration  in  their  creeds  and  doctrines.  This  is  the  only  conversion  that  can  now  be 
thought  of:  an  alteration,  this,  not  of  a  day  or  a  year,  but  to  be  produced  in  a  course  of 
years,  by  the  unrestrained  operation  of  the  increasing  knowledge  and  prosperity  of 
mankind.  Nothing  could  have  kept  the  inferior  and  more  ignorant  sects  and  churches 
from  gradually  assimilating  themselves  to  the  superior  and  more  enlightened  c;  im- 
munion,  in  the  course  of  the  last  half-century,  but  tests  and  penal  statutes,  and  all  the 
various  machinery  of  exclusion  and  proscription. 

But  neither  on  the  one  sJ  le  nor  the  other  are  the  spiritual  pastors  and  teachers  to  be 
at  all  listened  to  in  these  discussions.  What  is  reasonable  is  to  be  done,  to  be  done 
from  time  to  time,  and  the  event  need  not  be  feared.  Statesmen  will  never  advance 
the  civil  and  religious  interests  of  the  community,  if  they  are  to  wait  till  they  can 
settle,  in  any  manner  satisfactory  to  the  Dissenting  teacher  and  the  Established  Church- 
man, to  the  Roman  Catholic  and  to  the  Protestant  minister,  their  opposite  and  long- 
established  claims  and  opinions,  —  claims  and  opinions  from  which  it  is  the  business 


LECTURE  XII.  691 

of  the  statesman,  as  much  as  possible,  to  escape.  I  am  speaking  now  of  men  as  rulers 
of  kingdoms,  not  as  individuals;  such  men  are  not  to  take  their  own  views  of  religious 
truth  for  granted,  and  propagate  it  accordingly ;  the  state  would  thus  necessarily  be 
made  intolerant. 

*'  To  overthrow  any  religion,"  says  Montesquieu,  (or,  he  might  have  added,  any  par- 
ticular sect  in  religion,)  "we  must  assail  it  by  the  good  things  of  the  world  and  by  the 
hopes  of  fortune;  not  by  that  which  makes  men  remember  it,  but  by  that  which  causes 
them  to  forget  it;  not  by  that  which  outrages  mankind,  but  by  every  thing  which 
soothes  them,  and  facilitates  the  other  passions  of  humanity  in  obtaining  predominance 
over  religion." 

These  notes  were  written  in  the  year  1810,  and  placed  on  the  table  when  the  two 
lectures  on  the  Reformation  were  delivered.  Mr.  Hallam  published  his  History  nearly 
twenty  years  after.  He  very  thoroughly  discusses  the  subject  of  the  statutes  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  and  then  sums  up  in  the  following  words :  —  "It  is  much  to  be  regretted 
tnat  any  writers  worthy  of  respect  should,  either  through  undue  prejudice  against  an 
adverse  religion,  or  through  timid  acquiescence  in  whatever  has  been  enacted,  have 
offered  for  this  odious  code  the  false  pretext  of  political  necessity.  That  necessity,  I 
am  persuaded,  can  never  be  made  out.  The  statutes  were,  in  many  instances,  abso- 
lutely unjust;  in  others,  not  demanded  by  circumstances;  in  almost  all,  prompted  by 
religious  bigotry,  by  excessive  apprehension,  or  by  the  arbitrary  spirit  with  which  our 
government  was  administered  under  Elizabeth."  —  End  of  3d  chap,  of  his  Constitu- 
tional History,  pages  229  and  230  of  8vo  edit,  of  1829. 

At  the  end  of  the  fourth  chapter  he  observes,  speaking  of  the  Puritans :  —  "  After 
forty  years  of  constantly  aggravated  molestation  of  the  Nonconfonning  clergy,  their 
numbers  were  become  greater,  their  popularity  more  deeply  rooted,  their  enmity  to  the 
established  order  more  irreconcilable."  He  acknowledges  the  difficulty  of  the  case, 
but  observes  "  that  the  obstinacy  of  bold  and  sincere  men  is  not  to  be  quelled  by  any 
|"unishments  that  do  not  exterminate  them,  and  that  they  were  not  likely  to  entertain 
a  less  conceit  of  their  own  reason  when  they  found  no  arguments  so  much  relied  on  to 
refute  it  as  that  of  force.  Statesmen  invariably  take  a  better  view  of  such  questions 
than  churchmen."  "  It  appears  by  no  means  unlikely,  that,  by  reforming  the  abuses 
and  corruption  of  the  spiritual  courts,  by  abandoning  a  part  of  their  jurisdiction,  so 
heterogeneous  and  so  unduly  obtained,  by  abrogating  obnoxious  and  at  best  frivolous 
ceremonies,  by  restraining  pluralities  of  benefices,  by  ceasing  to  discountenance  the 
most  diligent  ministers,  and  by  more  temper  and  disinterestedness  in  their  own  be- 
haviour, the  bishops  would  have  palliated,  to  an  indefinite  degree,  that  dissatisfaction 
with  the  established  scheme  of  polity  which  its  want  of  resemblance  to  that  of  other 
Protestant  churches  must  more  or  less  have  produced.  Such  a  reformation  would  at 
least  have  contented  those  reasonable  and  moderate  persons  who  occupy  sometimes  a 
more  extensive  ground  between  contending  factions  than  the  zealots  of  either  are  will- 
ing to  believe  or  acknowledge." 


LECTURE  XII. 
I. 

The  Edict  of  Nantes. 

The  remonstrances  of  the  Protestants  were  vain  on  the  subject  of  tithes.  But  the 
king,  by  a  brief,  promised  to  furnish  them  annually  with  a  certain  sum,  "  to  be  em- 
ployed," says  the  brief,  "  in  certain  secret  affairs  relating  to  them,  which  his  Majesty 
does  not  think  fit  to  specify  or  declare."  They  were  also  allowed  (but  by  the  secret 
articles)  to  receive  gifts  and  legacies.*  They  were  indulged,  too,  (twenty-second 
article,)  in  being  eligible  to  offices  in  the  universities,t  and  in  sending  their  children 
freely  to  the  public  schools. 

♦  That  is,  for  the  support  of  their  religion  :  "Pour  I'entretenemenl  des  Ministres.  Docteurs,  Ecoliera 
et  pauvres  de  ladite  Religion  preleiidtie  Reform6e,  at  autres  causes  pies."    Art.  XLII.  — N. 

t  A  mistake.  Neither  the  twenty-second  article,  nor  any  other  part  of  the  Edict,  or  of  the  secret 
•nicies  accompanying  it,  contains  any  provision  making  Protestanta  "  eligible  to  ofl5ce3  in  the  uxii- 


692  NOTES. 

But  so  much  more  is  necessary  to  the  weaker  sect  than  edicts  or  laws  in  their  favor, 
that  this  very  concession  was  afterwards  made  a  pretext  for  preventing  Protestants 
from  teaching  any  thing  in  their  own  small  schools  but  reading  and  arithmetic,  "  be- 
cause," said  the  Roman  Catholics,  "  the  children  may  be  sent  to  our  public  colleges." 

Three  Parliaments  or  courts  of  law  were  fixed  upon,  where  the  number  of  Prot- 
estant and  Roman  Catholic  judges  were  to  be  equal:  a  necessary  arrangement,  it 
seems,  to  procure  them  the  proper  protection  of  the  law. 

Protestant  books  were  to  be  sold  only  where  the  religion  was  publicly  exercised ;  in 
other  places,  after  an  imprimatur ;  not  in  the  metropolis,  for  instance. 

n. 

Low  Countries. 

Prom  the  temiination  of  the  great  struggle  between  the  Low  Countries  and  Philip 
the  Second,  inferences  have  been  drawn  more  favorable  to  the  practicability  of  resist- 
ance to  oppression  than  the  transactions,  it  is  to  be  feared,  will  warrant.  Of  the  seven- 
teen provinces,  though  the  condition  of  all  must  have  been  much  ameliorated,  seven 
only  were  emancipated  from  the  Spanish  yoke.  They  who  have  to  resist  the  regular 
armies  of  their  tyrants  can  seldom  be  so  situated  as  were  the  inhabitants  of  these  mari- 
time provinces ;  they  can  seldom  be  possessed  of  such  fortified  towns,  and  of  a  country 
so  singularly  impracticable  to  invaders.  It  is  seldom  that  they  can  have  a  marine  so 
powerful,  and  the  commerce  and  the  possessions,  the  very  treasures  of  their  oppressors, 
so  exposed  to  insult  and  injury,  to  capture  and  ruin.  It  is  seldom  that  an  unhappy 
people  can  be  found  so  justly  infuriated  and  rendered  so  totally  desperate  by  their  par- 
ticular suff'erings  and  their  particular  cause ;  it  is  seldom  that  they  can  have  been  so 
fortunately  educated,  as  were  the  Hollanders,  to  a  sense  of  right,  by  the  prior  influence 
of  a  free  government. 

Yet  the  policy  of  the  case,  as  it  respects  the  tyrant  himself,  or  the  superior  country, 
is  not  altered.  The  oppressed  country  will  always  find  support  from  the  neighbouring 
powers ;  great  mistakes,  like  those  of  Philip,  will  probably  be  made ;  illustrious  de- 
fenders of  their  country  will  probably  arise,  produced  by  the  occasion.  Injury  must  at 
all  events  be  received  by  the  superior  power.  The  most  successful  issue  will  but  turn 
subjects  into  slaves,  brothers  into  enemies ;  and  impair  those  principles  of  dignified 
obedience  and  reciprocal  right  between  the  governors  and  the  governed,  which  exter- 
nally and  internally,  in  the  superior  as  well  as  the  dependent  state,  are  the  only  steady 
and  effective  causes  of  all  real  greatness  and  prosperity. 

The  student  is  again  recommended  to  turn  to  the  debate  in  the  Spanish  council, 
given  by  Bentivoglio,  on  account  of  the  similarity  of  the  reasonings  employed  by  our 
own  statesmen  in  the  contest  with  our  American  colonies. 


LECTURES  XVIII.,  XIX. 

1810. 

I. 

Clarendon  relates  of  Charles  the  Second,  that  he  came  to  him  one  day,  when  they 
were  both  together  in  exile,  and  asked  him,  with  some  astonishment,  whether  the  penal 
statutes  against  the  Catholics  in  England  could  possibly  be  such  as  they  had  been 
represented  to  him  in  conversation.  The  Chancellor  was  obliged  to  confess  to  him 
that  they  really  were,  and  to  endeavour  to  explain  to  him  how  and  why  penal  statutes 
of  this  nature  had  been  made.  But  it' is  probable  that  the  humanity  of  the  young 
king,  not  trained  up  under  the  discipline  of  polemical  warfare,  received  an  impression 

rersities."  The  language  of  the  article  referred  to  is  as  follows :  —  "  XXII.  Ordonnons  qu'il  ne  sera 
fait  difference  ne  distinction,  pour  le  regard  de  ladite  Religion,  i  recevoir  les  Ecoliers  pour  §ire  instruits 
ia  Universilez,  Colleges  et  Ecoles.  et  les  malades  el  pauvres  is  Hdpilaux,  Maladeries  et  auniones  pub» 
nques."  Hisloire  de  I'Edit  da  T^antes,  [par  Elie  Benoit,]  (Delft,  1693,)  Tom.  i.,  Recueil  d'Edits,  etc. 
p.  68.— N. 


LECTURES  XVIII. ,  XIX.  693 

m  favor  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  careless  as  he  was,  which  could  never  afterwards  be 
removed.  It  is  at  tlie  same  time  to  be  observed,  that  Charles  was  totally  incapable  of 
all  severer  virtue,  and  therefore  that  he  recoiled  from  any  description  of  religion  which 
insisted  on  the  purity  of  the  heart  and  the  triumphs  of  self-denial ;  yet  was  his  under- 
standing too  penetrating  to  leave  him  undisturbed  in  the  indulgence  of  his  vices.  He 
was  therefore  placed,  as  sometimes  happens,  within  the  reach  of  the  two  extremes  of 
infidelity  and  superstition :  and  in  his  hours  of  gayety  believing  nothing,  and  believing 
every  thing,  on  the  contrary,  during  those  cold  visitations  of  melancholy  to  which  men 
of  pleasure  are  so  peculiarly  exposed,  he  was,  from  the  first,  a  fit  subject  for  the  influ- 
ence of  the  ceremonies  and  pretensions  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  And  from 
these  and  other  considerations,  it  may  be  concluded  that  he  came  to  England,  and  re- 
mained to  his  death,  perfectly  disposed  to  extend  every  kindness  to  the  members  of  a 
Churcli,  with  the  sentiments,  at  least,  of  whose  religion  he  could  sympathize,  and  to 
whose  communion,  therefore,  (for  religious  inquiry  into  doctrines  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion,) he  must  have  appeared  to  himself  to  belong. 

The  king,  therefore,  and  the  Roman  Catholics,  saw  with  pleasure  the  Presbyterians 
totally  excluded  from  the  Establishment,  because  they  conceived,  that,  the  greater  were 
the  numbers  of  those  without  the  pale,  the  better  would  be  their  treatment;  and  that 
the  Papists  might  thus  come  in  with  the  rest  to  partake  of  the  benefits  of  some  general 
act  of  toleration. 

The  Presbyterians,  on  the  contrary,  intolerant  to  a  degree  that  would  be  perfectly 
ludicrous,  if  it  were  not  for  the  serious  nature  of  the  subject,  though  they  were  ex- 
tremely exasperated  when  they  found  themselves  so  abhorred  by  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, could  cordially  unite  with  that  Church  in  at  least  equally  abominating  those  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  communion. 

The  Church,  In  the  mean  time,  had  perfectly  resolved  to  avoid  all  fellowship  with 
either.  As,  however,  beneath  the  lowest  deep  there  was  yet  a  lower  deep,  they  Avere 
always  ready  to  accept  the  services  of  the  Pi-esbyterians  against  their  common  enemy, 
the  Roman  Catholics ;  so  that  in  tlus  respect  the  Church  and  the  Presbyterians  were 
united.  But  still  further  to  perplex  the  scene,  the  Church  of  England  had,  like  the 
Church  of  Rome,  adopted  the  tenet  of  passive  obedience,  and  was  thus  politically  united 
with  the  Roman  Catholics ;  and  therefore  in  this  manner  both  were  combined  against 
the  Presbyterians. 

After  all  the  contests,  therefore,  which  had  taken  place  between  the  Papists  and  Prot- 
estants, and  between  the  diff'erent  sects  of  the  Protestants,  and  after  so  many  years  of 
civil  and  religious  dispute,  the  prospect  was  still  heavy  with  clouds ;  the  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberties  of  the  country  were  still  in  a  situation  of  trial  and  uncertainty ;  and 
they  might  have  been  for  ever  destroyed  by  the  entire  success  of  any  one  of  the  great 
parties  of  the  state,  or  even  of  some  of  their  particular  combinations. 

II. 

In  the  debates  of  the  two  houses  the  secret  history  of  the  times  cannot  now  be  dis- 
covered, but  the  proceedings  of  Parliament  during  the  whole  of  this  reign  seldom  cease 
to  be  important. 

Among  other  of  their  acts  may  be  mentioned  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  The  nature 
of  it  must  be  examined  in  Blackstone  and  our  constitutional  writers,  and  the  conclusion 
to  be  drawn  from  the  whole  of  the  case  seems  to  be  the  extreme  difficulty  with  which 
the  liberty  of  the  subject  can  be  secured ;  the  endless  train  of  impediments  which  they 
who  administer  the  laws  can,  if  they  please,  and  will,  if  they  are  not  prevented,  thro\^ 
in  the  way  of  the  proper  execution  of  them ;  and,  on  the  whole,  a  new  instance  to  show 
how  vain' is  the  letter  of  the  law,  unless  a  proper  sense  of  propriety  and  right  is  gen- 
erated by  the  constitution  through  the  great  mass  of  the  community. 

It  might  have  been  thought,  that,  before  this  celebrated  act,  enough  had  been  done 
for  the  freedom  of  the  subject ;  but  not  so :  and  an  act  like  this,  which  only  gives  the 
subject,  when  thrown  into  prison,  a  power  of  asking  the  reason  of  his  commitment, 
such  an  act  was  declared  by  the  Duke  of  York  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of 
all  regular  government;  though  the  very  contrary  seems  the  fact;  for  without  it  the 
liberty  of  no  man  is  secure ;  and  the  law  is  easily  suspended,  whenever  the  critical  situ- 
ation of  the  country  renders  it  necessary.     "Nemo  imprisonetur  nisi,"*  &c.,  said  the 

*  Tlie  lansruare  of  Magna  Charta  is,  "yuHus  liber  homo  capiatur  vel  imprisonetur,  &c.,  nisi  per  1& 
tale  judicium  parium  suorum  vel  per  legem  terrse."  17  John,  §  39;  1  Hen.  III.,  §  32;  2  Hen,  III.,  §  35 
S  Hea.  III.,  §  29.    The  Great  Charter,  &c.,  ed.  Blackstone  (Oxford,  1759).  —N. 


694  NOTES 

barons  in  Magna  Charta ;  but  it  was  not  till  the  time  of  this  act  that  their  great  princi 
pie  was  ever  perfectly  exhibited  in  practice. 

The  very  remarkable  provision  of  law,  called  the  Test  Act,  was  the  consequence  of 
the  very  singular  times  of  Charles  the  Second,  —  times  when  the  reigning  monarch 
was  believed  to  be  in  a  conspiracy  against  his  subjects,  and  the  immediate  heir  to  the 
crown  an  enemy  to  their  religion.  By  this  act  all  were  excluded  from  civil  offices  who 
tocTc  not  the  sacrament  "  according  to  the  usage  of  the  Church  of  England.'  And 
this  religious  part  of  the  test  was  contrived  as  the  only  expedient  for  incapacitating  the 
Papists,  against  whom  the  act  Avas  directed.  The  intention  of  the  legislature  was  con- 
siderably answered.  The  Duke  of  York  and  other  conscientious  Roman  Catholics  re- 
signed their  posts,  though  unprincipled  men  probably  retained  them.  But  another 
consequence  followed,  which  was  not  within  the  intention  of  the  legislature :  the  Dis 
senters,  as  well  as  the  Papists,  agreed  not  with  the  Church  of  England  in  their  manner 
of  taking  the  sacrament ;  and  the  act  has  ever  since  operated  to  their  exclusion  from 
offices  as  completely  as  if  they  had  been  the  objects  against  whom  it  was  originally 
levelled.  "  Great  pains,''  says  Burnet,  "  was  taken  by  the  court  to  divert  this  bill 
They  proposed  that  some  regard  might  be  had  to  Protestant  Dissenters,  and  that  their 
meetings  might  be  allowed.  By  this  means  they  hoped  to  have  set  them  and  tho 
Church  party  into  new  heats ;  for  now  all  were  united  against  Popery.  Love,  who 
served  for  the  city  of  London,  and  was  himself  a  Dissenter,  saw  what  ill  effects  any 
such  quarrels  might  have;  so  he  moved  that  an  effectual  security  might  be  found 
against  Popery,  and  that  nothing  might  interpose  till  that  was  done :  when  that  wa? 
over,  then  they  would  try  to  deserve  some  favor;  but  at  present  they  were  willing  to 
He  under  the  severity  of  the  laws,  rather  than  clog  a  more  necessary  Avork  with  theii 
concerns."  —  Burnet,  Vol.  i.  p.  347. 

The  conduct  of  the  Dissenters  seems  to  have  got  them  great  reputation.  But  when- 
ever a  penal  statute  is  to  be  drawn  up,  its  enactments  should  be  very  strictly  limited, 
and  the  future  consequences  of  it  be  well  considered.  The  Commons  had  provided  by 
their  Test  Act  for  their  own  defence ;  but  the  bill  Avhich  they  afterwards  brought  in, 
and  which  they  passed  for  the  ease  of  the  Dissenters,  suffered  amendments  in  the 
ilouse  of  Lords  ;  and  the  Parliament  was  adjourned  before  these  proposed  alterations 
could  be  adjusted.  Li  point  of  fact,  it  never  afterwards  became  a  law.  The  truth  is, 
that  the  Commons  should  have  provided  for  the  case  of  the  Dissenters  in  their  original 
bill ;  or,  if  that  might  have  delayed  its  enactment,  should  at  all  events  have  insisted 
subsequently  on  justice  being  done.  What  they  themselves  neglected  to  do  no  subset 
quent  legislature  ever  did ;  and  the  Dissenters  at  this  moment  find  their  feelings 
wounded,  and  the  fair  range  of  their  talents  confined,  by  an  act  of  exclusion  originally 
passed  with  the  concurrence  and  cooperation  of  their  own  body. 

It  is  not  in  matters  of  government,  as  in  other  concerns,  that  a  law  or  any  political 
regulation  may  be  put  aside  when  its  object  has  been  accomplished.  Such  are  the 
passions  of  mankind,  that  laws  are  seldom,  nor  can  they  always  with  safety  be,  either 
repealed  or  improved  on  the  mere  suggestions,  however  convincing,  of  argument  and 
philosophy.  Legislators  should  be,  therefore,  very  careful  how  they  ever  suspend,  even 
for  a  moment,  the  great  principles  of  policy  and  justice.  Their  successors  are  always 
more  likely  to  acquiesce  in  their  faults  than  to  repair  them.  This  has  been  shown  but 
too  clearly  by  all  the  subsequent  events  of  our  history. 

When  William  the  Third  came  to  the  throne,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  overlook 
the  religious  prejudices  of  his  new  subjects,  and  this  most  remarkable  specimen  of  their 
unfortunate  influence.  His  first  attempt  appears  to  have  been  to  emancipate  the  Dis- 
senters from  the  Test  Act.  He  took  the  earliest  opportunity,  in  one  of  his  speeches, 
to  observe  (184*),  that  "he  was,  with  all  the  expedition  he  could, filling  up  the  vacan- 
cies that  were  in  offices  and  places  of  trust";  that,  "as  he  doubted  not  but  they  Avould 
sufficiently  provide  against  Papists,  so  he  hoped  they  would  leave  room  for  the  admis- 
sion of  all  Protestants  that  were  willing  and  able  to'serve." 

But  Avlien  a  bill  was  shortly  after  brought  into  the  Lords,  for  taking  away  the  neces- 
sity of  receiving  the  sacrament  prior  to  any  admission  to  an  office,  it  was  rejected  by  a 
great  majority,  and  the  following  protest  against  this  decision  of  the  House  appears  in 
Its  Journals,  signed  by  eight  lords :  — 

"First,  because"  (page  196  of  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History,  William  and  Mary) 
"  a  hearty  union  amongst  Protestants  is  a  greater  security  to  the  Church  ftnd  State 
than  any  test  that  can  be  invented. 

*  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History,  Vol.  v.  It  is  proper  to  remark  that  the  quotations  which  follow 
In  this  and  tho  subsequent  paragraphs  have  been  corrected  by  the  original  authorities,  the  Journals  of  the 
House  of  Lords.    Cobbett  is  inexact.  —  N. 


LECTURES  XVIII.,  XIX.  695 

"  Secondly,  Because  this  obligation  to  receive  the  sacrament  is  a  test  on  Protestants 
rather  than  on  the  Papists. 

''Thirdly,  Because,  so  long  as  it  is  continued,  there  cannot  be  that  hearty  and 
thorough  union  amongst  Protestants  as  has  always  been  wished,  and  is  at  this  time 
indispensably  necessary. 

"  Fourthly,  Because  a  greater  caution  ought  not  to  be  required  from  such  as  are  ad- 
mitted into  offices  than  from  the  members  of  the  two  houses  of  Parliament,  who  are 
not  obliged  to  receive  the  sacrament  to  enable  them  to  sit  in  either  house. 
,  (Signed)  "Delamer.  "Grey. 

"  Stamford.  "  P.  Wharton. 
"North  and  Grey.  "J.  Lovelace. 
"  Chesterfield.     "  Vaughan." 

Another  effort  was  made  two  days  after;  for  it  was  proposed  that  it  should  be  suf- 
ficient for  any  man  to  have  taken  the  sacrament  in  any  Protestant  congregation,  so  that 
by  this  proposal  the  Protestant  Dissenters  were  verbally  and  distinctly  set  apart  from 
the  Papists.  But  in  vain;  the  bill  was  still  lost,  and  alfthe  advantage  which  the  cause 
of  religious  toleration  obtained  was  the  protest  of  six  of  the  lords,  who  on  this  occasion 
placed  on  the  Journals  reasons  that  will  for  ever  remain  unanswerable,  and  may  in 
time,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  produce  their  proper  effect  on  the  good  sense  and"  moderation 
of  the  community. 

These  reasons  are  to  be  found  page  197  of  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History.  The 
first,  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  are  of  a  general  nature,  and  will  be  easily  conceived  by 
those  Avho  have  considered  the  question. 

"  First,  Because  it  gives  great  part  of  the  Protestant  freemen  of  England  reason  to 
complain  of  inequality  and  hard  usage,  when  they  are  excluded  from  public  employ- 
ments by  a  law ;  and  also  because  it  deprives  the  king  and  kingdom  of  divers  men 
fit  and  capable  to  serve  the  public  in  several  stations,  and  that  for  a  mere  scruple  of 
conscience,  which  can  by  no  means  render  them  suspected,  much  less  disaffected  to  the 
government. 

"  Fourthly,  Because  it  turns  the  edge  of  a  law  (we  know  not  by  what  fate)  upon 
Protestants  and  friends  to  the  government,  which  was  intended  against  Papists,  to  ex- 
clude them  from  places  of  trust,  as  men  avowedly  dangerous  to  our  religion  and  gov- 
ernment. And  thus  the  taking  the  sacrament^  which  was  enjoined  only  as  a  means  to 
discover  Papists,  is  now  made  a  distinguishing  duty  amongst  Protestants,  to  weaken 
the  whole  by  casting  off  a  part  of  them. 

"  Fifthly,  Because  mysteries  of  religion  and  Divine  worship  are  of  Divine  original, 
and  of  a  nature  so  wholly  distant  from  the  secular  affairs  of  politic  society,  that  they 
cannot  be  applied  to  those  ends ;  and  therefore  the  Church,  by  the  law  of  the  Gospel  as 
well  as  common  prudence,  ought  to  take  care  not  to  offend  either  tender  consciences 
within  itself,  or  give  offence  to  those  without,  by  mixing  their  sacred  mysteries  with 
secular  interests. 

"  Sixthly,  Because  we  cannot  see  how  it  can  consist  with  the  law  of  God,  common 
equity,  or  the  right  of  any  free-born  subject,  that  any  one  be  punished  without  a  crime. 
If  it  be  a  crime  not  to  take  the  sacrament  according  to  the  usage  of  the  Church  (Jf  Eng- 
land, every  one  ought  to  be  punished  for  it;  which  nobody  affirms.  If  it  be  no  crime, 
those  who  are  capable  and  judged  fit  for  employment  by  the  king  ought  not  to  be 
punished  with  a  law  of  exclusion  for  not  doing  that  which  it  is  no  crime  to  forbear. 
(Signed)  "Oxford.  "R.  Montagu. 

"Mordaunt.        "P.  Whartok. 
"  J.  Lovelace.     "  Pagett." 

The  next  attempt  of  the  king  was  a  bill  of  comprehension.  As  he  could  not  relieve 
the  Nonconformists  while  they  remained  such,  he  labored  to  induce  the  Church  to  en- 
large her  pale,  and  by  omissions  and  concessions  to  render  it  possible  for  the  Dissent 
ers  conscientiously  to  join  her  communion. 

But  the  difficulty  soon  started  in  the  House  of  Lords  was,  who  were  the  proper  per- 
sons to  decide  on  these  concessions,  —  a  committee  of  the  clergy,  or  a  committee  of 
the  clergy  and  laity  conjointly. 

Burnet  tells  us  that  be  himself  made  a  mistake  (and  a  very  egregious  mistake  it 
was),  and  that  he  argued  for  the  former:  the  House  decided  with  him;  that  is,  in  favor 
af  a  committee  of  the  clergy  only. 

A  protest  was,  however,  again  left  on  the  Journals,  though  signed  only  by  three 


696  NOTES. 

Among  other  gentn-al  ivnd  oowstitutional  reasons  for  the  interference  of  the  laity  in  sucll 

subjects,  the  following  one  m  given  more  particularly  applicable  to  the  case :  — 

"Fifthly,  Because,  the  commission  being  intended  for  the  satisfaction  of  Dissenters, 
it  would  be  convenient  that  laymen  of  different  ranks,  nay,  perhaps  of  different  opinions^ 
too,  should  be  mixed  in  it,  the  better  to  find  expedients  for  that  end,  rather  than  clergy- 
men alone  of  our  Church,  who  are  generally  observed  to  have  very  much  the  same  way 
of  reasoning  and  thinking. 

(Signed)  "  Wj^chestek. 

"  MOKDAUNT. 

"  J.  Lovelace." 

But  the  Commons  were  still  more  intolerant  than  the  Lords,  and  an  address  soon 
appeared  from  them,*  requesting  the  king  to  continue  his  care  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Church  of  England,  whose  constitution  they  told  him  was  best  suited  to  the  sup- 
port of  this  monarchy,  praying  him  to  call  a  convocation  of  the  clergy,  assuring  him, 
at  the  same  time,  that  it  was  their  intention  to  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  giving 
ease  to  Protestant  Dissenters, 

Wlien  the  Convocation  came  to  decide  on  the  humane  intentions  of  the  king,  the 
i-easonableness  of  the  protest  of  the  lords  was  soon  apparent.  Burnet,  in  pages  1 1  and 
30,  vol.  ii.,  gives  us  some  account  of  w^hat  passed  both  before  and  during  these  meet- 
ings.    The  more  rigid  "  thought  too  much  was  already  done  for  the  Dissenters ; 

that  the  altering  the  customs  and  constitution  of  our  Church,  to  gratify  a  peevish  and 
obstinate  party,  was  like  to  have  no  other  effect  on  them  but  to  make  them  more  in- 
solent ;  as  if  the  Church,  by  offering  these  alterations,  seemed  to  confess  that  she  had 
been  hitherto  in  the  wrong.  They  thought  this  attempt  would  divide  us  among  our- 
selves, and  make  our  people  lose  their  esteem  for  the  liturgy,  if  it  appeared  that  it 
wanted  correction." 

To  these  arguments,  which  may  be  considered  as  the  permanent  arguments  on  the 
subject,  the  bishop  offers  his  reply,  and  then  goes  on  thus  :  —  "  But  while  men  were 
arguing  this  matter  on  both  sides,  the  party  that  was  now  at  work  for  King  James 
took  hold  of  this  occasion  to  inflame  men's  minds.    It  was  said,  the  Church  was  to  be 

pulled  down,  and  Presbytery  was  to  be  set  up The  Universities  took  fire  upon 

this Severe  reflections  were  cast  on  the  king,  as  being  in  an  interest  contrary  to 

the  Church So  that  it  was  soon  very  visible,"  says  at  last  the  bishop,  "  that  we 

were  not  in  a  temper  cool  or  calm  enough  to  encourage  the  further  prosecuting  such  a 
design." 

This  want  of  religious  moderation,  of  which  the  bishop  speaks,  must  be  considered 
as  a  striking  proof  of  the  deep  impression  that  had  been  made  on  the  community  by 
the  civil  wars  and  long  habits  of  religious  dispute ;  for  at  the  time  that  the  Declaration 
of  Rights  was  becoming  the  acknowledged  constitution  of  the  country,  at  the  time  that 
England  had  advanced  so  far  before  the  great  rival  country  of  France  in  all  the  doc- 
trines of  civil  liberty,  in  religious  liberty  she  was  actually  a  century  behind  her ;  the 
twenty-sixth  article  f  of  the  edict  of  Nantes,  enacted  by  Henry  the  Fourth  (the  con- 
temporary of  Elizabeth),  admitted  the  Protestants  to  all  civil  offices  indiscriminately 
with  their  fellow-Christians,  the  Roman  Catholics. 

The  real  ground  on  which  these  religious  exclusions  were  and  always  have  been  de- 
f2nded  is  that  of  ten-or,  —  terror,  lest  the  inferior  sect,  by  obtaining  political  power, 
should,  after  a  struggle  for  equality,'  contend  at  last  for  superiority. 

It  is  not  very  creditable  to  human  nature  to  observe,  that,  when  this  terror  is  really 
felt,  it  operates  in  a  contrary  way.  In  the  settlement  of  religious  claims  and  diffei 
ences,  the  inferior  sect  often  gains  something  from  the  fears,  but  never  from  the  gener- 
osity, of  the  superior.  The  Protectants,  for  instance,  had  waged  a  long  and  desperate 
civil  war  with  tlie  Roman  Catholics  in  France,  and  the  terror  which  they  7-eally  in- 
spired enabled  Henry  the  Fourth  to  procure  for  them  such  of  the  terms  of  the  edict  of 
Nantes  as  are  of  an  equitable  nature.  Similar  effects  have  been  more  or  less  produced 
in  other  countries,  on  similar  occasions  of  reconcilement  and  pacification,  through  all 
the  periods  of  these  dreadful  contentions.  Afterwards,  when  the  Protestants  ceased  to 
be  such  objects  of  terror,  Louis  the  Fourteenth  could  indulge  his  intolerance,  and 
banish  them  from  their  country  in  a  manner  the  most  impolitic  and  cruel. 

In  England,  in  like  manner,  had  the  Papists  been  at  all  competent  to  enter  into  a 

*  This  was  a  joint  address  of  both  houses.    See  Cobbett's  Pari.  Hist.,  Vol.  v.  216  -  218;  Journals  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  April  13,  1689:  Journals  of  the  House  of  Lords,  April  16,  1689.  — N. 
t  ArticUXXVlI.— N. 


LECTURE  XXII.  697 

contest  o^ force  with  the  Protestants,  there  would  never  have  appeared  such  a  dreadful 
array  of  penal  laws  on  our  statute-books.  The  Scotch  obtained  from  us,  by  arms, 
their  kirk.  So,  too,  the  Nonconformists  in  William's  time  would  never  have  been  ex- 
cluded from  offices,  or  even  from  the  pale  of  the  Church  of  England,  if  they  had  really 
inspired  those  apprehensions  which  their  opponents  affected  to  feel,  or  at  least  per- 
suaded themselves  that  they,  on  the  whole,  might  as  Avell  act  upon. 

In  seasons  of  real  terror,  religious  factions  either  conciliate  or  positively  murder  and 
destroy  each  other,  as  in  the  pacifications  with  the  Huguenots,  and  the  massacres  of 
France  and  Ireland.  It  is  in  intervals  of  comparative  repose  and  of  considerable  se- 
curity that  the  superior  sect  suffers  its  malignity  calmly  to  expand  into  penal  statutes, 
sweeping  accusations,  and  ungenerous  suspicions,  —  into  arguments  that  admit  not  of 
answer  (because  they  turn  upon  their  own  feelings  and  apprehensions),  and  into  amus- 
ing exhortations  to  the  inferior  sect  "  to  wait  for  better  times,"  &c.,  &c. 


LECTURE  XXII. 


Reporting  of  Debates. 

In  1694,  one  Dyer,  a  news-letter  writer,  having  presumed  in  his  news-letter  to  take 
notice  of  the  proceedings  of  the  House,  he  was  summoned  to  the  House,  reprimanded, 
&c.,  and  on  the  Journals  appears  the  following  order :  —  "  That  no  news-letter  writei'S 
do,  in  their  letters,  or  other  papers,  that  they  disperse,  presume  to  intermeddle  with 
the  debates  or  any  other  proceedings  of  this  House." 

This  most  important  subject  sometimes  occurs  in  the  proceedings  of  the  House,  and 
should  always  be  well  observed.  To  this  moment,  it  has  never  been  regularly  ad- 
justed. But  on, one  of- the  greatest  occasions  of  the  late  Mr.  Pitt's  eloquence  the  re- 
porters were  fortunately  excluded  ;  they  very  properly  attempted  not  to  give  any  idea 
of  his  speech.  Mr.  Sheridan,  with  his  usual  patriotic  alertness  on  such  occasions,  was 
ready  to  take  advantage  of  the  public  disappointment,  and  make  some  motion  on  the 
subject.  But  having  been  given  to  understand,  and  it  appearing  to  be  the  general 
sense  of  the  House,  and  of  the  ministers  themselves,  that  no  disturbance  should  be  in 
future  offered  to  the  reporters,  the  motion  was  dropped.  Not  only  had  society  im- 
proved, but  the  distresses  and  dangers  of  the  country  had  shown  the  ministers  of  later 
times  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  public  properly  informed  even  on  their  own  meas- 
ures, and  therefore  of  reporting  the  debates. 

II. 

The  proper  adjustment  of  this  delicate  point  —  of  the  revenue  of  the  cro^^'n  —  is  one 
of  the  great  features  of  what  may  be  called  the  second  part  of  our  history.  During  the 
first  part,  prior  to  the  Revolution,  when  the  king,  as  the  great  executive  magistrate  of 
the  realm,  had  to  bear  the  expenses  of  the  state  by  means  of  his  own  funds  and  the 
supplies  he  could  extract  from  his  Parliaments,  not  only  was  the  welfare  of  the  realm 
too  immediately  affected  by  the  nature  of  his  personal  qualities,  but  it  was  impossible 
that  the  question  should  not  give  occasion  to  constant  bickerings  and  jealousy  between 
the  king  and  his  Parliaments.  In  ruder  ages,  the  king,  without  much  inconvenience 
or  injury,  might  be  considered  as  taking  upon  himself  the  charge  and  management  of 
the  great  concerns  of  the  state,  and  as  wielding  all  the  physical  strength  of  the  com- 
munity, for  the  defence,  and  even  benefit,  of  the  realm ;  but  that  such  a  disposition  of 
things  should  survive  the  causes  which  gave  it  birth,  and  should  descend  to  so  late  a 
period,  is  only  one  proof  among  many  how  little  of  contrivance  or  regular  adjustment 
there  is  in  the  affairs  of  mankind,  and  how  governments,  after  their  first  rude  forma- 
tion, are,  at  particular  epochs,  and  in  a  most  dangerous  manner,  tumbled  and  tossed 
into  shapes  of  greater  convenience  by  the  unexpected  and  often  violent  operation  of 
mere  chance  and  change,  rather  than  moulded  into  forms  of  symmetry  and  usefulness 
by  reasonable  alteration  and  timely  improvement. 

88  3  a 


698  NOTES. 

The  subject  of  the  revenue  of  the  c^o^vn  was  finally  settled  early  in  the  reign  of 
George  the  Third,  as  may  be  seen  in  Blackstone.  There  are,  however,  some  sourcea 
of  revenue  that  still  very  properly  exercise  the  vigilance  of  patriotic  members  in  the 
House  of  Commons  during  the  time  of  war. 

III.      . 

The  proceedings  in  Sir  John  Fenwick's  case  took  place  in  the  reign  of  William  the 
Third,  and  are  highly  disgraceful  to  the  Whigs.  It  is  scarcely  possible  that  bills  of 
attainder  should  be  otherwise  than  perfectly  disgraceful  to  those  who  have  recourse  to 
them.  They  are  the  convenient,  but  coarse  and  savage,  expedients  of  power ;  for  bills 
of  attainder  take  away  the  life  of  an  offender  by  positive  enactment,  and  that,  because 
according  to  the  existing  laws  he  cannot  be  pronounced  guilty.  The  bowstring  of  a 
sultan,  or  the  execution  of  a  tyrant,  can  do  no  more.  In  each  case  there  is  a  departure 
fi-om  those  known  forms  and  antecedent  provisions  of  law  which  are  the  only  real  pro- 
tection of  innocence.  Sir  John  Fenwick  was,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  guilty  of  treason ; 
but  it  is  to  be  feared  that  many  who  voted  away  his  life,  when  the  laws  could  not  take 
it,  voted  from  the  basest  motives,  to  remove  put  of  hearing  a  man  who  knew  and  could 
have  proclaimed  too  much. 

On  this  occasion,  it  is  the  arguments  of  the  Tories  only  which  we  can  read  with 
pleasure.  These  men  might  have  been  taught,  while  they  were  using  the  generous 
maxims  of  government  introduced  to  their  understandings  on  this  particular  occasion 
their  cogency  and  their  justice  on  every  other  occasion. 

"  This  bill,"  said  the  great  Tory  leader,  Sir  Edward  Seymour,  "  is  against  the  law  of 
God,  against  the  law  of  the  land:  it  does  contribute  to  the  subversion  of  our  constitu- 
tion, and  to  tiie  subversion  of  all  government ;  for  if  there  be  rules  to  be  observed  in  all 
governments,  and  no  government  can  be  without  them,  if  you  subvert  those  rules,  you 
destroy  the  government.  —  The  law  ewjoins  forms  strictly,  even  to  the  least  circum- 
stance: men  are  not  left  to  a  discretionary  power  to  act  according  to  their  con- 
sciences." 

"  As  to  Sir  John  Fenwick,"  said  Howe,  another  Tory  leader,  "  though  he  should  not 
be  a  good  Englishman,  yet  his  cause  may  be  the  cause  of  a  good  Englishman.  —  Your 
enemies,  you  say,  will  have  an  advantage,  and  your  government  is  at  stake:  we  sit  not 
here  to  patch  the  failings  of  the  one  by  an  unwarrantable  prosecution  against  the 
others." 

« 

IV. 

Lord  Clarendon's  act  of  1662,  for  the  licensing  of  the  Dress,  &c.,  &c.,  was  to  be  in 
.'orce  for  two  years ;  it  remained  so ;  it  was  then  continued.  It  was  again  continued  by 
James  the  Second  in  1685,  and  enacted  for  seven  years.  It  therefore  existed  at  the 
Revolution,  and  was  left  to  continue  until  1692,  four  years  after  the  Revolution,  and 
through  all  the  sessions  of  the  Convention  larliament.  In  1692,  when  the  Tories  were 
in  power,  it  was  renewed  for  two  years  longer;  but  it  then  expired,  in  1694.  What, 
therefore,  was  then  done  by  the  Parliament  ? 

It  appears  by  the  Journals  of  the  Commons,  that  directions  were  given  by  the 
House  to  two  of  its  members,  at  four  different  times  from  the  years  1694  to  1698,  to 
prepare  a  bill  for  the  licensing  of  printing-presses,  &c.,  &c.  On  one  occasion,  the  Whigs 
seemed  almost  ready,  from  the  irritation  of  the  moment,  to  disgrace  themselves  by 
some  bill  of  the  kind.  They,  however,  did  not  disgrace  themselves.  On  another  oc- 
casion, a  bill  of  this  sort  passed  the  Lords,  and  was  even  once  read  in  the  Commons. 
It  was,  however,  lost  on  the  second  reading;  and  the  act  of  Charles  the  Second  hav- 
ing expired  in  1694,  and  having  existed  till  the  influence  of  the  Revolution  and  the 
general  progress  of  society  had  enabled  men  to  discover  its  very  objectionable  nafiif, 
no  efforts  seem  afterwards  to  have  been  able  to  revive  it,  and  "it  now  remains  on  cnr 
statute-book  only  as  a  monument  of  that  well-intentioned,  but  unenlightened,  legislation 
which  constitutes  so  important  a  part  of  the  instruction  to  be  derived  from  the  perusal 
of  history. 

I  must  observe,  that  I  cannot  find  any  detail  of  any  debates  connected  with  these 
proceedings.     The  Journals  of  the  houses  give  nothing'^but  the  mere  facts  and  results 
and  such  debates  as  have  been  published  entirely  fail  us  on  this  very  interesting  oc- 
casion. 


LECTURES  XXm.,  XXIV.  69ft 


V. 

The  Act  of  Settlement  was  the  last  labor  which  William  the  Tnird  contributed  to 
the  great  cause  of  the  Revolution.  The  heads  of  this  act  were  prepared  in  a  com- 
mittee, and  we  cannot  now  discover  the  different  views  of  the  subject  that  were  taken 
by  the  statesmen  of  the  time.  This  is  to  be  lamented.  The  act  seems  to  have  given 
occasion  to  no  debate  in  the  houses.  On  the  whole,  it  does  honor  to  the  Tories,  who 
were  then  in  power.  Provisions  were  made  against  the  consequences  of  a  fore'^er 
coming  to  the  throne,  though  they  were  not  afterwards  found  to  be  complete.  The 
laws  of  England  are  pronounced  to  be  the  birthright  of  the  people  thereof.  The  kings 
and  queens,  it  is  declared,  ought  to  administer  the  government  according  to  these  laws. 
But  in  a  manner  somewhat  strange,  and  not  very  systematic,  there  are  three  con- 
stitutional points  provided  for,  and  not  more :  that  those  who  have  places  and  pensions 
should  not  be  members  of  the  Commons ;  that  the  commissions  of  judges  shall  be  made 
"quamdiu  se  bene  gesserint";  and  that  no  pardon  under  the  great  seal  shall  be  im- 
pleadable  to  an  impeachment.  Descending  into  these  particulars,  it  is  singular  that 
they  proceeded  no  farther;  still  more  so,  that  they  should  incorporate  the  Place  Bill  (a 
bill  so  contested)  upon  this,  the  most  solemn  and  important  enactment,  the  disposal  of 
the  succession  of  the  crown,  which  they  could  ever  have  to  make 


LECTURES  XXIIL,  XllV. 


Duke  of  Marlborough.  ' 

I  CANNOT  avoid  remarking  that  this  illustrious  man  never  had  the  advantage  of  s 
liberal  education ;  his  son,  indeed,  the  hope  of  his  house,  was  admitted  at  this  Uni- 
versity, was  cut  off  in  early  life,  and  is  buried  in  King's  Chapel ;  but  he  was  himself  re- 
moved at  the  age  of  twelve  from  the  care  of  a  clergyman,  introduced  to  the  patronage 
of  the  Duke  of  York,  and  from  the  first  initiated  in  all  the  pleasures  and  political  in- 
trigues of  what  was  then  a  very  unsettled  and  licentious  court ;  and  though  this  educa- 
tion might  certainly  furnish  the  fine  understanding  of  ISfarlborough  with  that  quick  in- 
sight into  human  character,  and  that  thorough  knowledge  of  the  world,  as  it  is  called,  for 
which  he  was  so  distinguished,  it  may  surely  be  affirmed  that  the  school  in  which  he 
was  thus  bred  up,  even  from  his  boyish  days,  was  not  likely  to  elevate  his  mind  to  a 
comprehensive  view  of  the  real  interests  of  mankind,  or  to  exalt  his  feelings  above  that 
love  of  personal  consequence  which  is  so  strong  a  principle  of  action  in  men  of  rank 
and  fortune,  and  which  it  is  only  for  letters  and  philosophy  properly  to  soften  and  sub- 
due. 

It  may  be  natural  for  those,  who,  like  ourselves,  are  participating  in  the  advantages 
of  a  regular  education,  somewhat  to  overstate  its  influence  in  fitting  men  to  be  states- 
men and  the  benefactors  of  their  species.  Such  happy  effects  are  not  always  visible  in 
our  young  men  of  rank  and  consequence ;  but  many  seeds  must  be  sown  to  raise  one 
flower  so  precious,  and  it  may  at  least  be  said  that  men  who  have  not  liberalized  their 
sentiments  and  enriched  their  minds  at  the  proper  season  of  advancing  manhood  by 
meditation  and  intellectual  pursuits,  and  who,  on  the  contrary,  have  put  on  early  the 
harness  of  the  world  or  of  official  situation,  —  such  men,  it  may  surely  be  said,  are 
found  invariably  to  fail  on  all  great  occasions,  —  on  all  occasions  where  objects  of  i^« 
tional  policy  are  intermixed  with  the  great  interests  of  human  nature,  —  where  wisdom 
is  required,  and  not  cunning,  —  and  where  the  most  generous  magnanimity  is,  as  on 
Buch  occasions  it  always  is,  the  soundest  prudence. 


700  NOTES. 

^      II. 

Commercial  Treaty  with  France. 

Another  subject  that  excited  a  considerable  ferment  in  the  nation  was  the  <!om 
mercial  treaty  that  had  been  attempted  with  France  at  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  of 
Utrecht.  The  principle  of  the  treaty  was,  to  open  the  trade  between  the  two  countries 
by  removing  as  much  as  possible  the  reciprocal  duties.  But  the  merchants  and  trading 
companies  took  the  alarm.  The  public  opinion,  by  the  assistance  of  the  Whigs,  over- 
powered the  influence  of  the  ministers,  and  the  bill  by  which  the  eighth  and  ninth 
articles  of  the  commercial  treaty  were  to  be  sanctioned  was  lost. 

The  arguments  which  prevailed  on  this  occasion  were,  that  in  1 674  a  committee  of 
the  most  able  merchants  had  considered  the  nature  of  our  trade  with  France,  and  that 
it  appeared  we  lost  every  year  a  million  of  money  by  it.  Again,  that  we  should  lose 
our  trade  with  Portugal  by  the  preference  given  to  the  French  wines ;  and  that  the 
trade  to  Portugal  was  invaluable. 

These  reasonings  proceeded  upon  the  supposition,  that  no  trade  with  any  country 
was  beneficial,  unless  we  exported  to  that  country  more  value  in  goods  than  we  im- 
ported, and  consequently  received  the  difference  in  money ;  which  was  considered  as 
the  measure  of  the  profit,  and  was  called  "  having  the  balance  of  the  trade  in  our  favor." 
But  the  whole  of  this  principle  of  the  balance  of  trade  has  been  shown  by  Adam  Smith 
to  be  a  mistake. 

It  was  also  argued,  that,  since  our  Revolution,  the  French  had  set  up  the  woollen 
trade,  and  no  longer  took  our  woollens,  and  we  had  set  up  the  silk  trade,  and  no  longer 
took  their  silks ;  and  the  inference  was,  not  that  both  nations  had  done  very  unwisely, 
had  each  very  improperly  endeavoured  to  contend  with  the  natural  advantages  of  the 
other,  and  that  the  sooner  a  mistaken  rivalship  of  this  kind  was  at  an  end,  the  better ; 
but  the  inference  was  this,  —  that  England  had  thus  saved  and  gained  vast  sums  of 
money,  and  had  employed  an  infinite  number  of  artificers,  who  would  be  reduced  to 
beggary,  if  the  importation  of  French  goods  were  allowed,  because  the  French  had 
their  work  done  for  less  money,  and  consequently  would  sell  their  commodities  cheap- 
er. —  Cobbett,  1212. 

I  mention  these  particulars  for  the  sake  of  recommending  to  your  attention,  as  I  have 
before  done,  the  study  of  political  economy,  the  writings  of  Adam  Smith. 

Statesmen  and  nations  may  be  distinguished  for  their  knowledge  of  the  great  leading 
principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty ;  but  they  might  also  be  distinguished  for  their 
knowledge  of  the  great  leading  principles  on  which  their  agriculture  and  manufactures, 
their  commerce,  foreign  and  domestic,  depend.  Their  progress,  however,  in  the  last 
subjects  of  reflection  has  been  less  than  in  the  former ;  for  it  so  happens,  that  the  first 
impressions  and  most  natural  conclusions  of  the  mind  on  all  such  questions  are  er- 
roneous. The  public,  therefore,  always  have  been,  and  must  always  be  expected  to  re- 
main, liable  to  the  most  serious  misapprehensions  of  their  ultimate  interests  in  affairs 
of  this  nature.  In  our  own  country,  however,  since  the  publication  of  "The  Wealth 
of  Nations,"  our  statesmen,  and  all  persons  of  regular  education,  have  been  rendered 
totally  inexcusable,  if  they  no  longer  understand  the  real  principles  of  that  production 
and  that  commerce,  internal  and  external,  which  occupy  so  much  of  their  thoughts  and 
contribute  so  much  to  their  enjoyments. 

It  is  quite  necessary  to  observe,  that  those  who  are  more  particularly  engaged  in  the 
business  of  our  prosperity,  our  merchants  and  manufacturers,  are  little  fitted  by  the 
habits  of  their  lives  for  the  comprehension  of  those  abstract  principles,  distant  views, 
and  ultimate  conclusions  in  which  the  science  of  political  economy  so  peculiarly 
abounds ;  and  it  belongs  more  particularly  to  those  who  are  men  of  influence  and  edu- 
cation to  endeavour  to  comprehend,  explain,  and  circulate  the  reasonings  of  philoso- 
phers on  these  important  subjects.  They  who  engage,  either  in  private  or  public,  in 
such  meritorious  labors  will  find  reason  enough  for  the  exercise  of  their  patience,  and 
will  often  receive  the  greatest  obstruction  from  those  very  persons  who  might  have 
been  expected,  from  the  occupations  of  their  lives,  to  be  both  able  and  willing  to  fur- 
nish them  with  every  possible  assistance.  But  as  the  progress  of  knowledge  on  these 
subjects  has  now  been  for  some  time  distinctly  visible,  all  such  more  intelligent  men 
have  full  as  much  reason  to  be  encouraged  as  any  of  their  fellow-laborers  in  the  service 
of  mankind. 


LECTURES  XXIIL,  XXIV.  #  701 


ni. 

Hanover  Papers,  and  Bolinghroke's  Letter  to  Wyndham. 

The  Hanover  Papers  for  1711  are  interesting,  as  are  the  Stuart  Papers  for  1712,  con- 
taining, among  other  particulars,  the  calumnies  that  were  then  propagated  against  Lord 
Somers,  Prince  Eugene,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  &c.,  &c. 

The  greatest  difficulty  with  which  the  Pretender  had  to  struggle  seems  to  have  been 
his  religion.  The  scheme  in  contemplation  was,  if  possible,  to  call  him  over  in  the 
lifetime  of  his  sister,  Queen  Anne,  and  in  this  manner  to  introduce  him  gradually  to 
the  throne.  The  Hanover  Papers  of  1713  are  somewhat  curious;  so  are  the  Stuart 
Papers  of  1714. 

To  each  of  these  sets  of  Papers  there  is  a  sort  of  dissertation  prefixed,  which  may  al- 
ways be  read. 

In  the  course  of  these  Papers,  the  merit  of  Harley  appears  (340,  379) ;  he  seems  to 
have  been  considered  by  the  agents  for  the  Stuarts  as  never  entitled  to  their  confi- 
dence ;  and  it  is  on  this  darkness  and  hesitation,  and  the  probability  that  it  arose  from 
a  secret  wish  to  serve  the  house  of  Hanover,  that  the  chief  part  of  this  merit  must  be 
left  to  depend. 

After  these  Papers  have  been  consulted,  Bolingbroke's  Letter  to  Sir  William  WjTid- 
ham  should  be  read,  not  merely  as  a  curious  document  from  a  most  celebrated  man, 
relative  to  the  most  important  concerns  of  this  period,  but  as  one  of  the  classic  produc- 
tions of  our  literature,  and  as  the  best  specimen  of  an  exculpatory  narrative  that  can 
be  found  in  our  language.  No  better  model  can  be  offered  than  this,  to  those  who 
would  wish  to  form  a  style  of  all  others  the  best  fitted  for  statesmen,  wiiether  speaking 
in  the  senate  or  writing  in  the  closet ;  the  best  fitted,  because  it  is  of  all  others  the  most 
adapted  to  convey  information  to  the  man  of  business,  and  delight  to  the  man  of  real 
and  matured  taste  :  nothing  superfluous  in  the  ornaments,  nothing  unmeaning  in  the 
expressions ;  the  whole  clear,  natural,  and  easy,  moving  on  with  a  rapidity  which  never 
slackens  and  a  spirit  which  never  languishes,  and  scarcely  suffering  the  reader  for  a 
moment  to  reflect  on  the  exact  truth  or  propriety  of  the  matter  that  is  delivered. 

IV. 

Life  and  Conduct  of  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough. 

This  publication  contains  a  detail,  chiefly,  of  the  duchess's  merits  with  the  queen ; 
but  it  is  still  not  without  reference,  and  sometimes  important  reference,  to  the  opinions 
of  the  times,  and  the  changes  that  took  place ;  and  it  is  valuable  as  giving  incidentally 
a  general  notion  of  the  intrigues  of  the  court  of  Anne,  during  a  very  singular  era  of  the 
English  history.  The  style  and  thoughts  indicate  a  clear,  rapid,  able  mind,  and  are 
those  of  one  bred  in  comts,  and  used  to  the  world  and  its  business.  It  is  not  favorable 
to  King  William,  still  less  to  Queen  Mary,  and  shows  very  strongly  the  bias  of  Queen 
Anne's  mind  to  the  opinions  and  principles  of  the  Tories.  On  the  whole,  it  is  not  long, 
is  sometimes  important,  and  always  entertaining. 


The  Protestant  Succession. 

"  What  party,"  says  Hume,  "  an  impartial  patriot  in  the  reign  of  King  William  or 
Queen  Anne  would  have  chosen,  amidst  these  opposite  views,"  —  views  which  he 
states,  —  "  may  perhaps  to  some  appear  hard  to  determine." 

In  the  old  edition  of  these  Essays  (the  edition  of  1754)  may  be  found  the  following 
sentence,  which  involves  a  consideration  which  would  have  enabled  any  such  impartid 
patriot  to  determine,  without  all  the  difficulty  which  Mr.  Hume  supposes :  —  "  For  my 
part,"  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  I  esteem  liberty  so  invaluable  a  blessing  in  society,  that  what- 
ever favors  its  progress  and  security  can  scarce  be  too  fondly  cherished  by  every  one 
who  is  a  lover  of  human  kind." 

This  paragraph  Mr.  Hume  afterwards  thought  proper  to  expunge ;  thinking,  per- 
haps, that  it  would  appear  but  a  literary  flourish,  coming  from  a  writer  who  was  con- 
sidered as  the  apologist  of  the  Stuarts ;  or  losing,  perhaps,  as  he  grew  older,  that  quick- 
ness of  sympathy  by  which  sentiments  in  favor  of  liberty  are  so  happily  rendered  dear 
to  us  in  all  the  earlier  stages  of  our  existence. 

3  G* 


703  ^  NOTES. 

LECTURE  XXVI. 

I. 

•*  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  prime  minister  of  Great  Britain,  is  a  man  of  ability,  not 
a  genius ;  good-natured,  not  virtuous ;  constant,  not  magnanimous ;  moderate  in  the 
exercise  of  power,  not  equitable  in  engrossing  it.  His  virtues,  in  some  instances,  are 
free  from  the  allay  of  those  vices  which  usually  accompany  such  virtues :  he  is  a  gener- 
ous friend,  without  being  a  bitter  enemy.  His  vices,  in  other  instances,  are  not  com- 
pensated by  those  virtues  which  are  nearly  allied  to  them :  his  want  of  enterprise  is  not 
attended  with  frugality.  The  private  character  of  the  man  is  better  than  the  public, 
his  virtues  more  than  his  vices ;  his  fortune  greater  than  his  fame.  With  many  good 
qualities,  he  has  incurred  the  public  hatred ;  with  good  capacity,  he  has  not  escaped 
ridicule.  He  would  have  been  esteemed  more  worthy  of  his  high  station,  had  he  never 
possessed  it;  and  is  better  qualified  for  the  second  than  for  the  first  place  in  any  gov- 
ernment. His  ministry  has  been  more  advantageous  to  his  family  than  to  the  public; 
better  for  this  age  than  for  posterity ;  and  more  pernicious  by  bad  pi-ecedents  than  by 
real  grievances.  During  his  time,*trade  has  flourished,  liberty  declined,  and  learning 
gone  to  ruin.  As  I  am  a  man.  I  love  him ;  as  I  am  a  scholar,  I  hate  him ;  as  I  am  a 
Briton,  I  calmly  wish  his  fall;  and  were  I  a  member  of  either  house,  I  would  give  my 
vote  for  removing  him  from  St.  James's ;  but  should  be  glad  to  see  him  retire  to 
Houghton  Hall,  to  pass  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  ease  and  pleasure." 

The  above  character  of  Sir  Robert  appears  in  one  of  the  early  and  now  scarce  edi- 
tions of  Hume's  Essays. 

A  character  much  more  masterly  and  just  is  given  by  Mr.  Burke,  in  his  Appeal  from 
the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs. 

The  beautiful  lines  of  the  poet  are  well  known :  — 

"  Seen  him  I  have,  but  in  his  happier  hour 
Of  social  pleasure,  ill  exchanged  for  power; 
Seen  him,  uncumbered  with  the  venal  tribe, 
Smile  without  art,  and  win  without  a  bribe." 

I  HAVE  mentioned  the  speeches  from  the  throne,  and  will  give  a  specimen  of  them. 
In  the  speeches  of  George  the  First  are  found  the  following  expressions :  — 

"As  none  can  recommend  themselves  more  effectually  to  my  favor  and  countenance 
than  by  a  sincere  zeal  for  the  just  rights  of  the  crown  and  the  liberties  of  the  people,  so  I 
am  determined  to  encourage  all  those  who  act  agreeably  to  the  constitution  of  these  my 
kingdoms,  and  consequently  to  the  principles  on  which  my  government  is  founded." 

"  To  gain  the  hearts  and  affections  of  my  people  shall  always  be  my  first  and  princi- 
pal care.  On  their  duty  and  loyalty  I  will  entirely  depend.  They  may  as  surely  de- 
pend on  my  protection  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  religion,  liberty,  and  property." 

"  You  will  make  it  your  business  to  promote  that  perfect  harmony  and  confidence 
between  me  and  my  people,  which  I  most  earnestly  desire,  and  on  which  our  mutual 
happiness  entirely  depends." 

The  dignified  language  in  which  George  the  First  addressed  his  people  in  1722, 
when  in  expectation  of  a  rebellion,  has  been  properly  remarked  by  one  of  our  his- 
torians. 

"  Had  I,  since  my  accession  to  the  throne,  ever  attempted  any  innovation  in  our 
established  religion ;  had  I,  in  any  one  instance,  invaded  the  liberty  or  property  of  my 
subjects ;  I  should  less  wonder  at  any  endeavours  to  alienate  the  affections  of  my  peo- 
ple, and  draw  them  into  measures  that  can  end  in  nothing  but  their  oAvn  destruction. 

"  But  to  hope  to  persuade  a  free  people,  in  full  enjoyment  of  all  that  is  dear  and 
valuable  to  them,  to  exchange  freedom  for  slavery,  the  Protestant  religion  for  Poperj, 
and  to  sacrifice  at  once  the  price  of  so  much  blood  and  treasure  as  have  been  spent  m 
defence  of  our  present  establishment,  seems  an  infatuation  not  to  be  accounted  for." 

One  of  the  most  singular  circumstances  that  occurred  during  the  reign  of  George 
the  First  was  the  introduction  of  the  Peerage  Bill  by  the  ministers  of  the  crown. 
This  project  originated  in  motives  not  the  most  creditable  either  to  the  favorite,  Sun- 
derland, or  the  monarch,  —  inordinate  ambition  in  the  one,  and  mean  jealousy  of  his 
son  and  successor  in  the  other  j  but  it  produced  some  noble  passages  in  two  of  the 


LECTURE  XXVI.  708 

king's  speeches,  which  would  have  been  indeed  precious,  if  they  had  obtained  a  place 
there  on  any  better  occasion. 

"  I  have  always  looked  upon  the  glory  of  the  sovereign  and  the  liberty  of  the  subject 
as  inseparable,  and  think  it  is  the  peculiar  happiness  of  a  British  king  to  reign  over  a 
free  people.  As  the  civil  rights,  therefore,  and  privileges  of  all  my  subjects,  and 
especially  of  my  two  houses  of  Parliament,  do  justly  claim  my  most  tender  concern,  if 
any  provision  designed  to  perpetuate  these  blessings  to  your  posterity  remains  imper- 
fect, I  promise  myself  you  will  take  the  first  opportunity,"  &c.,  &c. 

And  again :  — 

"  If  the  necessities  of  my  government  have  sometimes  engaged  your  duty  and  affec- 
tions to  trust  me  with  powers  of  which  you  have  always  with  good  reason  been  jealous, 
the  whole  world  must  acknowledge  they  have  been  so  used  as  to  justify  the  confidence 
you  have  reposed  in  me.  And  as  I  can  truly  affirm  that  no  prince  was  ever  more  zeal- 
ous to  increase  his  own  authority  than  I  am  to  perpetuate  the  liberty  of  my  people,  I 
hope  you  will  think  of  all  proper  methods  to  establish  and  transmit  to  your  posterity 
the  freedom  of  our  happy  constitution,  and  particularly  to  secure  that  part  which  ia 
most  liable  to  abuse." 

This  last  extract  is  given  by  Coxe. 

In  the  s])eeches  of  George  the  Second  expressions  are  always  found,  on  every  proper 
occasion,  that  intimate  the  desirableness  of  confidence  and  harmony  between  the  peo- 
ple and  the  executive  power,  and  that  the  interests  of  the  two  are  inseparable.  They 
should  be  looked  at  even  on  this  account,  if  on  no  other. 

"  I  heartily  Avish,"  said  the  king,  in  his  first  speech,  "  that  this  first  solemn  declara- 
tion of  my  mind  in  Parliament  could  sufficiently  express  the  sentiments  of  my  heart, 
and  give  you  a  perfect  and  just  sense  of  my  fixed  resolution  by  all  possible  means  to 
merit  the  love  and  aff"cction  of  my  people,  which  I  shall  always  look  upon  as  the  best 
support  and  security  of  my  crown. 

"  And  as  the  religion,  liberty,  property,  and  a  due  execution  of  the  laws,  are  the 
most  valuable  blessings  of  a  free  people,  and  the  peculiar  privileges  of  this  nation,  it 
shall  be  my  constant  care  to  preserve  the  constitution  of  this  kingdom,  as  it  is  now 
happily  established  in  Church  and  State,  inviolable  in  all  its  parts,  and  to  secure  to  all 
my  subjects  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  religious  and  civil  rights." 

The  speech  of  the  year  1 734,  preparatory  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament,  has 
been  noticed  by  Mr.  Coxe.  If  it  was  intended  to  do  away  any  impressions  that  might 
have  been  made  on  the  public  by  the  speeches  and  writings  of  the  adversaries  of  the 
minister,  representing  him  as  having  planned  a  regular  system  of  oppression,  it  was 
certainly  well  fitted  for  its  purpose ;  for  no  speech  could  be  more  worthy  of  an  intelligent 
monarch  and  an  upright  minister,  addressed  to  a  free  people. 

"The  prosperity  aiid  glory  of  my  reign,"  says  his  Majesty,  "depend  upon  the  affec- 
tion and  happiness  of  my  people ;  and  the  happiness  of  my  people,  upon  my  preserving 
to  them  all  their  legal  rights  and  privileges,  as  established  under  the  present  settlement 
of  the  crown  in  the  Protestant  line.  A  due  execution  and  strict  observance  of  the  laws 
are  the  best  and  only  security  both  to  sovereign  and  subject;  their  interest  is  mutual 
and  inseparable  ;  and  therefore  their  endeavours  for  the  support  of  eacli  other  ought  to 
be  equal  and  reciprocal :  any  infringement  or  encroachment  upon  the  rights  of  either  is 
a  diminution  of  the  strength  of  both,  which,  kept  within  their  due  bounds  and  limits, 
make  that  just  balance  which  is  necessary  for  the  honor  and  dignity  of  the  crown,  and 
for  the  protection  and  prosperity  of  the  people.  What  depends  upon  me  shall,  on  my 
part,  be  religiously  kept  and  observed ;  and  I  make  no  doubt  of  receiving  the  just  re- 
turns of  duty  and  gratitude  from  them. 

"I  must  in  a  particular  manner  recommend  it  to  you,  and  from  your  knoAvn  affec- 
tion do  expect,  that  you  will  use  your  best  endeavours  to  heal  the  unhappy  divisions 
of  the  nation,  and  toVeconcile  the  minds  of  all  who  truly  and  sincerely  wish  the  safety 
and  welfare  of  the  kingdom.  It  would  be  the  greatest  satisfiiction  to  me  to  see  a  per- 
fect harmony  restored  amongst  them  that  have  one  and  the  same  principle  at  heart, 
that  there  might  be  no  distinction,  but  of  such  as  mean  the  support  of  our  present  happy 
constitution  in  Church  and  State,  and  such  as  wish  to  subvert  both.  This  is  the  only 
distinction  that  ought  to  prevail  in  this  country,  where  the  interest  of  king  and  people 
is  one  and  the  same,  and  where  they  cannot  subsist  but  by  being  so.  If  religion,  liberty, 
and  property  were  never  at  any  time  more  fully  enjoyed,  without  not  only  any  attempt, 
but  even  the  shadow  of  a  design,  to  alter  or  invade  them,  let  not  these  sacred  names  be 
made  use  of  as  artful  and  plausible  pretences  to  undermine  the  present  establishment, 
under  which  alone  they  can  be  safe. 


704  NOTES. 

"I  have  nothing  to  wish,  but  that  my  people  may  not  be  misguided.  I  appeal  to 
their  own  consciences  for  my  conduct,  and  hope  the  Providence  of  God  will  direct  them 
in  the  choice  of  such  representatives  as  are  most  fit  to  be  trusted  with  the  care  and 
preservation  of  the  Protestant  religion,  the  present  establishment,  and  all  the  religious 
and  civil  rights  of  Great  Britain." 

Even  in  the  king's  speech  of  1737,  after  the  murder  of  Captain  Porteoiis,  at  Edin- 
burgh, and  other  circumstances  of  very  great  and  just  offence  to  the  minister  and  the 
executive  power,  the  expressions  made  use  of  were  only  the  following,  —  p.^fectly  rea- 
sonable and  dignified,  and  worthy  of  the  minister,  and  of  the  sovereign  o^  i  free  peo- 
ple:— 

•'  My  Lords  and  Gentlemen,  —  You  cannot  be  insensible  what  just  scandal  and  of 
fence  the  licentiousness  of  the  present  times,  under  the  color  and  disguise  of  liberty, 
gives  to  all  honest  and  sober  men,  and  how  absolutely  necessary  it  is  to  restrain  this 
excessive  abuse  by  a  due  and  vigorous  execution  of  the  laws.  Defiance  of  all  authority, 
contempt  of  magistracy,  and  even  resistance  of  the  law,  are  become  too  general,  al- 
though equally  prejudicial  to  the  prerogative  of  the  crown  and  the  liberties  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  the  support  of  the  one  being  inseparable  from  the  protection  of  the  other.  I  have 
made  the  laws  of  the  land  the  constant  rule  of  my  actions ;  and  I  do  with  reason  ex- 
pect, in  return,  all  that  submission  to  my  authority  and  government  which  the  same 
laws  have  made  the  duty,  and  shall  always  be  the  interest,  of  my  subjects." 


LECTURE  XXVIL 

The  great  French  work  of  Forbonnais  is  the  most  regular  treatise  on  the  system  ol 
Law.  Here  will  be  found  all  the  history  of  the  system,  and  all  the  violent  and  unjust 
measures  that  were  adopted  to  support  it ;  but  the  detail  is  difficult  to  understand,  and 
after  passing  many  hours  over  it,  more  than  I  can  expect  others  to  do,  I  can  only  ad- 
vise you,  in  the  first  place,  to  study  well  the  chapters  of  Steuart. 

The  treatise  which  Law  addressed  to  the  Parliament  of  Scotland  is  short,  and  may 
be  met  with ;  it  explains  his  objections  to  the  use  of  the  precious  metals,  and  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  would  have  converted  the  whole  fee-simple  of  the  land  into  circulating 
medium.  Scotland,  and  every  other  country,  was,  he  conceived,  sufifering  from  the 
want  of  circulating  medium,  which  was  all  that  he  thought  was  necessary  to  its  pros- 
perity. Commissioners  were,  therefore,  to  be  appointed  to  issue  paper  money  on  land 
security,  &c. 

Tliei'e  is  a  certain  portion  of  truth  in  Law's  notions,  sufficient  to  deceive  him,  as  it 
had  deceived  many  others.  For  while  money  flows  into  a  country  by  the  fabrication 
of  paper  money,  the  effect  is  beneficial;  it  is  beneficial  while  the  money  continues  to 
flow,  —  no  longer ;  for  every  man,  during  this  interval,  receives  a  full  return  for  any 
effort  in  industry  that  he  can  make ;  the  quantity  of  circulating  medium  has  been  in- 
creasing while  he  was  making  this  effort,  and  he  therefore  receives  more  than  he  would 
otherwise  have  done.  But  the  moment  the  tide  stops,  this  high  remunerating  price 
stops  also,  and  every  opposite  consequence  arises ;  and  stop  it  must,  if  artificially  pro- 
duced. 

The  whole  subject  is  very  well  explained  by  Hume,  in  his  Essay  on  Money. 


LECTURE  XXVm. 

I. 

Highlanders. 

The  work  :>f  Mrs.  Grant  rnight,  with  great  advantage,  be  compressed  into  half  its 
present  size.  Whnt  is  told  is  not  told  in  a  manner  sufficiently  simple,  nor  is  there 
enough  told.    Mrs   Jrant  pours  out  the  sentiments  and  images  of  a  warm  heart  and 


LECTURE  XXIX  705 

ardent  mind,  till  they  overpower  the  reader  and  lose  their  effect.  Too  favorable  ar 
idea  of  the  work,  though  a  work  of  merit,  would  be  formed  from  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view. 

The  points  to  be  observed  in  the  character  of  the  Highlanders  seem  to  be,  according 
to  this  account  by  Mrs.  Grant,  their  national  spirit,  language,  habits,  poetry,  traditions, 
genealogies,  their  attachment  to  their  chief,  and  their  superstitions ;  that  they  are  war- 
like, musical,  poetical,  tender,  melancholy,  enthusiastic,  superstitious,  religious;  that 
they  are  patriotic ;  secluded,  themselves,  and  excluding  others ;  connecting  and  associ- 
ating themselves  familiarly  with  death,  and  with  the  immaterial  world ;  seeing  those 
they  loved  in  the  clouds,  in  dreams,  and  in  visions;  skilled  in  the  art  of  conversation, 
from  the  necessity  of  living  with  each  other;  unfit  for  manufactures;  highly  moral; 
careful  not  to  make  imprudent  marriages ;  courteous,  and,  in  a  word,  exhibiting  all  the 
virtues  that  result  from  living  in  the  presence  of  each  other. 

11. 

October,  1839, 
X  MAY  recommend  to  others,  what  I  have  just  had  so  much  pleasure  in  reading  my- 
self, the  History  lately  published  by  Lord  Mahon.  All  that  need  now  be  known  of  the 
era  to  which  we  have  been  adverting,  from  the  peace  of  Utrecht  to  that  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  will  be  there  found.  It  is  on  every  account  to  be  hoped  that  his  Lordship 
will  continue  his  historical  labors. 


LECTURE  XXIX. 

Mirabeau's  Work  on  Prussia. 

What  I  advise  the  stuaent  to  do  is,  to  look  through  the  pages  of  Mirabeau,  and 
from  the  midst  of  the  details  pick  out  the  general  remarks  with  which  they  are  ac- 
companied. These  remarks  are  of  general  application,  and  may  therefore  be  valuable 
to  the  student,  whatever  may  be  the  statements  in  the  midst  of  which  they  appear.  I 
will  give  a  short  specimen  of  what  I  mean. 

Certain  details,  for  instance,  are  gone  into  with  respect  to  some  successful  et!orts 
made  by  the  king  to  restore  the  population  and  prosperity  of  Pomerania ;  and  then  the 
general  remark  is  the  following :  —  "  But  be  that  as  it  may,  —  clear  away  the  waste 
land,  make  the  air  wholesome,  augment  the  means  of  subsistence  by  a  perfect  freedom 
of  all  industry  and  commerce,  and  leave  every  thing  else  to  Nature ;  call  in  no  stran- 
gers," —  the  favorite  measure  of  Frederic,  — "  your  own  people  will  increase  fast 
enough,  if  you  allow  them  the  proper  means  of  subsistence.  But  if,  on  the  contrary, 
you  will  scarcely  let  them  have  air  to  breathe  in,  grind  them  down  by  feudal  services 
of  day-labor  and  slavery,  clog  their  industry,  and  choke  and  smother  their  commerce, 
your  population  must  be  kept  down  to  the  point  which  the  weight  of  your  chains 
determines ;  and  vain  is  your  gold,  and  your  invitations  to  strangers  to  come  and  colo- 
nize." 

Now  this  is  a  remark  perfectly  just,  and  applicable  to  every  possible  case  and  situa- 
tion of  society. 

Again,  in  another  place  (p.  389),  the  general  remark  is  this :  —  "It  is  not  the  plenty 
of  the  circulating  medium,  or  money,  that  enriches  a  people :  it  is  the  absence  of  all 
those  systems,  and  all  those  oppressions,  that  can  indispose  men  to  labor ;  the  humanity, 
the  policy,  which  prevents  a  state  from  tearing  away  from  the  people  their  money  as 
soon  as  they  have  earned  it.  If  you  take  from  people  their  gains  to  pay  your  taxes 
and  impositions,  direct  and  indirect,  how  can  they  have  a  surplus  with  which  to  make 
improvements  or  better  their  condition  1  what  must  become  of  your  agriculture,  and 
the  population  that  belongs  to  it  % " 

Observations  of  a  like  general  nature  will  be  found  with  respect  to  the  serfs ;  to  the 
propel  circulation  of  property,  —  its  transfer,  for  instance,  from  nobles,  who  ruin  them- 
selves oy  extravagance,  to  those  who  accumulate  fortunes  by  their  industr}'  and  econ- 
omy.    So,  again,  with  respect  to  the  Jesuits,  and  the  ditHcult  problem  of  managing  the 

89 


706  .  NOTES. 

proviLce  of  Silesia,  almost  equally  divided  between  the  Catholics  and  Protestant?  — 
the  Catholics  being  at  least  not  more  than  four  to  three. 

In  one  part,  Mirabeau  seems  to  have  his  mind  too  much  monopolized  by  the  merits 
of  agriculture,  by  the  system  of  his  father.  A  town  and  its  manufactures  may  enrich 
the  nctghl)ounng  country  by  awakening  and  rewarding  its  industry;  and  such  has  been 
the  progress  of  things  in  the  history  of  the  world.  It  does  not  at  all  follow,  that,  for 
the  establishment  of  manufactures,  you  must  inevitably  withdraw  from  a  country  the 
capitals  that  would  be  necessary  for  its  agriculture.  If  it  be,  indeed,  contended  by 
Mirabeau,  that  the  natural  progress  of  affluence  is  in  the  contrary  direction,  and  that 
agriculture  is  the  first  and  great  point  to  be  secured,  —  that  manufactures  and  splendid 
towns  are  properly  the  effect^  rather  than  the  cause,  of  prosperity,  (as  will  liereafter  be 
seen  in  America,  though  this  has  not  been  the  course  in  Europe,)  no  objection  need  be 
made  to  his  positions.  But  on  this  subject  the  partisans  of  the  opposite  systems  seem 
each  so  occupied  by  the  particular  advantages  they  have  in  view,  that  they  are  scarcely 
willing  to  hear  each  other,  or  al]ow  the  mutual  benefits  which  the  commerce  of  the 
towns  and  of  the  country,  that  is,  which  manufacture  and  agriculture;,  are  so  fitted 
mutually  to  interchange,  multiply,  and  consolidate. 

The  management  of  the  poor  comes  likewise  in  review;  and  Frederic's  notions,  as. 
well  as  Mirabeau's,  may  be  considered  in  these  volumes.  That  Frederic  is  wrong, 
there  can  be  no  doubt;  but  when  Mirabeau  arrives  at  his  concluding  remark,  it  ap- 
pears to  be,  that  work  ought  to  be  offered  for  all  who  demand  it.  But  I  fear  that  this 
is  the  great  difficulty  of  the  case.  The  difficulty  might  be  encountered,  might  be  even 
submitted  to ;  that  is,  the  community  might  think  it  good  policy  to  employ  people  at 
a  loss,  rather  than  not  have  them  employed  at  all.  But  the  difficulty  is  itself,  I  con- 
ceive, insuperable.  The  notions  of  oixr  own  legislators,  in  the  famous  statute  respect- 
ing the  poor,  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  were  the  same  as  those  of  Mirabeau.  The  over- 
seers were  expected  to  Jind  work,  —  that  is,  I  fear,  whether  it  could  or  could  not  be 
found. 

The  second  book  (that  which  is  contained  in  the  second  volume)  contains,  towards 
the  close,  observations  by  Mirabeau  of  the  same  reasonable  nature  as  before.  The 
general  conclusion  is,  that  Frederic,  after  all,  did  not  increase  the  population  of  his 
dominions.     On  the  whole,  the  second  book  is  very  well  worth  reading. 

The  third  book  relates  to  the  agriculture  and  natural  productions.  Here,  as  before, 
it  is  the  general  observations  for  which  I  should  wish  the  student  to  look  out.  Such 
may  occasionally  be  found.  The  book,  however,  is  principally  occupied  in  details,  and 
the  student  will  not  have  the  patience  to  read  it.  The  same  may  be  said,  in  general, 
of  the  fourth  book,  on  manufactures.  The  details  cannot  now  be  appreciated,  but  the 
general  observations  may;  particularly  the  introduction,  in  which  are  laid  down,  very 
properly,  on  the  principles  of  Adam 'Smith,  those  causes  which  impede,  and  those 
which  promote,  the  progress  of  manufactures :  liberty  of  every  sort,  moral,  religious, 
physical ;  the  general  encouragement  of  science  and  knowledge.  On  the  contrary,  he 
protests  agninst  all  exclusive  privileges,  all  prohibitions  on  the  export  of  the  raw  ma- 
terial, and  on  the  export  of  the  manufacture  He  protests  against  all  imposts  on  for- 
eign rnanufacturcs,  all  advances  to  manufacturers  in  the  way  of  capitals,  &c.,  &c.  Ob- 
serv.ations  such  as  these  are  of  a  general  nature;  they  are  not  so  thinly  scattered  over 
the  fourth  book  as  over  the  third.  Linens,  silk,  and  many  articles  gn-e  occasion  to 
them. 

The  fifth  book  is  dedicated  to  commerce,  and  is  opened  by  very  striking  remarks. 
A  proper  testimony  is  paid  to  our  own  great  writer,  Adam  Smith,  and  to  JNfonsieur 
Mauvillon,  the  philosopher  to  whom,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  Mirabeau  has  in 
this  work  been  so  much  indebted. 

The  system  on  which  Mirabeau  proceeds  is  the  modem  system,  of  perfect  freedom  ; 
and  the  mi,>take  of  supposing  that  the  prosperity  of  a  country  depends  on  the  favort.ble 
balance,  as  it  is  called,  of  trade,  &c. 

There  is,  however,  some  inaccuracy,  I  conceive,  or  at  least  looseness  of  statement, 
in  the  general  position  which  he  lays  down,  —  that  commerce  does  not  enrich  a  nation 
as  it  docs  the  individuals  who  carry  it  on.  Merchants  who  carry  it  on  are  of  two 
sorts,  —  those  wlio  buy  and  sell  on  commission  for  other  people,  and  those  who  are 
themselves  entii-cly  interested  in  their  sales  and  purchases.  It  is  only  the  last  descrip- 
>ion  to  whicii  the  term  of  merchant  philosophically  applies.  And  with  respect  to  these 
last  the  observations  of  Mirabeau  do  not  exactly  hold ;  the  interest  of  these  last  and  of 
the  country  is  the  same.  Does  the  merchant,  for  instance,  bring  from  another  country 
»n  article  which  he  sells  at  home  at  a  great  price  %    The  event  shows  how  much  hii 


LECTURE  XXIX.  707 

own  country  wanted  the  article ;  that  is,  that  he  could  not  have  bee:  better  employed, 
either  for  his  own  interest  or  the  interest  of  the  community.  Does  h »,  on  the  contrary, 
lose  by  his  venture  1  This  shows  that  his  own  country  did  not  want  the  article,  and 
he  could  not  have  been  worse  employed. 

In  other  points  Mirabeau's  observations  seem  just,  that  every  thine  in  a  state  is  in 
reality  commerce.  The  laborer  traffics  and  sells  his  physical  strength  or  intellectual 
powers,  the  farmer  his  produce,  the  manufacturer  his  goods  to  the  merchant,  the  mer- 
chant to  the  consumer,  &c.  He  liolds,  however,  and  very  properly,  that  the  internal 
commerce  is  the  great  mark  of  the  happiness  of  a  community,  wliich  may  be  carried 
by  that  internal  commerce  to  the  greatest  extent,  and  its  exports  and  imports  be  com- 
paratively trifling ;  that  is,  its  happiness,  its  internal  health  and  strength,  muy,  if  fortu- 
nately situated ;  but  not,  it  must  at  the  same  time  be  observed,  its  external  force  or  in- 
fluence. The  case  supposed  is  not  likely  to  exist,  but  it  is  no  doubt  possible ;  that  is,  it 
is  not  contrary  to  the  nature  of  things. 

In  this  book  will  be  found  a  very  regular  attack  on  the  system  of  the  balance  of 
trade;  and  Mirabeau  proceeds,  as  Smith  would  have  done,  to  censure  the  various  com- 
panies and  monopolies  which  Frederic  had  the  impolicy  to  allow,  or  to  establish,  — 
among  others,  the  bank  royal,  to  which  Mirabeau  makes  forcible  objections ;  and  he 
finishes,  as  he  began,  with  striking  and  just  remarks  on  commerce,  merchants,  and 
agriculture,  the  relative  and  absolute  values  of  which,  in  these  concluding  pages,  he 
seems  to  state  with  proper  discrimination.  The  result  is,  according  to  Mirabeau,  that 
the  merchant  in  Prussia,  as  well  as  the  manufacturer,  is  possessed  but  of  a  tottering 
existence ;  that  he  is  a  sort  of  being  springing  up  from  the  expectation  of  some  assist- 
ance to  be  received  from  the  monarch,  or  violently  produced  by  the  mere  necessity 
which  a  man  feels  to  make  some  attempt  or  other  to  gain  a  livelihood. 

The  sixth  book  is  dedicated  to  the  consideration  of  the  revenues  and  expenses  of 
Prussia.  It  opens  with  stating  and  explaining  the  rights  and  claims  which  belonged 
to  the  king,  derived  to  him  from  feudal  principles.  Some  good  observations  follow 
on  the  subject  of  the  coin  of  a  country,  and  on  taxes  in  general.  On  the  subject  of 
taxes,  the  particular  notions  of  the  system  of  the  economists  appear.  Mirabeau  is 
decidedly  against  all  indirect  taxes,  —  that  is,  taxes  drawn  in  the  way  of  custom-house 
and  excises,  where  the  consumer  pays  the  whole  in  the  ultimate  price,  without  being 
aware  of  it.  His  arguments  appear  to  me  not  very  satisfactory.  The  case  of  England 
occurs  to  him ;  his  expressions  are  remarkable.  "  Cite  not  to  me,"  he  says,  "  the  case 
of  England,  as  you  are  continually  doing ;  for,  not  to  mention  the  terrible  consequences 
with  which  these  indirect  taxes  threaten  her  prosperity  and  her  liberties,  are  you  not 
aware  that  the  civil  freedom  which  every  man  enjoys  in  that  country  remedies,  atones 
for,  and  bears  up  against  every  evil  and  disadvantage  ?  that  England,  thanks  to  her 
situation  and  constitution,  is  no  example  on  this  occasion  ?  Can  you,  will  you,  give 
your  own  subjects  the  immense  advantages  which  England  enjoys  ? "  Such  are  the 
words  of  Mirabeau.  Our  civil  freedom,  he  evidently  supposes,  is  the  vital  principle 
which  enables  the  state  to  bear  up  against  all  its  infirmities  and  diseases. 

Frederic's  own  ideas  on  taxes  are  justly  considered  by  Mirabeau  as  not  very  distinct 
or  profound.  He  created  monopolies,  —  the  worst  of  all  taxes,  —  and  then  used  to 
say,  towards  the  close  of  his  life,  "  Why  should  any  one  complain  1  I  have  never, 
through  the  whole  of  my  reign,  imposed  a  new  tax." 

Again,  a  terrible  sort  of  board,  consisting  of  French  financiers,  was  formed  for 
managing  the  excises.  Every  evil  followed.  After  considering  these  evils,  "  Such,** 
says  Mirabeau,  "have  been  the  fruits  of  the  administration  of  the  rights  and  claims  of 
Frederic ;  and  who  can  survey  this  melancholy  picture,"  he  continues,  "  without  being 
overpowered  by  compassion  for  the  people  of  Prussia  1  without  being  overcome  with 
indignation  at  the  writers  who  have  dared  to  vaunt  and  hold  up  to  admiration  the  sys- 
tem of  Frederic  ■?  Let  them  not  profane,  with  their  unworthy  incense,  the  tomb  of  a 
hero,  —  one  who  was  great  enough  to  admit  of  our  allowing  him  to  have  been  deceived, 
without  any  diminution  of  his  glory ;  and  who  was  too  great  not  to  make  it  necessary 
to  unveil  his  faults,  lest  they  should  acquire  an  authority  under  the  shadow  of  his  great 
name." 

Mirabeau's  remarks  on  the  military  force  and  resources  of  Prussia  were  very  striking, 
and  might  have  taught  us,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  in  later  times,  important  les- 
sons. There  is  a  sort  of  prophecy  of  the  movement  of  Bonaparte  before  the  battle  of 
Austerlitz. 


LIST    OF    BOOKS 

RECOMMENDED  AND  REFERRED  TO   IN   THE  LECTURES  ON 
MODERN  HISTORY. 


The  shortest  course  of  historical  reading  that  can  be  proposed  seems  to  be  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

First  three  chapters  of  Gibbon,  and  the  9th,  for  the  Romans  and  Barbarians,  &c. ; 
the  chapters  about  Mahomet  and  his  followers.  Butler  on  the  German  Constitution 
the  subjects  there  mentioned  to  be  followed  up  in  Gibbon.  (1) 

Renault's  or  Millot's  Abridgment  of  the  History  of  France ;  or  the  History  of  France 
lately  published  by  D'Anquetil  (not  the  Universal  History)  in  14  small  8vo  volumes ; 
with  the  Observations  sur  I'Histoire  de  France  by  the  Abbe  de  Mably,  a  book  quite 
invaluable.  Voltaire's  Louis  XIV.,  &c.,  &c.,  and  Charles  XII.;  with  the  Memoirs  of 
Duclos.  (2) 

Robertson's  historical  works,  with  most  of  Coxe's  House  of  Austria,  and  Watson's 
Philip  the  Second.  (3) 

Hume  and  Millar.  (4) 

Parts  of  Laing's  Scotland ;  Leland's  Ireland. 

Burke's  European  Settlements.  Belsham  and  Adolphus,  —  neither  without  the 
other.     Historical  parts  of  Annual  Register.  (5) 

Russell's  Modern  Europe  may  supply  the  rest;  and  the  volumes  of  the  Modem  Uni- 
versal History  may  be  refen-ed  to,  for  accounts  of  every  state  and  kingdom,  —  the  best 
authors  are  mentioned  in  their  margins. 

Priestley's  Lectures  should  be  looked  at  for  the  nature  of  historical  authorities, 
&c.,  &c. 

For  Chronology,  there  is  a  great  French  work,  L'Art  de  verifier  les  Dates.  Dufres- 
noy  may  be  met  with  easily. 

This  appears  to  be  the  shortest  course  of  historical  reading  that  can  be  proposed. 

But  Adam  Smith  should  also  be  studied,  and  the  work  of  Mr.  Malthus,  with  the 
works  in  morals  and  metaphysics. 

Of  statesmen  and  legislators  History  and  Political  Economy  are  the  professional 
studies,  and  are  never  to  cease. 

(1)  To  these  may  be  added,  to  make  a  Second  Course,  Koch  on  the  Middle  Ages,  an 
excellent  book,  and  Butler's  Horae  Juridicae,  for  different  codes  of  law,  &c. 

(2)  To  these  may  be  added,  Wraxall's  Memoirs  of  the  House  of  Valois,  and  Wraxali'a 
History  of  France. 

(3)  To  these  may  be  added,  Harte's  Gustavus  Adolphus;  parts  of  Roscoe's  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici,  and  more  particularly  parts  of  his  Leo  the  Tenth  j  with  Planta's  Helvetic  Con- 
federacy. 

(4)  To  these  may  be  added,  much  of  Rapin,  particularly  from  the  death  of  Richard  the 
Third  ;  parts  of  Clarendon,  and  Burnet's  History  of  his  own  Times  ;  Cobbett's  Parliamentary 
History,  to  be  read  in  a  general  manner  with  Hume ;  Macpherson's  and  Dalrymple's  Orig- 
inal Papers  ;  with  Fox's  History  of  James  the  Second,  and  the  Appendix. 

(5)  To  these  may  be  added,  Lacretelle's  Histoire  de  France  pendant  le  XVHL  Si^cle; 
afterwards  his  Precis  Historique  de  la  Revolution  F>an^aise. 

To  all  these  may  again  be  added,  to  make  a  Third  Course,  parts  of  Pfeffel,  a  book  of 
great  authority,  —  and  of  Sale's  Koran,  Mosheim,  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  Fox's 
Martyrs  ;  and  also  Burnet's  History  of  the  Reformation,  Ludlow,  Life  o£  Colonel  Hutchin- 
son, Whitelocke.  Harris's  Lives  of  the  Stuarts,  &c.,  &c,,  will  be  found  full  of  information 
and  Somerville's  History  of  William  and  Anne  should  be  read,  with  Coxe's  Sir  Robert  Wal 
pole.  , 


LIST  OF  BOOKS.  709 


The  books  referred  to  in  the  Lectures,  down  to  the  end  of  the  American  War,  were 
the  following. 

Caesar,  Tacitus  (De  Moribus  Germaniae),  for  Komans  and  Barbarians;  with  the  first 
three  chapters  of  Gibbon,  and  the  9th.  Lindenbrogius,  for  Barbarian  Codes ;  Salique 
Code  to  be  read.  Baluze,  for  Capitularies.  Butler  on  the  German  Constitution. 
Ditto,  Horae  Juridicae.  Ranken's  History  of  France  to  be  looked  at.  Gregory  of 
Tours,  in  Duchesne.  Henault's  Abridgment  of  the  History  of  France.  Millot's  ditto. 
D'Anquetil's  History  of  France.  Abbe  de  Mably's  Observations,  &c.  Pfeffel,  for 
German  History.  Stuart's  View  of  Society.  Koch  on  the  Middle  Ages,  of  which  the 
last  edition,  in  1807,  is  the  best. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  leading  points  are:  1st,  Clovis  (see  Gibbon);  2d,  Pepin 
(see  Montesquieu) ;  3d,  Charlemagne  (Latin  Life  of,  by  Eginhard) ;  4th,  Elective 
nature  of  the  crown  in  Germany,  and  hereditary  in  France  (Pfeffel  and  Mably) ;  5th, 
Temporal  power  of  the  Popes  (Butler,  —  Koch,  —  Gibbon,  49th  chap.) ;  6th,  Feudal 
system  (Montesquieu,  but  more  particularly  Mably,  Robertson,  Millar,  and  Stuart's 
View  of  Society) ;  7th,  Chivalry  (St.  Palaye ;  his  work  to  be  found  in  the  20th  volume 
of  Memoires  de  1' Academic) ;  8th,  Popes  and  Emperors  (Gibbon,  —  Koch,  —  Gian- 
none,  5th  chap.  19th  book);  9th,  Hanseatic  League,  &c.  (Pfeffel);  and  10th,  the 
Crusades  (Gibbon). 

MAHOMET. 

Sale's  Koran,  —  Preface  of,  and  Preliminary  Dissertation,  with  a  few  chapters  of  the 
Koran  itself.  Prideaux's  Life  of  Mahomet  is  not  long,  but  seems  not  very  good. 
The  Modern  Universal  History  may  be  looked  at.  50th  chap.,  &c.,  of  Gibbon. 
White's  Bampton  Lectures.    Ockley's  History  of  the  Saracens  to  be  looked  at. 

FRENCH  HISTORY. 

H6nault  and  Millot,  and  D'Anquetil's  History,  to  be  read ;  and  important  subjects 
to  be  further  considered  in  the  great  historians,  Velly,  Pere  Daniel,  —  but  Velly  recom- 
mended, a  work  of  great  detail  and  value,  continued  by  Villaret,  and  afterwards  by 
Gamier,  but  not  yet  half  finished. 

Robertson's  Charles  the  Fifth,  Introduction  of.  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations ;  the 
chapters  in  the  3d  book,  on  Progress  of  Towns,  &c.,  will  give  the  student  an  idea  of 
the  progress  of  society  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

ENGLISH  HISTORY. 

Tacitus's  Agricola.  Suetonius.  Wilkins  on  Saxon  Laws.  Hume's  Appendix. 
Millar  on  the  English  Constitution.  Nicholson's  Historical  Library.  Pj-iestley's  Lec- 
tures on  History.  De  Lolme  and  Blackstone.  Blackstone  on  the  Charters  to  be 
read.  Sullivan's  Law  Lectures,  close  of,  for  his  observations  on  Magna  Charta. 
Monkish  historians  by  Twysden,  Camden,  Gale,  &c.    Lingard. 

'        SPANISH  HISTORY. 

For  the  Moors,  &c.,  in  Spain,  see  Gibbon,  chapters  (in  5th  vol.  4to)  51,  52,  and  a 
late  woi'k  by  Murphy.  Mariana,  the  great  historian,  of  whom  there  is  a  character  in 
Gibbon,  and  a  translation  by  Stevens.  But  the  16th  and  17th  vc^s.  of  the  ^Modern 
History  may  be  looked  at,  along  with  Mr.  Gibbon's  Outlines  in  the  second  volume  of 
his  Memoirs.  Robertson's  Introduction  to  Charles  the  Fifth.  Then  his  Charles  the 
Fifth,  and  Watson's  Philip  the  Second. 

Pfeff"el,  from  Rodolph  to  Charles  the  Fifth,  may  be  looked  at,  and  Coxe's  House  of 
Austria,  with  Planta's  History,  for  the  rise  of  the  House  of  Austria,  the  Swiss  Cantons 
ana  Helvetic  Confederacy;  and  for  Italy  and  the  Popes,  the  G9th  and  70th  chapters  of 
Gibbon  will  be  sufiicient. 

3h 


710  LIST  OF  BOOKS. 


FRENCH  HISTOBY,  TO  LOUIS  THE  TWELFTH. 

Abb6  de  Mably.  Robertson's  Introduction  to  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  three  Notea^ 
38,  39,  40.  Parts  of  Philippe  Comines,  for  Burgundy  and  Life  of  Louis  the  Eleventh: 
Notes  taken  by  Hume  of  the  French  history. 

ENGLISH  HISTORY,  TO  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH. 

Hume's  Reign  of  Edward  the  Third,  pages  490  and  491,  8vo  edit.,  compared  with 
Cotton's  Abridgment  of  the  Records.  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History.  Henry's 
History  may  be  looked  at,  when  Cotton,  Brady,  Tyrrell,  Carte,  cannot  be  consulted. 
Bacon  y  Life  of  Henry  the  Seventh.  Monkish  historians.  Sir  John  Hayward.  Lin- 
gard. 

REVIVAL  OF  LEARNING.  — REFORMATION. 

Introduction  to  the  Literary  History  of  the  14th  and  15th  Centuries  (Cadell,  1798) 
worth  looking  at,  and  not  long.  Mosheim's  State  of  Learning  in  the  13th  and  14th 
Centuries.  Gibbon,  chapters  53  and  66.  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  parts  of,  and  more 
particularly  of  Leo  the  Tenth,  by  Roscoe. 

Read  the  accounts  of  the  Reformation,  1st,  in  Robertson's  Charles  the  Fifth;  2d, 
history  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  in  Coxe's  House  of  Austria ;  3d,  in  the  two  chapters  of 
Roscoe's  Leo  the  Tenth  ;  4th,  in  the  54th  chapter  of  Gibbon.  Read  the  Introduction 
and  first  four  chapters  of  Mosheim,  in  vol.  4  of  our  English  edition ;  second  part  of 
Mosheim's  history  of  Lutheran  and  Reformed  Churches :  and  lastly,  the  first  part  of 
Mosheim,  more  particularly  the  close  of  it,  for  the  history  of  the  Romish  Church. 
Villers's  Prize  Essay  on  the  Reformation,  more  particularly  on  the  influence  of  the 
Reformation,  and  the  Appendix  on  the  political  situation  of  the  states  of  Europe. 
Council  of  Trent  (Father  Paul),  2d  book,  and  latter  part  of  the  8th. 

REFORMATION  IN  ENGLAND. 

For  "Wickliffe,  see  Henry's  History  of  England,  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans, 
Fox's  Martyrs,  3rd  vol.  of  Mosheim,  and  Milner's  Church  History.  Hume's  ac- 
count of  our  Reformation  should  be  read,  —  and  the  same  subject  in  Robertson's  His- 
tory of  Scotland,  and  first  Appendix  in  Maclaine's  edition  of  Mosheim.  Burnet's 
History  of  the  Reformation  should  be  read.  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs,  and  Neal's  His- 
tory of  the  Puritans,  should  be  consulted;  in  Fox,  the  account  given  of  Lambert, 
Cranmer,  and  Anne  Askew  may  be  sufficient.  M'Crie's  History  of  the  Reformation  in 
Scotland  should  be  referred  to;  and  there  is  a  very  good  account  of  Luther  in  Milner's 
Church  History.    Lingard's  History. 

CIVLL  AND  RELIGIOUS  WARS  IN  FRANCE.    . 

Introduction  to  Thuanus  or  De  Thou;  then,  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  parts  of 
the  work  that  belong  to  the  history  of  France ;  the  military  part  may  be  slightly  read ; 
—  the  French  translation  is  recommended.  Brantome,  parts  of.  Memoirs  of  Sully, 
parts  of.  Wraxall's  Memoirs  of  the  House  of  Valois,  and  his  History  of  France. 
Abbe  de  Mably.  Edict  of  Nantes,  1st  chapter  of,  for  first  introduction  and  persecution 
of  Calvinism  in  France.  Maimbourg's  History  of  the  League  mentioned ,  but  see 
Wraxall  for  the  League.  Esprit  de  la  Ligue,  by  D'Anquetil  (scarce  book),  partly  in- 
corporated into  his  present  8vo  History,  of  14  vols.  There  is  a  new  work  by  Lacre 
telle,  in  two  volumes,  Histoire  de  France  pendant  les  Guerres  de  Religion. 

HENRY  THE  FOURTH,  OF  FRANCE. 

Perefixe's  Life.  De  Thou,  Sully's  Memoirs,  Mably,  and  Wraxall  recommended. 
Voltaire's  Henriade.  Fifth  Book  of  Edict  of  Nantes,  and  the  Edict,  with  the  secret 
articles,  tc  be  read. 


LIST  OF  BOOKS.  711 


RELIGIOUS  WARS  IN  THE  LOW  COUNTRIES. 

Grotius,  Bentivoglio,  Strada,  —  original  authors.  Brandt's  History  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, a  century  after.  Watson's  Philip  the  Second,  —  all  of  it  to  be  read, 
with  the  first  four  books  and  other  parts  of  Bentivoglio.  Bentivoglio,  Strada,  and 
Grotius  to  be  read  for  the  important  period  that  preceded  the  coming  of  the  Duke  of 
Alva. 

For  the  Arminian  Controversy,  18th  and  19th  books  of  Brandt's  Histoiy  of  the 
Reformation.  For  the  Synod  of  Dort,  33d  book.  Sec  also  other  parts  of  chapters  41, 
42,  43,  and  Placard  in  50th  book.    Brandt's  work  can  only  be  consulted, 

.  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR. 

Harte's  Gustavus  Adolphus.     Coxe's  House  of  Austria. 

The  leading  points  of  this  subject  seem  to  be,  —  1 .  Contest  between  Roman  Catho- 
lics and  Reformers  to  the  Peace  of  Passau ;  2.  Provisions  of  that  Peace ;  3.  Conduct 
of  the  Protestant  princes;  4.  Ditto  of  the  House  of  Austria;  5.  Elector  Palatine; 
6.  Gustavus  Adolphus,  &c.;  7,  Campaigns  of  Tilly,  &c.;  8.  Continuance  of  the  con- 
test after  Gustavus's  death ;  9.  Peace  of  Westphalia. 

Schiller's  Thirty  Years'  War  may  be  looked  at ;  but  Coxe  seems  the  best  author  to 
be  read  in  every  respect. 

ENGLISH  HISTORY.  —  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.     ELIZABETH.     JAMES 
THE  FIRST.     CHARLES   THE  FIRST. 

Herbert's  Life  of  Henry  the  Eighth  worth  looking  over.  Hurd's  Dialogue  on 
Times  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Miss  Aikin's  Memoirs  of  Elizabeth  and  James.  Hume. 
Millar.  Clarendon.  Whitelocke.  Ludlow.  Life  of  Colonel  Hutchinson.  Parlia- 
mentary debates  in  Cobbett.  History  of  Long  Parliament  by  May.  Rushworth'a 
Collections.  Nalson's  ditto.  Harris's  Lives  of  James  the  First,  Charles  the  First, 
Cromwell,  and  Charles  the  Second.  Burnet.  Laing's  History  of  Scotland.  Memoirs 
of  Holies,  of  Sir  Philip  Warwick,  and  Sir  John  Berkley.  Rapin  always  a  substitute, 
in  the  absence  of  all  others. 

First  interval,  from  accession  of  Charles  to  the  dissolution  of  his  third  Parliament  in 
•1629.  Second  interval,  from  1629  to  1640.  Third  interval,  from  1640  to  the  king's 
journey  to  Scotland  in  1641.    Fourth  interval,  from  that  journey  to  the  civil  war. 

Prynne's  speech  in  Cobbett.  Walker's  History  of  Independency  to  be  looked  at,  and 
the  king's  letters  in  Royston's  edition  of  his  Works.  Mrs.  Macaulay's  History,  very 
laborious,  —  unfavorable  to  Charles. 

CROMWELL. 

Conference  at  the  end  of  Thurloe's  State  Papers,  —  a  book  which  cannot  be  read, 
but  may  easily  be  consulted  from  a  very  good  Index  at  the  end.  Ludlow,  from  the 
battle  of  Naseby,  and  pages  79,  105,  and  135  of  4to  edition,  for  Cromwell;  and  ditto 
Hutchinson,  287,  309,  340;  and  Whitelocke,  516  and  548.  Sir  Edward  Walker's  His- 
torical Discourses,  —  most  of  it  in  Hume.  Noble's  Memoirs  of  the  Cromwells  may 
be  looked  at.  Sir  John  Sinclair's  History  of  the  Revenue,  for  account  of  the  expenses 
of  the  Long  Parliament.  Gumble's  Life  of  Monk.  Trial  of  the  Regicides,  short,  anj 
by  all  means  to  be  read. 

CHARLES  THE  SECOND. 

Harris's  Lives,  —  all  these  Lives  by  Harris  full  of  information  and  historical  research. 
Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  —  4,  5,  6,  7  chapters  of  the  second  part,  2d  vol.  Walk- 
er's Sufferings  of  the  Clergy.  Part  of  Clarendon's  Life.  Burnet's  History  of  his  own 
rimes.    Macpherson's  Original  Papers,  and  Dalfymple's  Memou^,  vol.  2. 


712  LIST  OF  BOOKS. 


CHARLES  THE  SECOND  AND  THE  EXCLUSIONISTS. 

Andrew  Marvell's  Account  of  Bribery,  &c.,  given  in  Cobbett.  Ralph's  Historyj  most 
minute  and  complete,  always  to  be  consulted  for  Charles  the  Second  and  James.  Ken- 
net's  ditto,  —  mentioned  as  containing  the  king's  Declaration  or  Appeal  to  the  People. 
Sir  William  Jones's  Reply,  given  in  Cobbett. 

CHARLES  THE   SECOND. 

Memoirs  of  Comte  de  Grammont.  Dryden's  Political  Poems,  —  Absalom  and 
Achitophel,  &c.  Hudibras,  —  Grey's  Notes.  Sermons  and  Public  Papers  of  the 
Presbyterians.    Laing's  History  of  Scotland.  , 

REVOLUTION. 

Fox's  History.    Macpherson  and  Dalrymple. 

1st  part  of  the  general  subject,  —  James's  attack  on  the  constitution  and  liberties  of 
the  country.  2d  part,  —  Resistance  made  to  him  at  home.  3d  part,  —  Ditto  from 
abroad,  —  8th  chapter  of  Somerville's  History. 

For  William's  enterprise,  Burnet's  Memoirs.  2d  Earl  of  Clarendon's  Diary,  from 
p.  41.  Sir  John  Reresby's  Memoirs.  Conference  between  the  Houses,  given  in 
Cobbett.  Somerville's  History  of  William,  &c.  Ralph.  D'Oyly's  Life  of  San- 
croft. 

REIGN  OF  WILLIAM. 

Somerville.  Belsham.  Tindal.  Ralph.  Burnet.  Cobbett,  5th  vol.  Macpherson 
and  Dalrymple.  p.  331,  vol.  9,  Statutes,  8vo  edit.,  for  Triennial  Bill.  Blackstone, 
chap.  11,  vol.  4,  for  the  liberty  of  the  press,  —  and  8th  vol.  of  Statutes,  13  and  14 
Charles  II.  chap.  33.  Memoirs  of  the  Due  de  St.  Simon,  and  7th  and  8th  of  Boling- 
bi  tke's  Letters  on  History,  for  William's  foreign  politics. 

AMERICA.  — EAST  AND  WEST  INDIES. 

Robertson,  Preface,  with  5,  6,  7  chapters  of  the  1st  vol.  of  Clavigero,  and  much  of 
vol.  2,  for  Mexico.  2d  vol.  Churchill's  Voyages,  for  Life  of  Columbus  by  his  son. 
Italian  collection  of  Ramusio,  for  original  documents  respecting  America,  &c.  Second 
Letter  of  Cortes  should  be  read,  —  there  is  a  Latin  translation  of  2d  and  3d  Letters, 
very  scarce.  Bernal  Diaz  del  Castillo  should  be  read,  —  it  is  translated  by  Keatinge. 
Robertson's  India.  For  Portuguese  settlement,  &c.,  in  East  Indies,  see  57th  chap,  of 
Russell,  and  first  three  sections  of  8th  vol.  Modern  Universal  History.  For  Brazils, 
Harris's  Voyages,  last  edit.,  in  1740,  is  always  quoted,  differing  from  first  editions  en- 
tirely. For  Dutch,  &c.,  33d  chap.  Modern  Universal  History,  and  11th  chap.  Russell. 
For  English,  &c.,  Robertson's  posthumous  works,  and  first  half  of  1st  vol.  of  Marshall's 
Life  of  Washington.  Raynal,  historical  part  of.  Burke's  European  Settlements  to 
be  read.  Hakluyt  and  Purchas,  for  first  attempts  of  navigation,  &c.,  —  very  curious 
and  instructive.  The  latter  volumes  of  Purchas  contain  original  documents  of  the 
first  conquerors,  most  of  Las  Casas's  book,  Mexican  paintings,  &c. 

FRENCH  HISTORY  FROM  HENRY  THE  FOURTH  TO  THE  END  OF 
LOUIS  THE  FOURTEEN^TH. 

Lives  of  Richelieu  and  Mazarin,  by  Aubery,  —  Ditto  of  Richelieu,  by  Le  Clerc ;  but 
no  good  biographical  account  of  those  ministers.  Many  Memoirs  with  and  without 
names ;  amongst  the  best  are  those  of  Madame  de  Motteville,  —  Montpensier,  —  Cardi- 
nal de  Retz,  —  De  Joly,  son  secretaire,  —  De  la  Rochefoucauld,  —  De  la  Fare,  —  De 
Gourville,  — De  la  Fayette :  out  of  these  have  been  formed  other  works,  not  long,  and 
always  read,  —  Esprit  de  la  Ligue,  —  L'Intrigue  du  Cabinet,  —  Louis  XIV.,  sa  Cour, 
et  le  R6gent,  by  D'Anquetil,  —  and  L'Esprit  de  la  Fronde,  an  established  work,  not  by 
D'Anquetil,  as  had  been  supposed. 

But  for  the  times  of  Richelieu  and  Mazarin,  see  the  chapters  that  relate  to  them  in 
Russell,  with  those  in  the  Modern  Universal  History,  which  will  be  sufficient,  when 


LIST  OF  BOOKS.  713 

added  to  those  in  Voltaire,  175,  176  of  his  Essai  sur  les  Moeurs,  &c.,  with  the  Abb^  de 
Mably;  but  L'lntrigue  du  Cabinet  also  may  be  added.  For  Louis  the  Fourteenth  the 
great  work  is  Memoires  du  Due  de  St.  Simon,  published  complete  since  the  Revolu- 
tion. Louis  XIV.,  sa  Cour,  et  le  Regent,  should  be  read,  and  the  Memoires  de  Du 
clos,  with  Voltaire's  Louis  XIV.  Le  Vassor  is  a  work  read  and  quoted  in  England, 
and  may  be  consulted  where  the  Huguenots  are  concerned.  Edict  of  Nantes,  part  of 
22d  and  23d  chapters  ;  Edicts,  &c.,  at  the  end  of  the  5th  vol.,  should  be  looked  at  for 
Revocation  of  Edict  of  Nantes,  &c.  Fenelon's  Telemaque,  parts  of,  for  faults  of  Louis, 
and  early  appearance  of  present  system  of  political  economy.  Lacretelle's  late  work. 
History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  preparatory  to  his  Precis  of  the  late  Revolution  in 
France,  a  vv^ork  well  spoken  of  Memoirs  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  by  Beaumelle, 
though  decried  by  Voltaire,  still  maintains  its  [ground. 

WILLIAM  THE   THIRD. 

Somerville,  on  the  whole,  the  best  history  of  the  reign  we  as  yet  have.  BeLsham 
will  furnish  proper  topics  of  reflection,  Tindal  the  detail,  and  Ralph  even  more  than 
Tindal.  Burnet  must  of  course  be  read.  Cobbett  will  supply  the  debates.  There 
are  several  important  tracts  in  the  Appendix  to  the  5th  vol.  of  his  Parliamentary  His- 
tory. Macpherson  and  Dalrymple  must  be  consulted.  Some  general  conclusions,  in 
the  21st  chapter  of  Somerville,  on  Parties,  &c.,  &c.,  seem  objectionable. 

For  foreign  politics,  see  Memoirs  of  St.  Simon,  Burnet,  Hardwicke  Papers,  7th  and 
8th  of  Lord  Bolingbroke's  Letters  on  History. 

ANNE. 

Coxe's  Austria.  Eighth  Letter  of  Bolingbroke.  Torcy's  Memoirs.  Mably's  Droit 
de  I'Europe.  Some  chapters  in  the  3d  vol.  of  St.  Simon.  Macpherson.  Trial  of  Dr. 
Sacheverell. 

For  the  Union  with  Scotland,  see  De  Foe's  History,  a  heavy  4to,  —  a  book  published 
by  Bruce,  under  the  direction  of  the  Duke  of  Portland,  at  the  time  of  the  Union  with 
Ireland,  —  Works  of  Fletcher  of  Saltoun.  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History  and 
Somerville's  account  of  the  Union  will  be  the  best  to  read,  with  the  first  hundred 
pages  of  the  third  volume  of  Millar  on  the  English  Constitution. 

.    GEORGE  THE  FIRST  AND   SECOND.  — SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE. 

Coxe's  Life  of  Sir  Robert,  and  his  Life  of  Horace  Lord  Walpole.  Bolingbroke's 
Letters,  and  Letter  to  Sir  William  Wyndham.  Horace  Walpole  against  Boling- 
broke. Parliamentary  Debates.  Bolingbroke's  Patriot  King,  and  Dissertation  on 
Parties,  to  be  compared  with  Burke's  Thoughts  on  the  Cause  of  the  Present  Discon- 
tents.   London  Magazine  and  Gentleman's  Magazine. 

FRANCE.  —  REGENCY  OF  THE  DUKE  OF  ORLEANS,  etc. 

•  Memoirs  of  the  Due  de  St.  Simon.  Last  volume  of  D  .^^  nquetil's  Louis  XIV.,  sa 
Cour,  et  le  Regent.  Memoirs  of  Duclos.  L'Histoire  of  Lacretelle.  —  And  for  the  Mis- 
sissippi Scheme  of  Law,  look  at  Steuart's  Political  Economy.  There  is  a  great  work 
on  Finance,  by  Forbonnais,  where  the  subject  is  thoroughly  considered  and  is  made 
tolerably  intelligible.  Adam  Smith  refers  to  Du  Vemey.  —  For  South-Sea  Bubble, 
see  Coxe's  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  Steuart's  Political  Economy,  Cobbett's  Parliamentary 
History,  Aislabie's  Second  Defence  before  the  Lords,  Report  of  the  Address,  &c.,  &c. 

•  KING  OF  PRUSSIA. 

Thi^bault.  Edinburgh  Review  of  that  work.  Towers's  Life  of  the  King  of  Prus- 
Bia.     These  will  be  sufficient  for  the  general  reader. 

Mirabeau  on  the  Prussian  Monarchy,  particularly  the  first  vol.  and  last ;  read  and 
criticize  the  general  observations  in  other  vols,  of  the  work.  Nothing  of  an  historical 
nature  in  the  letters  between  him  and  Voltaire. 

The  king  gives  in  his  own  works  an  account  of  his  own  campaigns.  Gillies's  work 
is  very  indiflFerent. 

90  3h* 


714  LIST  OF  BOOKS. 


FEANCE.  — LOUIS   THE  FIFTEENTH. 

The  detail  of  the  history  of  this  reign  would  be  but  the  history  of  the  king's  mis- 
tresses and  their  favorites.  The  late  work  of  Lacretelle,  his  Histoii-e  de  France  pen- 
dant le  XVIII.  Siecle,  will  supply  every  information  necessary  for  the  general  reader, 
and  in  a  veiy  agreeable  manner.  The  financial  disputes  and  the  ecclesiastical  disputes, 
ooth  making  up  the  disputes  between  the  court  and  Parliaments,  are  the  chief  points,  — 
these  disputes,  with  the  new  opinions,  uniting  to  produce  the  late  French  Revolution. 
Tlie  foreign  politics  may  be  gathered  from  Voltaire  and  Coxe's  Austria,  in  a  general 
manner.    See  also  Duclos. 

PELHAM  ADMINISTRATION. 

Scotch  Rebellion  in  1745,  —  History  of  it,  by  Home.  The  bopk  not  thought  equal 
to  his  fame,  but  it  tells  all  that  need  now  be  known,  and  is  in  many  places  very  inter 
esting.    Melcombe's  Diary.    Belsham. 

GEORGE  THE  THIRD.  —  OPENING  OF  THE  REIGN. 

Adolphus,  Belsham,  —  neither  without  the  other.  Melcombe's  Diaiy.  Burke's 
Thoughts  on  Present  Discontents. 

AMERICAN  WAR. 

Speeches  in  the  two  Houses,  —  George  Grenville,  Pitt,  Governor  Pownall,  &c.,  &c., 
—  see  Cobbett's  Parliamentary  History.  Examination  of  Mr.  Penn.  Dean  Tucker's 
Tracts  (the  third  particularly),  and  his  Cui  Bono.  Pamphlet  by  Robinson,  brother  to 
the  Primate.  Ditto,  by  Dr.  Johnson,  Taxation  no  Tyranny.  Burke's  Speeches. 
Dr.  Ramsay's  History  of  the  American  War.  Annual  Register.  Paine's  Common 
Sense.  Paper  to  have  been  presented  to  the  king,  in  Burke's  Works.  Gibbon's  Me- 
moirs, —  notices  of  the  American  contest  in  his  letters.  Bentivoglio,  —  speeches  in 
the  Spanish  Council  on  the  subject  of  the  Low  Countries,  by  the  Duke  of  Alva,  &c. 
Washington's  Letters.  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington.  Belsham  and  Adolphus, — 
neither  without  the  other.  Parts  of  the  Works  of  Franklin,  and  of  his  Correspondence. 
The  great  magazine  of  information  is  The  Remembrancer,  a  work  of  20  volumes, 
drawn  up  by  Almon,  an  opposition  bookseller  at  the  time,  and  the  Remembrancer 
therefore  chiefly  oflers  to  the  remembrance  such  speeclies  and  documents  as  ai-e  un- 
I'avorable  to  the  councils  of  Great  Britain.  Gordon,  4  thick  8vo  volumes,  full  of  facts, 
and  impartial,  but  with  no  other  merit.  The  legal  history  of  the  Colonies  may  be 
found  in  Chalmers,  a  book  which  may  be  consulted,  but  cannot  be  read.  Stedman 
wrote  a  History  of  the  American  War,  —  an  actor  in  the  scene,  and  a  sensible  maiij 
but  with  ordinary  views. 


Many  histories  and  many  political  subjects  have  been  passed  by ;  but  they  who  would 
look  for  more,  or  would  think  it  advisable  to  turn  aside  from  the  course  here  proposed, 
may  consult  the  volumes  of  the  Modern  Universal  History,  and  they  will  find,  either 
in  the  text  or  the  references,  every  historical  information  they  can  well  require. 

Catalogues  of  great  libraries  —  the  Catalogue,  for  instance,  of  the  Royal  Institution 
in  London  —  will  give  the  student  an  immediate  view  of  all  the  valuable  books  that 
refer  to  any  particular  subject  of  his  Inquiry. 

Biography,  though  dealing  too  much  in  panegyric,  is  always  more  or  less  entertaig- 
ing  and  instructive,  often  atibrding  at  the  same  time  historical  facts  and  traits  of  char- 
acter that  are  by  no  means  without  their  importance,  though  they  may  have  escafied 
the  general  historian ;  these  may  also  often  be  found  in  the  histories  of  countries. 


Since  this  Syllabus  was  first  drawn  up,  many  works  have  appeared  which  shonld 
now  find  a  place  in  it:  —  Hallam  on  the  Middle  Ages,  —  Sismondi,  —  Brodie,  —  vols, 
of  Lingard's  History,  —  more  valuable  editions  of  Clarendon  and  Burnet,  —  entertain- 


LIST  OF  BOOKS.  715 

ing  and  instructive  works  by  Miss  Aikin  and  Lord  John  Russell,  —  a  work  on  the 
times  of  Charles  the  First  and  the  Republic,  by  Godwin,  —  a  valuable  selection  of 
the  State  Trials,  by  Phillips,  —  a  most  important  work  on  the  Constitutional  Histoir 
of  this  country,  by  Hallam,  &c.,  &c.,  —  a  history  of  our  own  Revolution,  by  a  French 
writer,  Mazure,  and  a  history  of  the  times  of  Charles  the  First,  by  Guizot,  —  a  Short 
History  of  Spain,  by  Mrs.  Calcott,  —  a  continuation  of  the  Histories  of  Hume  and 
Smollett,  drawn  up  with  diligence  and  ability,  by  Mr.  Hughes,  of  Cambridge,  —  valu- 
able publications  by  Coxe,  Life  of  Marlborough,  &c.,  —  and  a  History  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  by  Prescott,  the  American  historian. 


On  the  subject  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  following  works  have  been  recom- 
mended as  a  short  course :  —  Mignet,  —  Thiers,  —  Madame  de  Sta«l,  —  Account  of 
Revolution  in  Dodsley's  Annual  Register,  —  Histoire  de  la  R6volution  Francjaise^par 
deux  Amis  de  la  Liberte.  To  these  may  now  be  ^dded,  Sir  Walter  Scott's  first  two 
volumes  of  his  Life  of  Napoleon. 

Memoirs  on  the  subject  of  the  French  Revolution  are  now  publishing  by  the  Bau- 
louin  Freres  at  Paris.  The  following  may  be  more  particularly  mentioned :  —  Me- 
moirs by  M.  de  Ferrieres,  —  Madame  Roland,  —  Bailly,  —  Barbaroux,  —  Sur  les 
Journees  de  Septembre,  —  Weber,  —  Hue,  —  Clery,  —  Louvet,  —  Dumouriez,  —  Me- 
moirs and  Annals  of  the  French  Revolution,  by  Bertrand  de  Molleville,  &c.,  &c. 

The  Speeches  of  Mirabeau  should  be  looked  at,  and  Necker's  Works,  for  the  earlier 
periods  of  the  Revolution.  There  is  a  democratic  work  by  Bailleul,  written  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  Considerations  of  Madame  de  Stael.  There  is  a  Precis  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, begun  by  Rabaut  de  St.  Etienne  and  continued  by  Lacretelle.  There  is  a  useful 
work.  Revue  Chronologique  de  I'Histoire  Fran^aise,  from  1787  to  1818,  by  Montgail- 
lard,  now  expanded  by  the  same  writer  into  a  regular  history.  There  is  a  history  by 
Toulongeon. 


A  LIST 

OF   SOME   OF   THE    PRINCIPAL    BOOKS    RELATING    TO   THE 

HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  AND  OF 

THE  RESPECTIVE  STATES. 

PREPABED  FOR   THE  AMERICAN  EDITION. 


UNITED   STATES. 

Oldmixon's  British  Empire  in  America.    2  vols. 

Douglass's  Political  and  Historical  Summary.     2  vols. 

Burke's  European  Settlements  in  America.'    2  vols. 

Wynne's  General  History  of  the  British  Empire  in  America.    2  vols. 

Chalmers's  Political  Annals  of  the  United  Colonies.     1  vol. 

Marshall's  History  of  the  American  Colonies.     1  vol. 

Force's  Tracts  and  other  Papers,  relating  principally  to  the  Origin,  Settlement,  and 

Progress  of  the  Colonies  in  North  America.    4  vols. 
Trumbull's  General  History  of  the  United  States.    1  vol.    Unfinished. 
Ramsay's  History  of  the  United  States.    3  vols. 
Holmes's  Annals  of  America.    2  vols. 
Hale's  History  of  the  United  States.     1  vol. 
Grahame's  History  of  the  United  States.    4  vols.    Comes  down  to  the  Declaration  of 

Independence. 
Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States :  Colonial  History.    3  vols. 
Pitkin's  Political  and  Civil  History  of  the  United  States.    2  vols. 
Lyman's  Diplomacy  of  the  United  States.    2  vols. 

Gibbs's  Memoirs  of  the  Administrations  of  Washington  and  John  Adams.    2  vols. 
Moore's  Memoirs  of  American  Governors.     1  vol.    Unfinished. 
Monette's  History  of  the  Discovery  and  Settlement  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi. 

2  vols. 
Perkins's  Annals  of  the  West,  from  the  Discovery  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  to  the 

Year  1845.    1  vol. 

MAINE. 

Sullivan's  History  of  the  District  of  Maine.     1  vol. 
Greenleaf 's  Statistical  View  of  Maine.     1  vol. 
Williamson's  History  of  the  State  of  Maine.    2  vols. 

NEW  HAMPSHIRE. 

Belknap's  History  of  New  Hampshire.    3  vols.    Also  an  edition  wiih  Farmer's 

notes. 
Barstow's  History  of  New  Hampshire.    1  vol. 


VERMONT. 


Allen's  History  of  Vermont.    1  vol. 
Williams's  History  of  Vermont.    2  vols. 
Slade's  Vermont  State  Papers.    1  vol. 


BOOKS  ON  AMERICA.  717 


MASSACHUSETTS. 

Hutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts.    3  vols. 

Minot's  Continuation  of  Hutchinson.    2  vols. 

Bradford's  Continuation  of  Minot.    3  vols. 

Baylies's  Historical  Memoir  of  the  Colony  of  Plymouth.    2  vols. 

Young's  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  of  the  Colony  of  Plymouth.     1  vol.;  com 

prising  several  of  the  early  tracts  relating  to  the  settlement  of  Plymouth. 
Young's  Chronicles  of  the  First  Planters  of  the  Colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay.     1  vol 

RHODE  ISLAND. 

No  regular  History  has  been  written.  Many  particulars  concerning  the  early 
history  are  contained  in  the  Collections  of  the  Rhode  Island  Historical  Society,  in 
5  vols. 

CONNECTICUT. 

Peters's  General  History  of  Connecticut.    1  vol.    Contains  many  inaccuracies ;  the 

author  was  either  credulous  or  insincere. 
Trumbull's  Complete  History  of  Connecticut.    2  vols. 
Bacon's  Historical  Discourses.    1  vol. 

NEW  YORK. 

Smith's  History  of  New  York.  2  vols.  The  2d  volume  constitutes  the  4th  of  the  Col- 
lections of  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 

Yates  and  Moulton's  History  of  the  State  of  New  York.    1  vol.    Unfinished. 

Macauley's  History  of  New  York.    3  vols. 

O'Callaghan's  History  of  New  Netherlands,  or  New  York  under  the  Dutch.    1  voL 

Dunlap's  History  of  the  New  Netherlands,  Province  and  State  of  New  York,  to  the 
Adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution.     2  vols. 

Hammond's  History  of  Political  Parties  in  the  State  of  New  York.    2  vols. 

NEW  JERSEY. 

Smith's  History  of  the  Colony  of  New  Jersey.     1  vol. 

Gordon's  History  of  New  Jersey.     1vol. 

Whitehead's  East  Jersey  under  the  Proprietary  Governments.    1  vol. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

Proud's  History  of  Pennsylvania.    2  vols. 
Gordon's  History  of  Pennsylvania.    1  vol. 

MARYLAND. 

Bozman's  Sketch  of  the  History  of  Maryland.    2  vols.    Unfinished. 
McMahon's  Historical  View  of  the  Government  of  Maryland.     1  vol.    Unfinished. 
Hawks's  Contributions  to  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  the  United  States :  vol.  2d, 
Maryland. 

VIRGINIA. 

Keith's  History  of  the  British  Plantations  in  America.    1  vol.    The  first  part  only  was 

published,  which  relates  to  Virginia. 
Beverley's  History  of  Virginia.    1  vol. 

Stith's  History  of  the  First  Discovery  and  Settlement  of  Virginia.    1  vol. 
Jefferson's  Notes  on  Virginia.     1  vol. 

Campbell's  (J.  W.)  History  of  Virginia.    1  vol.  .  . 

Campbell's  (Charles)  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Ae  Colony  and  Ancient  Dcwmmon 

of  Virginia.    I  vol. 


71S  BOOKS   ON  AMERICA. 

Burks  History  of  Virginia  (continued  by  Girardin).    4  vols. 
Howison's  History  of  Virginia.     2  vols. 

Hawks's  Contributions  to  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  the  United  States :  vol.  Ist,  Vir 
ginia. 

NORTH  CAROLINA. 

Williamson's  History  of  North  Carolina.    2  vols. 
Martin's  History  of  North  Carolina.     2  vols. 
Foote's  Sketches  of  North  Carolina.    1  vol. 

SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

Hewatt's  Historical  Account  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia.    2  vols.    Also  a  recent 

edition  with  additional  matter,  edited  by  Mr.  Carroll. 
Ramsay's  History  of  South  Carolina.     2  vols. 
Drayton's  View  of  South  Carolina.     1  vol. 

GEORGIA. 

Hewatt's  Historical  Account  of  South  Carolina  and  Geor^a.    2  vols. 

McCall's  History  of  Georgia.    2  vols. 

Stevens's  History  of  Georgia.    1  vol.    Unfinished. 

KENTUCKY. 

Filson's  IHscovery,  Settlement,  and  Present  State  of  Kentucky.    1  vol. 

Marshall's  History  of  Kentucky.    2  vols. 

Butler's  History  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Kentucky.    1  vol. 

TENNESSEE. 
Haywood's  History  of  Tennessee.    1  vol. 

LOUISIANA. 

Du  Pratz's  History  of  Louisiana.    2  vols.     Translated  from  the  French. 

Stoddard's  Sketches  Historical  and  Descriptive  of  Louisiana.     1  vol. 

Marbois's  History  of  Louisiana.    1  vol.     Translated  from  the  French ;  relating  par 

ticularly  to  the  cession  of  that  Colony  to  the  United  States. 
Martin's  History  of  Louisiana.    2  vols. 
Gayarre,  Histoire  de  la  Louisiane.    2  vols. 


Besides  the  above  general  works,  many  treatises  have  been  published  t^on  detached 
portions  of  history,  and  also  local  histories.  Tracts  and  articles  of  great  value  are  con- 
tained in  the  Collections  published  by  the  Historical  Societies  of  some  of  the  States. 
The  Historical  Society  of  Maine  has  published  two  volumes ;  New  Hampshire,  five ; 
Massachusetts,  thirty ;  Rhode  Island,  five ;  New  York,  five,  the  last  of  which  is  very 
important  in  regard  to  the  history  of  the  Dutch  settlements;  New  Jersey,  twoj  Penn- 
sylvania, four;  Ohio,  two;  Georgia,  two;  Virginia,  some  tracts. 


AMERICAN  REVOLUTION. 

Gordon's  History  of  the  Rise,  Progress,  and  Establishment  of  the  Independence  of  the 

United  Stiites.    4  vols. 
Ramsay's  History  of  the  American  Revolution.    2  vols. 
Andrews's  History  of  the  War  in  America.    4  vols. 
Stedman's  History  of  the  American  War.     2  vols. 
Warren's  (Mrs.)  History  of  the  American  Revolution.    3  vols. 


BOOKS  ON  AMERICA.  719 

Marshall's  Life  of  Washington.     5  vols. 

B«4ta's  History  of  the  War  of  Independence  of  the  United  States.    4  vols.    Translated 

from  the  Italian. 
Thacher's  Military  Journal,  during  the  American  Revolutionary  War.     1  vol. 
British  Annual  Register,  from  1765  to  1783.     The  parts  constituting  the  History  of 

the  American  War  were  written  principally,  if  not  entirely,  by  Edmund  Burke. 
Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  American  Revolution ;  published  by  order  of  the 

Government,  and  edited  bv  J.  Sparks.     12  vols.     Continuation  to  the  adoption 

of  the  Constitution.     7  vols. 
Secret  Journals  of  the  Acts  and  Proceedings  of  the  Old  Congress.    4  vols. 
Madison's  Papers,  containing  Letters  and  Sketches  of  Debates  in  the  Old  Congress, 

vol.  1st. 
Sanderson's  Biography  of  the  Signers  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence.    9  vols. 

Second  edition,  in  5  vols. 
Sparks's  Life  and  Writings  of  Washington.     12  vols.  • 

Sparks's  Life  and  Writings  of  Franklin.     10  vols. 
Lee's  Memoirs  of  the  War  in  the  Southern  Department.    2  vols. 
Ramsay's  History  of  the  Revolution  in  South  Carolina.     2  vols. 
Drayton's  Memoirs  of  the  American  Revolution  as  relating  to  the  State  of  South 

Carolina.     2  vols. 
Moultrie's  Memoirs  of  the  Revolution  in  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia. 

2  vols. 
Tarle ton's  History  of  the  Campaigns  in  the  Southern  Provinces  of  North  America. 

1  vol. 
Hinman's  Historical  Collection,  from  Official  Records,  Files,  &c.,  of  the  Part  sustain- 
ed by  Connecticut  during  the  War  of  the  Revolution.     1  vol. 
Whiting's  Revolutionary  Orders  of  General  Washington,  1778  -  82.     1  vol. 
Gilpin's  Exiles  in  Virginia:   with  Observations  on  the  Conduct  of  the  Society  of. 

Friends  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  comprising  the  Official  Papers  of  the 

Government  relating  to  that  Period,  1777  -  78.    1  vol. 

Besides  these  works  of  a  general  character,  there  are  many  volumes  of  biography, 
written  by  different  hands,  giving  an  account  of  the  lives  of  some  of  the  principal 
actors  in  the  Revolution,  and  throwing  light  upon  important  events.  Among  these 
are  the  memoirs  of  Jefferson,  Patrick  Henry,  Richard  Henry  Lee,  James  Otis,  Quincy, 
Hamilton,  Lafayette,  Gerry,  Jay,  Gouverneur  Morris,  Greene,  Hull,  John  Trumbull, 
Joseph  Reed ;  and  others  in  Sparks's  Library  of  American  Biography,  in  twenty-five 
volumes.  Also,  memoirs  of  the  refugees.  Van  Schaack  of  New  York  (Life  and  Cor- 
respondence), Curwen  of  Massachusetts  (Journal  and  Letters) ;  with  numerous  others, 
in  Sabine's  American  Loyalists. 


CONSTITUTION. 

Jonrnal,  Acts,  and  Proceedings  of  the  Convention  which  formed  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.     1  vol. 

Secret  Proceedings  and  Debates  of  the  Convention.     1  vol. 

The  Federalist,  written  by  Hamilton,  Madison,  and  Jay.     1  vol. 

Elliot's  Debates,  Resolutions,  and  other  Proceedings  in  Convention,  on  the  Adoption 
of  the  Federal  Constitution.  4  vols.  Containing  the  Debates  in  the  Conven- 
tions of  the  several  States. 

Rawle's  View  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.     1  vol. 

Story's  Commentaries  on  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.    3  vols. 

Madison's  Papers,  published  by  order  of  the  Government ;  containing  a  Sketch  of  the 
Debates  taken  in  the'  Convention  which  formed  the  Constitution,  vols.  2d 
and  3d. 


''V    7: 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


This  Table  is  principally  confined  to  events  mentioned  in  the  Lectures. 
•  

A.  D  • 

476.  Rome  taken  by  Odoacer.    Extinction  of  the  "Western  Empire. 

481 .  Clevis,  King  of  the  Franks ;  founder  of  the  Merovingian  race. 

570.  Birth  of  Mahomet.     (Died  632.) 

622.  The  Hegira. 

715.  Charles  Martel,  Mayor  of  the  Palace,  governs  all  France. 

752.  Pepin  le  Bref,  King  of  France;  founder  of  the  Carlovingian  race. 

778.  Battle  of  Roncesvalles. 

827.  End  of  the  Saxon  Heptarchy. 

1066.  England  conquered  by  the  Normans. 

1070.  Feudal  System  introduced  into  England. 

1096.  The  First  Crusade  to  the  Holy  Land,  under  Peter  the  Hermit. 

1146.  The  Second  Crusade. 

1160.  The  Albigensian  heresy  breaks  out. 

1188.  The  Third  Crusade,  under  Frederic  Barbarossa,  Richard  the  First,  and  Philip 

Augustus. 

1195.  The  Fourth  Cmsade. 

1198.  The  Fifth  Crusade. 

1204.  The  Inquisition  established  by  Pope  Innocent  the  Third. 

1208.  Crusade  against  the  Albigenses,  under  Simon  de  Montfort. 

1215.  Magna  Charta  signed  by  King  John. 

1228  The  Sixth  Crusade. 

1241.  Hanseatic  League  formed. 

1248.  The  Seventh  Crusade,  under  St.  Louis. 

1264.  The  Burgesses  first  summoned  to  Parliament  in  England. 

1270.  The  Eighth  Crusade. 

1273.  Rodolph  of  Hapsburg,  Emperor  of  Germany;  first  of  the  House  of  Austria. 

1297.  Sir  William  Wallace  defeats  the  English  at  Stirling.    Is  put  to  death,  1305. 

1307.  Establishment  of  the  Helvetic  Confederacy. 

1314.  Edward  the  Second  defeated  at  Bannockbum. 

1320.  Gunpovs'der  invented  by  Schwartz,  a  monk. 

1346.  Battle  of  Crecy,  won  by  Edward  the  Third  and  the  Black  Prince  oyer  the 

French. 

1356.  Battle  of  Poitiers. 

1372.  Wickliflfe  preaches  in  England. 

1394.  The  Jews  banished  from  France  by  Charles  the  Sixth. 

1415.  Henry  the  Fifth  invades  Normandy;  defeats  the  French  at  Agincourt. 

1415.  John  Huss  burned  for  heresy. 

1429.  Joan  of  Arc  compels  the  English  to  raise  the  siege  of  Orleans. 

1431.  Henry  the  Sixth  of  England  crowned  King  of  France. 

1436.  Paris  retaken  by  the  French. 

1440.  Invention  of  Printing. 

1453.  Constantinople  taken  by  the  Turks.    Extinction  of  the  Eastern  Empire. 

1485.  Battle  of  Bosworth ;  death  of  Richai'd  the  Third. 

1492.  America  discovered  by  Columbus. 

1513.  Battle  of  Flodden. 

1517  Reformation  in  Germany  begun  by  Luther. 

1519.  Francis  the  First  and  Charles  the  Fifth  competitors  for  the  Imperial  throne. 

1529.  Diet  of  Spires,  against  the  Huguenots,  then  first  termed  Protestants. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE.  721 

1531.    Pizarro  invades  Peru. 

1534.     The  Reformation  in  England,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 

1545.     Council  of  Trent  begins,  which  continued  eighteen  years. 

1548.     The  "  Interim"  granted  to  the  Protestants  by  Charles  the  Fifth  of  Germany. 

1552.     Treaty  of  Passau  between  Charles  the  Fifth  and  the  Protestant  princes,  for 

the  establishment  of  Protestantism. 
1555.     Religious  Peace  established. 
1560.    Reformation  in  Scotland  under  John  Knox. 
1562.     Beginning  of  the  Civil  Wars  in  France,  between  the  Prince  of  Cond^  and  the 

Dukes  of  Guise. 

1566.  Revolt  of  the  Netherlands  from  Philip  the  Second. 

1567.  Duke  of  Alva  sent  to  quell  it. 

1572.  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  August  24th. 

1576.  The  League  in  France,  against  the  Protestants.    Williara,  Prince  of  Orange, 

declared  Stadtholder  by  the  United  States  of  Netherlands. 

1579.  Commencement  of  the  Republic  of  Holland  by  the  Union  of  Utrecht. 

1584.  Prince  of  Orange  murdered  at  Delft. 

1588.  Duke  of  Guise  assassinated. 

1589.  Henry  the  Third,  of  France,  assassinated  by  Clement. 

1590.  Battle  of  Ivry,  destruction  of  the  League. 

1598.  Edict  of  Nantes,  tolerating  Protestants  in  France. 

1610.'  Henry  the  Fourth  assassinated  by  Ravaillac. 

1618.  The  Thirty  Years'  War  begins,  in  Germany. 

1620.  Bohemians  defeated  at  Prague  ;  the  Elector  Palatine  loses  Bohemia.' 

1625.  First  English  settlement  in  the  West  Indies.     Discord  between  Charles  the 

First  and  the  House  of  Commons ;  Dissolution  of  his  First  Parliament. 
League  of  the  Protestant  princes  against  the  Emperor. 

1626.  Charles  the  First  dissolves  his  Second  Parliament 

1629.  Charles  the  First  dissolves  his  Third  Parliament. 

1630.  Gustavus  Adolphus  enters  Germany. 

1632.  Gustavus  Adolphus  killed  at  the  battle  of  Lotzen. 

1638.  The  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  established  in  Scotland. 

1640.  The  Long  Parliament  in  England  meets. 

1641.  Earl  of  Strafford  beheaded. 

1642.  Civil  War  in  England  begins. 

1645.  Charles  the  First  defeated  at  Naseby,  June  14th. 

1647.  Charles  delivered  up  by  the  Scots. 

.649.  Charles  beheaded.     Commonwealth  begins. 

1650.  Covenanters  defeated  by  Cromwell  at  Dunbar. 

1651.  Charles  the  Second  defeated  at  Worcester. 

1652.  First  war  between  England  and  Holland. 

1653.  Cromwell  dissolves  the  Parliament;  is  proclaimed  Protector,  December  16th. 
1658.  Richard  Cromwell  succeeds  him. 

1660.     Restoration  of  Charles  the  Second. 
1665.     Second  war  with  Holland.    Great  Plague  in  London. 
1666      Great  Fire  in  London. 

1672.    Louis  the  Fourteenth  conquers  a  great  part  of  Holland.     The  Prince  of  Orange 
made  Stadtholder. 

1679.  Tl>e  Long  Parliament  of  Charles  the  Second  dissolved.    The  Habeas  Corpuf 

Act  passed. 

1680.  Lord  Stafford  beheaded. 

1 683.     Rye-house  Plot.    Execution  of  Lord  Russell,  July  21st,  and  Algernon  Sidney, 

December  7th. 
1685.     Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  by  Louis  the  Fourteenth. 
1688      Revolution  in  England.    James  the  Second  leaves  the  kingdom. 
J  689.     William  and  Mary  proclaimed.    Episcopacy  abolished  in  Scotland  by  William 

Battle  of  Killiecrankie,  July  27th ;  William  defeated. 
1690.     Battle  of  the  Boyne,  in  Ireland,  July  1st;  James  defeated. 
1692.     French  fleet  defeated  by  the  English  at  Cape  la  Hogue,  May  22d.    Battle  CI 

Steenkirk,  July  24th :  King  William  defeated  by  Luxembourg. 
1695.     Namur  taken  by  William. 

1697.  Peace  of  Ryswick,  September  20th. 

1698.  First  Treaty  of  Partition. 

91  3l 


722  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 

1701.  Death  of  James  the  Second  at  St.  Germain. 

1702.  War  of  Succession  against  France  and  Spain,  nnder  Anne. 

1704.     Battle  of  Blenheim,  August  2d;  the  French  defeated  by  Marlborough  and 
Prince  Eugene  of  Savoy. 

1706.  Battle  of  Ramillies,  May  12th;  the  French  defeated  by  Marlborough.     The 

Treaty  of  Union  between  England  and  Scotland  signed,  July  22d. 

1707.  French  and  Spaniards  defeat  the  Allies  at  Almanza,  April  14th. 

1 708.  French  defeated  by  Marlborough  and  Prince  Eugene,  at  Oudenarde,  June  30th. 
17113.     Pence  of  Utrecht. 

1715.  Rebellion  in  Scotland,  under  James  the  Pretender. 

1716.  Philip,  Duke  of  Orleans,  Regent  of  France. 

1719.  The  Mississippi  scheme  of  John  Law. 

1720.  South-Sea  scheme. 

1740.  Charl«s  the  Sixth  dies.    War  in  Germany  begins. 

1741 .  The  Prussians  masters  of  Silesia. 

1742.  Peace  between  Austria  and  Prussia. 

1743.  War  in  Germany,  between  the  British,  Hungarians,  French,  and  Austrians. 

1744.  War  between  Great  Britain  and  France. 

1745.  Louisburg  and  Cape  Breton  taken  by  the  British  forces,  June  17th.     Rebellion 

breaks  out  in  Scotland,  August.  Defeat  of  the  King's  forces  by  the  Rebels 
at  Preston  Pans,  September  21st. 

1746.  Defeat  of  the  King's  forces  by  the  Rebels  at  Falkirk,  January  17th.    Battle 

of  Culloden,  April  16th.     End  of  the  Scotch  Rebellion. 
1748.    Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  between  Great  Britain,  France,  Spain,  Austria,  Bar* 
dinia,  and  Holland,  October  7th. 

1756.  The  King  of  Prussia  invades  Saxony.     Seven  Years'  War  begins. 

1757.  Battle  of  Prague,  May  6th ;  King  of  Prussia  defeats  the  Austrians.    The  King 

of  Prussia  takes  Breslau  and  becomes  master  of  Silesia,  December  20th. 
1760.    English  become  masters  of  Canada,  September  8th. 
1765.    American  Stamp-Act  passed.    Repealed  the  next  year. 

1774.  Boston  Port-Bill  passed. 

1775.  Hostilities  in  America  begin  at  Lexington,  April  19th.    Battle  of  Bunker's 

Hill,  June  17th. 

1776.  General  Howe  leaves  Boston,  March  17th.    Independence  declared,  July  4th. 

Battle  on  Long  Island,  August  27th.  New  York  evacuated,  September 
15th.    Battle  at  Trenton,  December  26th. 

1777.  Ticonderoga  taken  by  Burgoyne,  July  6th.    Battle  of  the  Brandywine,  Sep- 

tember nth.  Philadelphia  taken,  September  26th.  Battle  of  German- 
town,  October  4th.  Burgoyne's  army  surrenders  at  Saratoga,  October 
17th. 

1778.  Treaty  between  France  and  America,  February  6th. 

1779.  Stony  Point  taken  by  assault,  July  15th.    Expedition  against  the  Indians 

under  Sullivan. 

1780.  Battle  of  Springfield,  June  23d.    French  army  arrives  at  Newport,  July  10th. 

Defeat  at  Camden,  August  1 6th. 

1781.  Americans  defeated  by  Cornwallis  at  Guilford,  March  15th.     Surrender  of 

Cornwallis  at  Yorktown,  October  19th. 

1782.  Preliminary  Articles  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace  signed  at  Paris,  November  30th. 

1783.  Peace  between  Great  Britain  and  America  ratified;  Independence  of  America 

recognized,  September  3d. 


TABLE 


THE  CONTEMPORARY  SOVEREIGNS 


ENGLAND,  SCOTLAND,  FRANCE,  GERMANY,  RUSSIA,  AND  SPAIN,  AND  OP  THE 

POPES. 

JProm  Sir  Hirris  Nicolas's  "  Chronology  of  History,"  corrected  by  "  L'Art  da  v6rifier  lea  Dates,"  etc 


A.D. 

800 

England 

France 

Germany 

Papal  States 

RUSSLA 

Spain 

Scotland 

.... 

Charle- 

Charle- 

LeoUL 

.... 

Alfonso  n. 

Achaius 

magne 

magne 

Oviedo 

814 

.  .  •  . 

Louis  I. 

Louis  1. 

816 

.... 

.... 

Stephen  FV. 

817 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Pascal  I. 

819 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Congaim. 

824 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Eugene  II, 

...» 

.... 

Dongal 

827 

Egbert 

.... 

.... 

Valentine 

— 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Gregory  IV. 

833 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Alpin 

836 

.... 

.... 

.  •  .  . 

.... 

.... 

Kenneth  H. 

837 

Ethelwolf 

840 

Charles  L 

842 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ramiro  L 

843 

.... 

.... 

Louis  n. 

Oviedo 

844 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Sergius  U. 

847 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Leo  IV. 

850 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ordono  1. 

855 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Benedict  HI. 

Oviedo 

857 

.... 

.... 

.... 



.... 

Garcia  Xi- 

853 

Ethelbald& 
Ethelbert 

.... 

.... 

Nicholas  L 

menes 
Navarre 

859 

.  •  .  • 

.  •  .  • 

.    .    •   • 

Donald  m. 

860 

Ethelbejt 

862 

.... 

.... 

Rurik 

863 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

866 

Ethelred  I. 

.... 

.... 



•  •  .  • 

Alfonso  HI. 

[11. 

867 

.... 

.... 

Adrian  H. 

Oviedo 

871 

Alfred*  ' 

872 

*  •  .  • 

.... 

John  vra. 

876 

.... 

Carloman, 
Louis  in.,*; 
Charles  U. 

877 

.... 

Louia  n. 

879 

.... 

Louis  in.  & 
Carloman 

.... 

...... 

IgorL 

880 



.... 

Louis  HI.  & 
Charles  II. 

.... 

Fortun 
Navam 

8SS 

.... 

Carloman 

Charles  U. 

Marin 

.  .  •  • 

Hu£h 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Grig  *  Elh 

834 

.... 

Charlei  IL 

.... 

Adrian  iri.' 

835 

.... 

.... 

Stephen  V. 

887 

.... 

Hugh 

Arnold 

891 

^ 

Formosus 

893 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.  •  •  • 

.  •  •  • 

Donald  IV. 

896 

.... 

Hugh  & 
Charles  in. 

.... 

Boniface  VL 

— 

.... 

.... 

Stephen  VI. 

897 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Romanus 

893 

.... 

Charles  HI. 

.... 

Theodore  II. 

« 

.... 

.... 

John  IX 

724 


TABLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  SOVEREIGNS; 


A.D. 

England 

France 

Germany 

Papal  States 

Russia 

Spain 

SCOTIJIND 

899 

.... 

Louis  IV. 

900 

Edward  the 

Elder 

.... 

Benedict  FV. 

903 

.... 

LeoV. 

.... 

Christopher 

904 

.... 

Sergius  m. 

.... 

.... 

Constantine 

905 

.... 

.... 

Sancho  I. 
Navarre 

[HI. 

910 

.... 

.... 

Garcia 

911 

Conrad  I. 

Anastasius  III. 

Oviedo 

913 

.... 

Lando 

914 

.... 

JohnX. 

.... 

OrdoSo  n. 

919 

'.'.'.'. 

Henry  I. 

Leon 

922 

Robert  I. 

923 

Ralph 

.... 

.... 

Fniela  U.' 
Leon 

924 

Athelstan 

.... 

.... 

Alfonso  IV. 
Leon 

926 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•arcia  L 
Navarre 

927 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ramiro  H. 

928 

.... 

.... 

.  .  . 

Leo  VI.* 

Leon 

929 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Stephen  VII. 

931 

.  .  .  .( 

.... 

.... 

John  XL 

936 

Louis  rv. 

Otho  I. 

Leo  Vn. 

939 

.... 

.... 

Stephen  Vlll. 

940 

Edmund  I. 

942 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Martin  IH. 

944 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

Malcolm  I. 

945 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  . 

SriatoslafL 

946 

Edred 

.... 

.... 

Agapet  IL  * 

950 

' 

.  .  .  .■ 

.... 

.... 

Ordono  m. 
Leon 

953 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Indulf 

9M 

*.  !  ! ! 

Lothaire 

955 

Edwy 

.... 

.... 

..... 

.... 

Sancho  L 

956 

•  «  .  » 

.... 

.... 

JohnXn. 

Leon 

959 

Edgar 

961 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Duff 

963 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Leo  nh. 

965 

.... 

.... 

.... 

JohnXni. 

.... 

.... 

Culen 

967 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ramiro  HI. 
Leon 

970 

.... 

.... 

.... 



.... 

Sancho  11. 

Kenneth  m. 

972 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Benedict  VI. 

Navarre 

973 

.... 

.... 

Otho  n. 

laropolk  L 

974 

•  .   •  . 

.... 

.... 

Domnus  II. 

975 

Edward  the 
Martyr 

.... 

.... 

Benedict  VII. 

978 

Elhelred  II. 

980 

.... 

.... 

Vladimir  L 

982 

.... 

«•  •  •  • 



.... 

Bermudo  II. 

983 

.... 

Otho  m. 

John  AlV. 

Leon 

985 

.... 

John  XV. 

— 

.... 

... 

JohnXVL 

986 

Louis  V. 

987 

Hugh  Capet 

994 

.... 

.... 

Garcia  11. 
Navarre 

Constantine 

irv. 

995 

.... 

.... 

..... 

Kenneth  rv. 

996 

Robert  H. 

.... 

Gregory  V.  * 

(the  Grim) 

999 

.... 

.... 

Silvester  U. 

Alfonso    V. 
Leon 

1000 

.... 

.... 

Sancho  III. 

1002 

Henry  IL 

Navarre 

1003 

.... 

.... 

John  XVII. 

.  •  .  . 

Malcolm  H 

— 

.... 

.... 

John  xvin. 

1009 

'.  .  .  . 

.... 

Sergius  IV. 

1012 
1014 
1015 

Sweyn 
Elhelred  II. 
(restored) 

.... 

.... 

Benedict  VIII. 



.... 

Sviatopolk 

1016 

Edmund 

Ironside  Sc 

Canute 

• 

1017 

Canute 

I 


TABLE   OF  CONTEMPORARY   SOVEREIGNS. 


725 


1019 
1024 
1027 
1031 
1033 

iG35 


1036 

1037 

1039 
1040 
1042 

1044 
1046 

1048 

1054 
1055 
1056 
1057 
1058 
1060 
1061 
1063 

1065 


1066 

1072 
1073 
1074 
1076 
1077 

1078 
1036 

1087 
1088 
1093 
1094 

1095 

1098 
1099 
1100 
1104 
1106 
1107 
1108 
1109 
1113 
1118 
1119 
1124 
1125 
1126 
1130 
1132 
1134 


1135 
1137 
1133 
1140 

1143 
1144 
1145 


England 


Harold  I. 


Hardicanute 
Edward  the 
Confessor 


Harold  H 
William  1 


William 


Henry  I. 


Stephen 


France 


Henry  I. 


Philip  I. 


Louis  VI 


Louis  Vn. 


Gbkmany 


Conrad  II. 


Henry  IH. 


Henry  IV 


Henry  V 


Lothaire 


Conrad  in 


Papal  Statbs 


Joha  XIX, 
Benedict  IX. 


Gregory  VI. 
Clement  II. 
Daraasus  II. 
Leo  IX. 

Victor  II. 

Stephen  IX. 
Nicholas  II. 

Alexander  H. 


Gregory  VII. 


Victor  III. 
Urban  II. 


Pascal  n. 


Gelasius  II. 
Calixtqs  IL 
Honor  i  us  H. 


Innocent  U. 


Celestine  II. 
Lucius  II. 
Eugene  01. 


Russia 


laroslaf  I. 


laiaslaf  I. 


[H. 
Sviatoslaf 

Isiaaiaf  I. 
(restored) 
Vsevolod  I. 


rn. 

Sviatopolk 


Vladimir  H. 

Mstislaf 
laropoUc  U. 


Viatcheslaf 
Vsevolod  U. 


Spain 


BermudoIII. 

Leon 
Ferdinand  I. 

Castile 
Garcia  III. 

Navarre 
Ramiro  I. 

Aragon 
Ferdinand  I. 
Cast.  ^  Le. 


Sancho   IV. 
Navarre 


Sancho  1. 

Aragon 
Alfoiiso  VI. 

Leon 
Sancho  11. 

Castile 

Alfonso  VI. 
Le.  ^  Cast. 

Sancho  V. 
(I.  ofArag.) 
Navarre 


Peter  I. 
Nav.§r-^f- 


Alfonso  I. 
Nav.^r-^r. 

Urraca 
Cast.  Sp  Le. 


Alfonso  VII. 
Cast.  ^Le. 

Garcia  IV. 

Nav>arre 
Ramiro  II. 

Aragon 
Petronillat 
Raymondo 
Aragon 


'Malcolm 

[III 


Scon.AKO 


DuacanL 


Matbeth 


Donald  VL 
Duncan  11. 

Donald   VL 
(restored) 

Edgar 


Alexander  L 


David  L 


3i' 


726 


TABLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  SOVEREIGNS. 


A.D. 

England 

France 

Germant 

Papal  States 

Russia 

Spain 

Scon.AND 

1147 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Igor  II. 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Isiaslaf  n. 

'  • 

1149 

.  •      • 

.... 

.... 

louri  I. 

1150 

.... 

.... 

.... 

... 

Isiaslaf  n. 

Sancho  VI. 

1152 

.... 

.... 

Frederic  I. 

(restored) 

Navarre 

1153 

.... 

.... 

Anastasius  IV. 

.... 

.... 

MalcolmlV. 

1154 

Henry  H. 



.... 

Adrian  IV. 

Roslislaf 

.... 

.... 

Isiaslaf  m. 

— 

.... 

.... 

.... 

louri  I. 
(restored) 

1157 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Andrei  L 

Sancho  HI. 
CaMile 

— 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ferd.   II. 
Leori 

1158 

.... 

.... 

.... 



.... 

Alfon3.ViiL 

1159 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Alexander   HI. 

Castile 

1162 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Alfonso    n. 
Aragon 

1165 

.... 

.... 

•  .  •  • 

.... 

William 

1175 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Milthail  I. 

1177 

.... 

.  .   ■  • 

... 

Vsevolod 

1180 

.... 

Philip  IL 

PIL 

1181 

.... 

...» 

•  •  •  • 

Lucius  III. 

1185 

.  .'.  . 

.... 

Urban  IIL 

1187 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Gregory  VHI. 

— 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Clement  III. 

1188 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Alfonso  EL 

1189 

Richard  I. 

Leon. 

1190 

.... 

Henry  VI. 

1191 

.... 

.... 

Celestine  HL 

1194 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Sancho  VH 
Navarre 

1196 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Peter  U. 

1198 

.... 

.... 

Philip  and 

Innocent  III. 

Aragon 

1199 

John 

Otho  IV. 

1208 

.... 

.... 

Otho IV. 

1212 

.... 

.... 

Frederic  H. 

louri  n. 

1213 

.... 

.... 

James  L 
Aragon 

1214 

.... 

.... 

.... 

..... 

.... 

Henry  I. 

Alexander 

1216 

Henry  HI. 

.... 

.... 

Honorius  HI. 

Castile 

[H. 

1217 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Constantino 

Ferd.  in. 

1218 

.... 

.... 

.... 

louri  II. 

CaatUe 

1223 

.... 

Louis  vni. 

(restored) 

1226 

.... 

Louia  IX. 

1227 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Gregory  IX. 

1230 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ferd.  m. 
CastA-Le. 

1234 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Theobald  I. 

1237 

.... 

.... 

.... 



laroslafn. 

Navarre 

1241 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Celestine  IV. 

1243 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Innocent  lY. 

nn. 

12J7 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Sviatoslaf 

1249 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Andrei  U. 

.  .  •  • 

Alexander 

1250 

.... 

.... 

Conrad  rv. 

im. 

1251 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Alexander 
Nevski 

1252 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

Alfonso  X 
Cast.  4*  Le. 

1253 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Theobald  IL 

1254 

.... 

.... 

William   of 
Holland 

Ale'xander  Vv. 

Navarre 

1257 

.... 

.... 

Richard,  E. 
ofComwaU 

1261 

.... 

.... 

Urban  IV. 

1264 

.... 

.... 

.... 

..... 

laroslaf  IH. 

1265 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Clement  IV. 

1270 

.... 

Philip  in. 

.... 

.... 

Henry  L 

1271 

.... 

.... 

Gregory  X. 

Navam 

1272 

Edward  I*. 

.... 

.... 

Vassili  I. 

1273 

.... 

.... 

Rodolph  of 
Hapsburg 

1274 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Joanna  I. 
Navarrt. 

1276 

.  •  » 

.... 

.... 

Innocent  V. 

Dmitri  I. 

Peter  III. 

— • 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Adrian  V. 

Aragon 

TABLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY   SOVEREIGNS. 


727 


1276 

i2'r7 

]281 
1234 

1285 

1286 

1288 
1291 

1292 

1294 

1295 

1296 
1298 

1303 
1304 
1305 


1306 
1307 
1308 
1312 
1314 

1316 

1320 
1322 
1323 
1324 

1327 

1323 


1329 
1330 
1334 
1336 
1341 
1342 
1343 
1347 
1349 

1350 
1352 
1353 
1360 
1362 
1364 
13G3 
1370 
1371 
1377 
1378 
1379 
13S0 
13S7 


1399 
1400 
1404 


England 


Edward  11, 


Edward  III. 


Richard 


Henry  IV, 


France 


Philip  rV, 


Louis 

John  I 
Philip 

Charles 


V. 


IV. 


Philip  VI. 


John  n. 


Charles  V, 


Charles 


VI. 


Germany 


Adolphus  of 
Nassau 


Albert  of 
Austria 


Henry  VII. 

Frederic  III. 
&  Louis  V. 


Louis  V. 


Charles  IV. 


Wenceslaus 


Robert 


Papal  States 


John  XXI. 
Nicholas  III. 
Martin  IV. 


Honor i  us  IV. 
Nicholas  IV. 


Celestine  V. 
Boniface   VIII. 


Benedict  XI. 
Clement  V. 


JohnXXn. 


Benedict  XH. 
Clement  VI. 

Innocent  VI. 


Urban  V. 
Gregory  XI 
Urban  VI. 

Boniface  IX. 

Innocent  VII. 


Russia 


Andrei  III. 


Mikhail  H. 


louri  in. 

Dmitri  II. 
Alexander 
[H. 


IvanL 


Semen 


Ivan  n. 
Dmitri  III. 
&D:nitri  IV. 


Vassili  II. 


Spain 


Sancho  IV. 
Cast.  ^  Le. 
Alfonso  III 
Aragon 


James  II. 
Aragon 


Ferd.  IV. 
Cast.  ^  Le. 


Louis 

(X.  France) 
Navarre 


Alfonso  XI. 
Cast.  ^  Le. 

Philip  L 
(V.  France) 

Navarre 
Charles  I. 
(IV.  France) 

Navarre 

Alfonso  IV. 

Aragon 
Joanna  II.  & 

Philip  II. 

Navarre 


Peter  IV. 
Aragon 

Joanna  11. 

^avarre 
Charles  II. 

Navarre 
Peler  the 
Cruel 
Cast.  Sf  Le. 


Henry  II. 
Cast.  ^  Le. 


John  L 
Cast.  *  Le. 
Ch.irles  III. 

Navarre 
John  I. 

Aragon 
Henry  III. 
Cast.  ^  Le. 
Martin 

Aragon 


ScoTLAiro 


Margaret 


John  Ballol 


Interreg- 
num 


Robert  L 


David  IT. 
(Ed  ward  Ba- 
llol usurped 
in  1332,  but 
was  deposed 
in  the  same 
year.] 


Robert  II. 


Robert  m. 


728 


TABLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY   SOVEREIGNS. 


A.D. 

England 

France 

Germany 

Papal  States 

Russia 

Spain 

Scotland 

1406 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Gregory  XII. 

.... 

John  11. 

James  1. 

1409 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Alexander  V. 

Cast.  §•  Le. 

1410 

.... 

.... 

.... 

John  XXIII. 

1411 

.... 

.... 

Sigismond 

1412 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

Ferdinand  I. 

1413 

Henry  V. 

Aragon 

1416 

.... 

.... 

.... 

..... 

.... 

Alfonso  V. 

1417 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Martin  V. 

Aragon 

1422 

Henry  VI. 

Charles  VII. 

1425 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Vassili  m. 

Blanche  & 
John  n. 

1431 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Eugene  IV. 

Navarre 

1437 

.... 

.... 

.... 



.... 

.... 

James  II. 

1438 

..'.'. 

.... 

Albert  II. 

1140 

'.','.', 

.... 

Frederic  IV. 

1441 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

John  n. 

1447 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Nicholiis  v.* 

Navarre 

1454 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Henry  IV. 

1455 

.  .  •  • 

.... 

.... 

Calixtus  III. 

Cast.  ^  Le. 

1458 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Pius  XL 

.... 

John  II. 
AuA-Nav. 

1460 

,       , 

.... 

.... 

.... 

James  III. 

1461 

Edward  IV. 

Louis  XI. 

1462 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ivan  ra. 

1464 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Paulil* 

1471 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Sixtus  IV. 

1474 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ferd.    V. 
(ILofAr.) 
&  Isabella 

Cast.  &-  Le. 
Ferd.   II. 

1479 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Aragon, 

— 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Eleanor 
Navarre 

— 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Fran.   Phoe- 
bus, Nav, 

1483 

Edward  V. 

Charles 

.  ji  .  . 

M    .      .      .      . 

.... 

Catharine 

— 

Richard  III. 

[vin. 

Navarre 

1484 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Innocent    VllL 

1485 

Henry  VII. 

1488 

.... 

.... 

.... 



.... 

.... 

James  IV. 

1492 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Alexander  VL 

1493 

.... 

.   .  . 

Maximilian 

1493 

.... 

Louis  XII. 

[I- 

1503 

.... 

.... 

Pius  m. 

— 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Julius  IL 

1504 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Philip  L 

1505 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Vassili  IV. 

Castile 

1506 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ferd.  V. 

1509 

Henry  VHI. 

RegentCosf 

1513 

.... 

.... 

.... 

LeoX. 



James  V. 

1515 

.... 

Francis  I. 

1516 

.... 

.... 

.  .  •  • 

Charles  L 

1519 

.... 

.... 

Charles  V. 

(V.  Germ.) 

1522 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Adrian  VI. 

1523 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Clement  VII. 

1533 

.  .   .  .' 

.... 

.... 

Ivan  IV. 

15»4 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Paullli.  *  ' 

1542 

.... 

.... 

.... 

*  .  •  • 

.... 

Mary 

1547 

Edward  VI. 

Henry  II. 

1550 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Julius  III. 

1553 

Jane 

— 

Mary 

1555 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Marcellus  IL 

— 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Paul  IV. 

1556 
1558 

Elizabeth 

'.'.'.'. 

Ferdinand  L 

.... 

Philip  n. 

1559 

.... 

Francis  II. 

.... 

Pius  rv. 

lii 

.... 

Charles  IX. 

Maximilian 

1566 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Pius  V. 

1567 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

JamcB  VI. 

1572 
1574 

.... 

He'nrylli. 

.... 

Gregory  Xlfl. 

1576 

.... 

.... 

Rodolph  n. 

1584 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Fedor  I. 

TABLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY   SOVEREIGNS. 


720 


▲  0. 

England 

Francb 

Germany 

Papal  States 

Russia 

Spain 

Scotland 

1585 

.... 

. 

.... 

Sixtus  V. 

1589 

.... 

He'nry'lV, 

1590 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Urban  VII. 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Gregory  XIV. 

1591 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Innocent  IX. 

1592 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Clement  VIIL 

1593 

G.'  Britain 

.... 

.... 

Boris  Godo- 
nouf 

Philip  m. 

1603 

James  I. 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ascended 

1605 

.... 

.... 

Leo  XI.' 

Pseu'do*   * 

the  throre 

.  .  .  ! 

.... 

Paul  V. 

Dmitri 

of  EngJanJ 

1606 

!  !  !  I 

!  .  .  . 

.... 

Vassili  V. 

March, 

1610 

.... 

Louis  Xlll. 

1603. 

1612 

.... 

.... 

Matthias 

1613 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Mikhail 

1619 

.... 

.... 

Ferd.  II. 

Romanof 

1621 

.... 

.... 

Gregory  XV. 

.... 

PhUipIV. 

1623 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Urban  VIU, 

1625 

Charles  I. 

1637 

.... 

Ferd.  EL 

1643 

•  •  .  • 

Louis  XIV. 

1644 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Innocent  X. 

1645       .... 

.... 

.... 

Alexis 

1649  Commonw. 

1653  0.  Cromwell 

Protector 

1655 

.... 

Alexander  VH. 

1658 

R.  Cromwell 

Protector 

.... 

Leopold  L 

1660 

Charles  II. 

1665 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Charles  H. 

1667 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Clement  IX. 

1670 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Clement  X. 

1676 

.... 

Innocent  XI. 

Fedor  n. 

1682 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Ivan   V.    & 

1685 

James  II. 

Peter  the  G. 

1689 

Mary& 
William  ni. 

.... 

Alexander  VIII. 

Peter  the  G. 

s; 

1691 

•  .  •  • 

.... 

Innocent  XII. 

S 

1695 

William  m. 

1700 

.  •  .  « 

.... 

Clement  XI. 

.... 

Philip  V. 

w 

1702 

Anne 

5 

1705 

.  •  •  • 

Joseph  L 

iS 

1711 

.... 

.... 

Charles  VI. 

1714 

George  I. 

1715 

.... 

Louis  XV. 

1 

1721 

.... 

.... 

Innocent  XHI. 

u 

1724 

.... 

.... 

Benedict  XIII. 

.... 

Louis 

.... 

.... 



Philip  V. 

1725 

.... 

Catharine  I. 

(restored) 

1727 

George  I. 

Peter  U. 

1730 

.... 

Clement  XII. 

Anne 

\ 

1740 

.... 

.... 

Benedict  XIV. 

Ivan  VI. 

1741 

.  .  •  . 

.... 

Elizabeth 

1742 

.... 

.... 

Charles  Vn. 

1745 

.... 

.... 

Francis  I. 
&  Maria 
Teresa 

1746 

.... 

.... 



.... 

Ferd.    VI. 

1758 

... 

.... 

.... 

Clement  XIH. 

1759 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Charles  IIL 

1760 

George  ill. 

1762 

.  r . . 

.... 

.... 

Peter  HI. 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Catharinell. 

1765 

.... 

.... 

Joseph  II. 

1769 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Clement  XIV. 

1774 

Louis  XVI. 

1775 

.... 

.... 

Pius  VL 

1788 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Charles  IV. 

1790 

.... 

.... 

Leopold  II. 

1792 

.... 

Republic 

Francis  II.* 

1796 

.... 

.... 

Paul 

*  Upon  the  establishment  of  the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine,  in  1806,  Francis  ceased  to  be  Empen« 
•f  Germany,  and  became  hereditary  Emperor  of  Austria,  under  the  title  of  Francis  I. 

92 


730 


TABLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  SOfEREIGNS. 


THE  LESSER  EUROPEAN  STATES. 


▲.0. 

1500 

Denmark 

Naples 

Poland 

Portugal 

Prussia 

Sardinia 

Sweden 

John 

.... 

John  Albert 

Manuel 

1501 

.... 

Alexander 

150G 

.... 

.... 

Sigismond  I. 

1513 

Christian  II. 

1521 

.... 

.... 

John  III. 

1523 

Frederic  I. 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  .  .  • 

.... 

Gustavus 

1534 

Christian  III. 

Wasa 

1548 

.... 

Sigismond  II. 

1557 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Sebastian 

1559 

Frederic  II. 

1560 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

«... 

Eric  XIV. 

1568 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  .  . 

•  •  .  . 

Johnni. 

1574 

.... 

.... 

Henry- 
cm.  France) 

1575 

.... 

.... 

Stephen 

1578 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Henry 

1580 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Antonio 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Philip  I. 

1587 

.... 

,  .  . 

Sigismond 

(II-.  Spain) 

1588 

Christian  IV. 

[III. 

1592 

.... 

.... 

.  .  .  • 

•  •  •  • 

Sigismond 

1598 

•  •  • 

.  .  .  . 

.... 

Philip  II. 
(III.  Spain) 

lin.Polane'd 

1604 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.  ■  «  • 

.  .  •  • 

Charles  IX. 

1611 

.... 

.... 

•  .  •  • 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

•  •  •  • 

Gustavus 

1621 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Philip  ni. 

Adolphus 

1632 

^ 

.... 

UladislasVn. 

(IV.  Spain) 

1633 

•  *  i ! 

,  , 

•  .  .  • 

.... 

•  •  •  . 

Christina 

1640 

.... 

.... 

.... 

John  IV. 

I6-4S 

Frederic  III. 

.... 

Casimir  V. 

1654 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  .  . 

Charles  X. 

.656 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

Alfonso  VI. 

1660 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

.  •  •  • 

Charles  XI. 

1667 

.  •  •  • 

.... 

.... 

Peter,Reg't. 

1669 

.... 

.... 

Michael 

1670 

Christian  V. 

1674 

.... 

JohnSobiesld 

16S3 

.... 

.... 

Peter  II. 

1697 

.... 

.... 

Fred.*  Aug.  I. 

•  .  .  . 

•  •  •  . 

Charles  XIL 

1699 

Frederic  IV. 

1701 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Frederic  I. 

1704 

.... 

...» 

Stanislas  I. 

1706 

.... 

.... 

.... 

JohnV. 

1709 

.... 

.... 

Fred.  Aug.  I. 
(restored) 

1713 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  .  • 

Fred.  Wm.  I. 

1719 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  .  •  . 

Ulrica  & 

1720 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

Victor  Am- 
adeus  11. 

Frederic 

1730 

Christian  VI. 

.  .  •  • 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

•  .  •  • 

Charles 

1733 

.... 

.... 

Fred.  Aug.II. 

Eman.  HI. 

1735 

.... 

Charles 
(III.  Spain) 

1740 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

Frederic  H. 
(the  Great) 

1741 

.... 

.... 

•  •  .  • 

•  .  •  • 

Frederic 

1746 

Frederic  V. 

1750 

.... 

.  .  . 

Joseph 

1751 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

* 

.... 

Adolphus 
Frederic 

1759 

.... 

Ferdinand!. 

1764 

.... 

.... 

Stanislas  II. 

1766 

ChriatianVn. 

1771 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

•  •  •  • 

.  •  •  • 

Gustavus 

1772 

.... 

.... 

1st  Partition 

Iin. 

1773 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

•  •  •  • 

Victor  Am- 

1777 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Maria  & 
Peter  HI. 

adei's  lU. 

1786 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Maria 

Fred.Wm,  H. 

1792 

.... 

.... 

.... 

John,  Reg»t. 

.  •  •  • 

•  •  •  • 

Gustavtia 

1793 

.  •  .  . 

.... 

2d  Partition 

pv. 

1795 

.... 

.... 

3d  Partition 

1796 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Charles 

1797 

.... 

.... 

.... 

.... 

Fred.Wm.  m 

Eman.  IV. 

INDEX. 


Abridgments,  Historical,  their  proper 

use,  4. 
Adolphus,  History  of  the  Reign  of  George 

in.,  533,  553. 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  Peace  of,  495. 
Albigenses,  670. 

Allodial  lands,  35.    Allodial  tenures  ex- 
tinguished in  England,  110. 
Alva,  Duke  of,  208.    His  speech  for  war, 

209,  614.  In  the  Netherlands,  210. 
America,  English  settlements  in,  371. 
American  War,  547.    Debates  on,  549.  — 

See  Revolution. 
Anabaptists,  686. 
Anglo-Saxon  Constitution,  113. 
Anglo-Saxons,  Turner's  and  Palgrave's 

Histories  of,  148. 
Anne,  of  England,  reign  of,  392,  409,  427. 

Controlled    by    Whig    ministry,    414. 

Her  politics,  428. 
Arians  and  Socinians,  Act  of  William  HI. 

against,  389. 
Arnold,  of  Unterwalden,  heroic  death  of, 

146. 
Assemblies,  National,   in    England    and 

France,  109,  124,  233,  683. 
Aula  Regis,  Court  of,  109. 
Austria,    House    of,    143.     Names    and 

character  of  its  princes,  220,  230.    Its 

power  humbled,  228. 


B. 


Barbarians,  results  of  the  irruption  of, 
25,  27.     Their  codes,  39. 

Barons,  their  power  first  weakened,  60. 
Their  struggles  for  thfe  charters,  1 1 6. 

Barrington,  Observations  on  the  Ancient 
Statutes,  107,  678. 

Belhaven,  Lord,  his  ^eeches  on  the 
Union,  438,  444. 

Belsham,  his  English  History,  374, 553.^ 

Benedictines,  their  work  on  French  his- 
tory, 66,  668. 

Beneficia,  35. 


Blackstone,  108.  His  History  of  the 
Charters,  114.  On  the  laws  agiinst 
Papists,  690. 

Bohemia,  Protestant  revolt  in,  221. 

Bolingbroke,  Correspondence  of,  407.  His 
Dissertation  on  Parties,  460.  His  Let- 
ter to  Wyndham,  461,  701. 

Brantome,  Memoirs,  186. 

Britons,  conquest  of,  by  the  Romans,  80 
by  the  Saxons,  &c.,  81. 

Buckingham,  Duke  of,  his  death,  328. 

Bull,  Golden,  of  Charles  IV.,  143. 

Burgesses  first  summoned  to  Parliament, 
104. 

Burke,  Edmund,  83.  His  European  Set- 
tlements in  America,  371.  Writings  and 
Speeches  on  the  American  War,  580. 

Burnet,  Bishop,  his  History  of  the  Refor- 
mation, 180.  History  of  his  ovrn  Time, 
305,  375. 

Bute,  Earl  of,  539.    His  policy,  544,  546. 


C. 


Cabal  ministry,  305. 

Calvin,  intolerance  of,  165,  686. 

Calvinists  in  France,  191. 

Capitularies,  39,  45,  669,  670. 

Carlisle,  Bishop  of,  his  speech  as  given.by 
Hume  and  Hayward,  95,  96. 

Carteret,  Lord,  494. 

Catherine  de  Mcdicis,  188.    . 

Charlemagne,  Eginhard's  Life  of,  31. 
Gibbon's  estimate  of,  33.  His  merit*, 
668. 

Charles  Edward,  the  Pretender,  498. 

Charles  I.  of  England,  244.  Histories  of 
his  reign,  245.  Contests  ^vith  the  Com- 
mons, 247,  249,  267.  Suspends  Pariia- 
ments,  250.  Attempts  to  introduce 
Episcopacv  into  Scotland,  257.  Sum- 
mons the  Pariiament,  258.  His  conces- 
sions, 267.  Engages  in  civil  war,  268. 
Defeated  at  Naseby ,  271.  Delivered  up 
by  the  Scots,  ih.  Attempts  a  trea^ 
with  the  Presbyterians,  272.  His  exe- 
cution, 274.    His  character,  275. 


732 


INDEa. 


Charles  II.  of  England,  his  defeat  at  Wor- 
cester, 282.  Restoration,  294,  297,  301. 
Intrigues  with  France,  306,  312.  Con- 
test with  the  Commons,  314;  with  the 
Exclusionists,  319.  His  declaration  and 
appeal  to  the  people,  322.  Character  of 
his  court,  328, 332.  His  death  and  char- 
acter, 330.     Religion,  693. 

Charles  V.  of  France  (the  Wise),  his  ac- 
cession and  policy,  124,  125. 

Charles  VI.  of  France,  126,  127. 

Charles  VII.  of  France,  expels  the  Eng- 
lish, 130.  Establishes  a  military  force 
and  tax,  ib. 

Charters,  English,  114,  677. 

Chivalry,  writers  on,  36.  Chivalry  and  the 
chivalrous  character,  76. 

Christians,  sufferings  of  the  early,  157. 

Church,  divisions  in,  158.  Revenues  of, 
161,  174,  218.  Of  England,  at  the  Res- 
toration, 302.  Power  and  jurisdiction 
of,  671.     ASecRome. 

Clarendon,  Earl  of,  (Edward  Hyde,)  280, 
297  331. 

Clarendon,  Earl  of,  (Henry  Hyde,)  340. 

Clergy,  of  the  Middle  Ages,  their  merits, 
62,  669.  Abuse  of  power,  62,  73,  672. 
Celibacy,  75.  Interference  in  politics, 
197.     Privileges,  671. 

Codes,  Barbarian,  39,  669.  Salique,  39. 
Inferences  from,  44. 

Colpnies,  policy  towards,  430.  Separation 
from  the  mother  country,  554. 

Columbus,  Life  of,  by  his  son,  359.  Op 
position  to,  360.  Assisted  by  Isabella, 
ib.  His  character,  361.  His  misfortunes, 
362.     Irving's  Life  of,  ib. 

Comines,  Philip  de,  132,  685. 

Commerce,  60.  Effect  of  its  pursuit,  504, 
506. 

Commons,  begin  to  acquire  importance  in 
Europe,  60,  673.  Their  struggles  in 
France,  121,  122,  124,  127. 

Commons,  House  of,  84,  104,  679,  683. 
Struggles  between  the  king  and,  87, 
100.  Views  of  its  origin,  104,  241. 
Apology  to  James  I.,  241.  Contest 
with  Charles  I.,  247 ;  with  Charles  II., 
314.  Debate  and  vote  against  James 
II.,  344.  Secrecy  of  debate,  380,  488, 
697.  Bishop  Sherlock's  remark  on, 
456. 

Conde,  Prince  of,  188,  189. 

Congress,  first  American,  561,  597 ;  its 
weakness,  632.  First,  under  the  Con- 
stitution, 654. 

Conquests,  folly  of  foreign,  183. 

Constitution,  American,  convention  for 
framing,  648.  Objections  to,  ib.  Rati- 
fied, 649. 

Constitution,  English,  81.  Controversies 
about,  85.  Under  Elizabeth,  234.  Un- 
der Charles  I.,  247, 253.    Allows  appeal 


ICO  the  people,  417.  De  Lolme's  view  oC 
682. 

Constitution,  French,  120,  130,  202. 

Cortes,  Aragonese,  137.     Castilian,  139. 

Cortes,  his  Letters  on  the  conquest  of 
Mexico,  362.  Incidents  in  his  expedi- 
tion, 364. 

Cotton,  Abridgment  of  the  Records,  84. 

Coxe,  House  of  Austria,  143.  Life  of 
Marlborough,  393.  Memoirs  of  Bour- 
bons in  Spain,  409.  Memoirs  of  Wal- 
pole,  452. 

Cranmer,  intolerance  of,  167. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  his  character,  269. 
Evades  the  Self-denying  Ordinance, 
270.  Difficulties  in  the  way  of  his 
usurpation,  284;  its  unsuccessfulness, 
288.  Meditates  assuming  the  title  of 
King,  287. 

Cromwell,  Richard,  293. 

Cru£aders,  their  character  and  sentiments; 
77,  674. 

Crusades,  38.  Smith's  and  Robertson'i 
views  of,  60;  Gibbon's,  61 ;  Hume's,  77. 
Influence  on  barons  and  clergy,  62 
Their  foundation  in  human  nature 
78. 

Culloden,  battle  of,  498. 


D. 


Dalrtmple,  Memoirs,  310,  312. 

Damascus,  siege  of,  53. 

D'Anquetil,  History  of  France,  67. 

Dark  Ages,  difficulties  in  studying  the 
history  of,  28.  Principal  points  in,  30. 
Two  great  evils  in,  56,  59,  73.  Conclu- 
sions to  be  drawn  from,  73.  Hallam's 
History  of,  47,  147 ;  Koch's,  67. 

Davila,  Civil  Wars  of»France,  185. 

Debate,  secrecy  of,  380,  488,  697. 

Debt,  funded,  of  England,  529.  Of  Ameri- 
ca,  652. 

De  Foe,  History  of  the  Union,  434. 

De  Lolme  on  the  English  Constitution, 
682. 

Democracy,  inadequacy  of,  630. 

De  Thou.  —  See  Thuanus. 

D'Ev/es,  Sir  Simonds,  Journals  of  Parlia- 
ments, 240. 

Diaz,  Bernal,  History  of  the  Conquest  of 
Mexico,  363,  365,  367. 

Digby,  Lord,  speech  in  favor  of  Strafford, 
261. 

Dissenters,  eligibility  to  office  in  France 
and  England,  204.    Test  Act  against, 

353,  694.     Toleration  Act  in  favor  of, 

354.  —  See  Presbyterians,  &c. 
Dodington   (Lord  Melcombe),  Diary  o^ 

489. 
Domesday  Book,  110. 
Dryden,  332. 
Duelling,  78. 


INDEX. 


7S3 


E. 


EccLESiASTiCAi,  powcr,  671.  —  See 
Clergy. 

Education,  liberal,  efFects  of,  699.' 

Edward  the  Confessor,  laws  of,  114, 
676. 

Edward  VI.,  humanity  of,  167.  Procla- 
mation of,  234. 

Eginhard,  Life  of  Charlemagne,  32. 

Elector  Palatine,  (Erederic  V.,)  made  king 
of  Bohemia,  221.     His  character,  222. 

Elizabeth  of  England,  assertion  of  prerog- 
ative, 234,  239.  Contests  with  Com- 
mons, 235.  Character,  239.  Her  re- 
ligious intolerance,  688. 

Empire,  fall  of  the  Western,  25 :  its  divis- 
ion after  Charlemagne,  33.  Decline  of 
the  Eastern,  140. 

England,  early  history,  80.  Constitution- 
al history,  81,  87,  232,  234,  242,  251, 351, 
379,  682.  Support  of  the  crown,  242. 
Prosperity,  under  Charles  I.,  251,  252. 
Civil  war,  under  Charles  I.,  268.  Ex- 
penditures during  the  war,  292.  State, 
at  the  Restoration,  302.  Revolution  of 
1688,  334.  Succession  changed,  350. 
Interference  in  Continental  affairs,  391. 
War  of  succession  with  France,  400. 
Peace  of  Utrecht,  408.  Commercial 
treaty  with  France,  700.  Constitution- 
al disputes,  422;  426.  Union  with  Scot- 
land, 434.  Era  of  George  I.,  451. 
Continental  politics  of  that  era,  453, 
496.  Progress  of  civil  liberty,  453 ;  of 
religious  liberty,  461.  Com  mercial  pros- 
perity, 462;  at  the  rebellion  of  1745, 
504.  Frenchwarof  1756,  505.  Policy 
towards  American  colonies,  556. 

Europe,  state  of,  in  the  third  century,  20  ; 
at  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  26. 

Exclusion  Bill,  320. 

Executive,  necessity  of  strength  in,  630, 
635,  640. 


P. 


Fairfax,  character  of,  269. 

Federal  government,  efforts  to  establish  in 
America,  645. 

Federalist,  The,  649. 

Fenwick,  Sir  John,  attainder  of,  698. 

Ferdinand  I.  of  Germany,  230. 

Ferdinand  II.,  221,  230. 

Feudal  System,  34,  73.  Its  effects,  56. 
Its  power  weakened,  60.  Incidents  il- 
lustrative of,  69.  Establishment  in 
England,  113;  in  Spain,  137. 

Fiefs,  35. 

Flemings,  their  want  of  patriotism,  211, 
213. 

Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  437. 

Formularies  of  Marculphus,  45. 


Fox,  Book  of  Martyrs,  180.  Letter  t« 
Elizabeth,  687. 

France,  histories  of,  66,  67.  Under  John 
II.,  122.  Underllenry  IV.,  201.  In- 
surrections  in,  123,  682.  Dissensions 
between  Burgundy  and  Orleans,  129. 
Invaded  by  the  English,  i6.  Union  of 
the  royal  family  with  that  of  Spain,  394. 
War  of  succession,  400.  Coutumier  de, 
671. 

Francis  I.  of  France,  188.  His  intoler- 
ance, 165. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  Works  of,  551. 

Frederic  the  Great,  of  Prussia,  510.  His- 
tories of  his  reign,  510,  512.  His  writ- 
ings, 513,  523.  Invasion  of  Silesia,  516. 
His  character,  521,  525.  Correspond- 
ence with  Voltaire,  523. 

Frederic  V.  of  Bohemia.  —  See  Elector 
Palatine. 


G. 


Galgactjs,  speech  of,  in  Tacitus,  80. 

Gauls,  Csesar's  account  of,  21. 

George  I.,  his  policy,  536.  Speechea 
from  the  throne,  702.  —  See  England. 

George  II.,  reign  of,  488.  His  speeches, 
703. 

George  III.,  Adolphus's  History  of  his 
reign,  533.  His  policy  considered,  535  - 
547. 

Germain,  Lord  George,  dispute  between 
General  Howe  and,  623. 

Germans,  Tacitus's  account  of  the,  22. 

Germany,  crown  elective  in,  33.  Contest 
between  the  Emperor  and  the  Popes, 
37,  673.  Power  of  the  Emperor,  144 
Reformation  in,  169,216.  Dissensions 
of  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic  princes, 
219. 

Gibbon ;  observations  on  his  History,  63 ; 
its  faults,  ib.;  merits,  65.  His  Sketch 
of  Universal  History,  67.  His  views 
on  the  American  War,  608. 

Goths,  25. 

Governtnent,  Hume's  view  of,  274.  Im- 
policy of  harshness  in,  207,  611,  692. 

Grammont,  Comte  de,  his  Memoirs,  331. 

Granvelle,  Cardinal,  208. 

Gregory  VII.,  Pope,  673. 

Grenville,  Mr.,  speech  on  American  taxa- 
tion, 562. 

Guise,  House  of,  188.  First  Duke  of,  as- 
sassinated,  193.  Second  Duke  forms 
the  League,  195. 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  223.  Harte's  Life  o^ 
224. 


Habeas    Corpus,  writ   of,    249.     Ac^ 
under  Charles  II.,  693. 

3j 


734 


INDEX. 


Hale,  Sir  Matthew,  301. 

Hallam,  History  of  the  Middle  Ages,  47, 
83, 147.  Constitutional  History  of  Eng- 
land, 82,  83,  675. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  656. 

Hampden,  John,  254. 

Hanseatic  League,  38. 

Helvetic  Confederacy,  144, 146.  Histories 
of,  148. 

H6nault,  History  of  France,  67,  71. 

Henry  IV.  of  France,  his  conversion,  192. 
Assassination,  193.  Benefits  to  France, 
203,  205. 

Henry  VI.  of  England,  crowned  King  of 
France,  129. 

Henry  VII.  of  England,  his  ambition  and 
avarice,  679.  Bacon's  Life  of,  i6.  Laws 
of,  680. 

Henry  VIII.,  232. 

Heretics,  execution  of,  686,  689.  "Writ  De 
Haeretico  Coraburendo,  687. 

Hidage,  112. 

Highlanders,  join  Charles  Edward,  499. 
Their  heroism  and  loyalty,  500.  Eng- 
lish policy  towards,  502. 

Historians,  two  classes  of,  85,  88.  Their 
ignorance  of  political  economy,  681. 

Histories,  general,  their  proper  use,  4,  5. 

History,  its  uses,  13.  Its  truth,  15,  326. 
Important  periods  in,  27.  Two  princi- 
pal points  in  modern,  373.  Lectures 
on,  difficulties  of,  11 ;  their  use,  12. 

Home,  History  of  the  Kebellion  of  1745, 
497,  498. 

Howe,  Sir  William,  inquiry  into  his  con- 
duct of  the  American  War,  624. 

Hugh  Capet,  68. 

Huguenots,  191,  204. 

Hume,  his  Essay  on  the  Populousness  of 
Ancient  Nations,  23.  His  Appendixes, 
71,  680.  His  Political  Discourses,  667. 
Observations  on  his  English  History, 
89,  100;  Stuart's  opinion  of  it,  99.  His 
inaccuracy  in  quoting  authorities,  91. 
Unfair  coloring,  94.  Indifference  to 
popular  privileges,  101.  His  observa- 
tions on  the  Great  Charter,  117.  His 
unfair  account  of  the  Reformers,  178, 
181.  His  views  of  government  and 
obedience  quoted,  274,  275.  His  char- 
acter of  Charles  II.,  306.  His  incon- 
sistencies, 684.  Discordance  between 
Rapin  and,  ib. 

Huns,  25. 

Huss,  John,  164. 

Hutchinson,  Colonel,  Life  of,  289 ;  quoted, 
290. 


I. 


Independence  in  Amei-ica,  declared,  599, 
601,  619.  Paine's  arguments  in  favor 
of,  599.    Effect  in  England,  606. 


Independents,  270.  After  the  death  of 
Charles  I.,  281. 

Inquisition,  75,  159,  672. 

Insurrections,  in  Massachusetts,  647.  Jn 
Flanders,  France,  and  England,  681, 
682. 

Interim  of  Charles  V.,  170. 

Intolerance,  natural  to  the  human  mind, 
155.  In  religion,  156;  instances,  164. 
Ofthe  ancients,  157.  Of  the  Protestants, 
164,  168,  219,  686. 

Inventions,  era  of,  149. 

Italian  Republics,  141.  Sismondi's  His- 
tory of,  141,  142. 

Italians,  character  of,  142. 

Italy,  141.  Present  state  of,  143.  In- 
vaded by  the  French  and  Spanish  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  183. 


Jacqueeib,  insurrection  ofthe,  123,  682. 

James  I.,  contest  with  the  Commons,  241. 
Character,  242. 

James  II.,  his  Journal,  307,  309,  376. 
His  Memoirs,  308,  310.  Attempts  to, 
exclude  him  from  the  succession,  319. 
Indictment  against  him,  334.  His  at- 
tacks upon  the  liberties  of  the  people, 
335 ;  their  resistance  of  a  religious  na- 
ture, 336.  His  interview  with  the  Bish- 
ops, 341.  Joins  the  army,  342.  Re- 
treats to  London,  ib.  Leaves  England, 
344.  Declaration  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons against  him,  345.  His  intrigues 
while  in  exile,  377. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  657. 

Jews,  ordinances  relative  to,  69,  670. 
Persecutions  of,  158. 

Joan  of  Arc,  130. 

Joan  of  Kent,  167,  686. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  his  Taxation  no  Tyran- 
ny, 577. 

Judicial  pursuits,  influence  of,  386. 

Justiza  of  Aragon,  137. 


K. 


Knox,  John,  181. 

Koch,  Revolutions  of  the  Middle  Ages, 

67,  150. 
Koran,  Sale's  translation  of  the,  49. 


Lacketelle,  History  of  Religious  Wars 

in  France,  187. 
Law,  John,  472.    Banking  schemes,  474. 

Mississippi  scheme,  475. 
Laws,  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  114,  676. 

Of  Henry  VII.,  680. 
League,  the,  195. 
Learning,  revival  of,  152. 


INDEX. 


735 


Liberty,  civil  and  religious,  importance  of, 
664. 

Lingard,  History  of  England,  83,  180. 

Louis  IX.  (St.  Louis),  70,  159,  673,  674. 
His  Establishments,  71,  671.  His  re- 
forms, 71,  671. 

Louis  XI.,  his  character  and  policy,  131. 
Sickness  and  death,  133. 

Louis  XIV.,  marries  the  Infanta,  395. 
Treaties  of  partition  with  William  III., 
395,  396. 

Luther,  164,  170,  178,  182. 

Luxury,  effects  upon  a  people,  506. 

M. 

Mablt,  Abb6  de,  32,  72,  120. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  History  of  Eng- 
land, 83,  674.  His  personal  character, 
674. 

Macpherson,  Original  Papers,  308,  310, 
312. 

Mahomet,  48,  50,  670.  Gibbon's  account 
of,  49.  White's  Bampton  Lectures  on, 
50. 

Mahometanism,  53. 

Marcel,  insurrection  of,  121. 

Margaiet  of  Parma,  207. 

Mariana,  History  of  Spain,  135. 

Maria  Theresa,  515,  521.  War  with  Prus- 
sia, 517.  Appeals  to  the  Hungarians, 
519. 

Marlborough,  Duke  of,  401, 699.  Duchess 
of,  407,  701. 

Marshall,  Life  of  Washington,  622,  636. 

Maximilian  II.  of  Germany,  220. 

Melancthon,  167.  Dispute  with  Eckius, 
170. 

Melcombe,  Lord,  Diary  of,  489. 

Mexico,  conquest  of,  362,  369.  Descrip- 
tion of  the  city,  366.     Siege,  367. 

Middle  Ages.  —  See  Dark  Ages. 

Millar  on  the  English  Constitution,  108. 

Milton,  invectives  against  prelates  and 
Presbyterians,  280. 

Ministers,  power  of  the  sovereign  to  ap- 
point, in  England,  415,  541. 

Mirabeau,  on  the  Prussian  Monarchy,  514, 
705. 

Monarchy,  hereditary  in  France,  elective 
in  Germany,  33.  Hereditary  in  the 
principal  European  kingdoms,  61.  In 
England  always  limited,  678. 

Money,  paper,  issued  by  the  American 
Congress,  632,  636.  Its  depreciation, 
636,  638 ;  Paine's  view  of,  639. 

Monk,  General,  his  policy,  294.  Char- 
acter, ib. 

Montesquieu,  on  religious  persecution,  691 . 

Montezuma  seized  by  Cort6s,  365. 

Moors,  war  with  the  Christians,  135. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  his  intolerance,  165. 
Mackintosh's  Life  of,  166. 


Morgarten,  battle  of,  145. 
Mutiny  Act,  455. 

N. 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  204,  691. 
Naseby,  battle  of,  271. 
Nations,  connection  of,  429. 
Naylor,  History  of  Switzerland,  148. 
Netherlands,  revolt  of,  206;  its  result*, 

215,  692. 
Nobility  of  England,  544. 
North,    Lord,    his    character,    557,    609. 

Vacillating  conduct  in  1774,  604      Wm 

administration,  609. 

O. 

OcKLET,  History  of  the  Saracens,  53. 

Orange,  Prince  of,  210,  211,  215. 

Orange,  Prince  of  (William  III.),  his  ne- 
gotiations with  England,  338.  Diffi- 
culties of  his  enterprise,  339.  Lands  &V 
Torbay,  340,  343.  Plans  and  motives, 
348,  349.  Crowned  liing  of  England, 
350. 

Ordinance,  Self-denying,  of  Presbyterians 
and  Independents,  270. 

Orleans,  Duke  of  (Regent),  his  character, 
471. 

Orleans,  Maid  of,  130. 


P. 


Paine,  Thomas,  Common  Sense,  599. 
Letter  to  Raynal  on  paper  money,  639. 

Palaye,  St.,  Memoirs  of  Chivalry,  36. 

Palgrave,  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
148. 

Papists,  act  against,  under  William  III, 
388. 

Parliaments,  French,  202.  English,  683. 
Under  Henry  VIIL,  232;  Elizabeth, 
235;  James  I.,  241.  Disuse  of,  by 
Charles  I.,  250.  Long  Parliament, 
259 ;  religious  character  of  its  contest 
with  Charles  I.,  264 ;  debate  upon  his 
propositions,  273 ;  dissolved  by  Crom 
well,  283;  History  of,  by  May,  28a 
Cromwell's,  286,  287.  Restoration  Par- 
liament, 297.    Pensionary,  302. 

Passau,  peace  of,  217,  218. 

Patriotism,  effect  of  the  pursuit  of  wealth 
on,  505. 

Pelham  administration,  494,  508. 

People.  —  See  Commons. 

Persecutions,  religious,  at  the  Reforma- 
tion, 164,  686.  Under  Elizabeth,  688. 
Under  James  L,  689.  Under  Charles  L, 
690.    Remark  of  Montesquieu  on,  691. 

Peru,  conquest  of,  367. 

Petition  of  Right,  247. 

Pfeffel,  History  of  Germany,  67. 


736 


INDEX. 


Philip  Augustus,  681.  I 

Philip  le  Bel,  70,  72. 

Philip  II.  of  Spain,  207,  215. 

Pitt,  William  (first  Earl  of  Chatham),  his  ' 
administration,   508,   537.     Denounces  j 
Lord     North's     administration,     557. 
Speeches   against  American    taxation, 
562,  564,  568. 

Place  Bills,  under  William  III.,  381 .     Un-  j 
der  Anne,  411.     Under  Walpole's  ad- 
ministration, 455. 

Planta,  Helvetic  History,  149. 

Poland,  partition  of,  522. 

Political  Economy,  680;  im,portance  to 
statesmen,  700.  Views  of  Mirabeau 
and  Frederic  the  Great  on,  514,  705. 

Politics,  practical,  86.  Violence  of,  in 
the  reign  of  Anne,  409.  Subjects  of  in- 
difference in,  Paley's  view,  411.  Influ- 
ence in,  413. 

Popes,  their  temporal  power,  34, 671 ;  its  ef- 
fects, 56  ;  its  decline,  61,  72.  Authority 
and  infallibility,  74.  Their  struggle  with 
the  Emperors,  37,  673. 

Popish  Plot,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II., 
325. 

Portuguese,  discoveries,  conquests,  and 
settlements  of  the,  370. 

Prerogative,  struggle  with  privilege  in 
England,  87,  100,  241.  Necessary  to 
civii  freedom,  102. 

Presbyterians,  in  Scotland,  257.  Contest 
with  Charles  I.,  265.  At  Uxbridge, 
270.  Attempt  a  treaty  with  the  king, 
272.  Not  opposed  to  the  monarchy, 
279.  At  the  Restoration,  302.  Non- 
conforming clergy,  304. 

Press,  liberty  of  the,  383.  Act  for  licens- 
ing the,  383,  698. 

Private  judgment,  right  of,  asserted  by  the 
Reformers,  174.  They  attempt  to  re- 
strain, ib. 

Privileges,  popular,  necessary  to  civil  free- 
dom, 102. 

Prynne,  his  speech  in  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, 273. 

Pulteney,  his  policy  and  position,  490. 


Ramsay,  History  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution, 552,  592. 

Ranken,  Early  History  of  France,  67,  671. 

Rebellion  of  1745,  497.  Remark  of  Gib- 
bon on,  504. 

Reformation,  154.  State  of  Europe  at  its 
opening,  161.  Evils  to  be  expected 
from,  159,  161;  actual,  164.  Benefits, 
162,  174.  Results,  176,  177.  In  Eng- 
land, 178;  Hume's  unfair  account  of, 
ib.;  Burnet's  History  of,  180.  In  Scot- 
land, 181.  In  the  Netherlands,  206. 
In  Germany,  2^7. 


Regicides,  trial  and  punishment  of,  298. 

Religion,  uncertainty  of  reasonings  on, 
159.     Disputes  about,  169,  171. 

Religious  principle,  power  of  the,  156. 

Remonstrance  of  the  Commons  to  Charles 
I.,  265,  267. 

Reporting  of  debates,  380,  697. 

Republicanism,  547. 

Republicans.  —  See  Independents. 

Republics,  calculated  to  call  out  talent, 
142.     History  of  the  Italian,  141. 

Reresby,  Sir  John,  Memoirs,  342. 

Reservation,  Ecclesiastical,  of  benefices, 
218,  227. 

Revenue  of  the  Crown,  381,  697. 

Revolution,  American,  want  of  materials 
for  its  history,  549.  Gordon's  History, 
550;  Ramsay's,  592;  Stedman's,  622. 
Course  of  reading  on,  552.  Causes, 
558,  571.  Summary  of  events,  560. 
Feelings  and  reasonings  of  the  Ameri- 
cans, 593,  601 ;  of  the  English,  603,  608. 
Distress  and  privations  of  the  Ameri- 
cans, 618,  632,  634.  Discontents  in  the 
army,  637,  640.  Results  of,  663.  Com- 
pared with  that  in  the  Netherlands,  209, 
612. 

Revolution  of  1688  in  England,  334.  Its 
constitutional  benefits,  350,  352.  Re- 
ligious results  of,  353.  Its  success 
doubtful,  376. 

Richard  II.,  discordance  between  Hume 
and  Rapin  as  to  charges  against,  684. 

Rights,  Bill  of,  signed  by  William  III., 
352. 

Robertson,  57, 58, 120.  History  of  Ameri- 
ca, 357.     History  of  Scotland,  448. 

Robinson,  Considerations  on  the  Measures 
respecting  the  American  Colonies,  574. 

Rochester,  Earl  of,  his  character  and  death, 
328. 

Romans,  contest  with  Barbarians,  24. 
Condition  after  their  conquest,  46,  668. 

Rome,  140.  Church  of,  its  doctrines,  74; 
its  peculiar  intolerance,  192. 

Russell,  Lord  William,  executed,  324. 

Rye-house  plot,  324. 

Ryswick,  peace  of,  390. 

S. 

Sacheverell,  Dr.,  trial  of,  421. 

Saliquc  Code,  40.    Prologue  to,  43,  668. 

Saxons,  irruptions  of,  672.  —  See  Anglo- 
Saxons. 

Scotland;  Laing's  History  of,  332.  Crisis 
in  its  afl'airs,  437.  History  and  fortunes 
of,  448,  449. 

Scutage,  112. 

Security,  Act  of,  in  Scotlvxnd,  438. 

Septennial  Bill,  456. 

Serfs,  provisions  of  Louis  IX.  in  regard 
to.  671. 


INDEX. 


737 


Settlement,  Act  of,  under  William  III., 
699. 

Seven-Years'  War,  517,  522. 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  315.  His  character 
and  death,  328,  329. 

Ship-money,  imposition  of,  254. 

Sicily,  Norman  empire  in,  670. 

Sidney,  Algernon,  executed,  324. 

Sismondi,  History  of  Italian  Republics, 
141,  142. 

Skepticism,  525. 

Smedley,  History  of  the  Reformed  Church 
in  France,  187,  206. 

Smollett,  English  History,  488. 

Societies,  religious,  668. 

Society,  causes  of  the  improvement  of,  58, 
60,  61. 

Somers,  Lord,  impeachment  of,  387. 

Somerville,  English  Histories,  374. 

South- Sea  Bubble,  481. 

Spain,  Moors  in,  135.  Spirit  of  liberty  in, 
137.  Struggles  with  prerogative,  138. 
Calcott's  History  of,  139.  State  of,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  184.  Succession 
of  the  royal  family  of  France  to  the 
throne  of,  394,  396.  Partition  treaties 
concerning,  396. 

Spaniards  and  Mexicans,  369. 

Stamp  Act  passed,  561 ;  repealed,  565;  its 
effect  in  America,  594. 

States-General  of  France,  first  assembled, 
72.  Struggle  between  the  king  and, 
121.  Overpowered  by  John  II.  and 
Charles  V.,  124.  Assembled  by  the 
Duke  of  Anjou,  128.  In  the  time  of 
Henry  IV.,  201. 

St.  Bartholomew,  massacre  of,  192,  193. 

St.  Louis.  —  See  Louis  IX. 

St.  Simon,  471. 

Strafford,  Lord,  attainder  of,  261. 

Stuart,  Gilbert,  view  of  the  Feudal  Sys- 
tem, 36.  Animadversions  upon  Robert- 
son, 58,  670.  His  View  of  Society,  59. 
His  opinion  of  Hume's  History,  99. 

Stuart  Papers,  311,  355. 

Succession,  War  of,  400.  Protestant,  in 
England,  425,  701.  Right  of  the  people 
to  change  in  England,  351. 

Sully,  Duke  of.  Memoirs,  186. 

Superstition,  naturally  allied  to  ignorance, 
55,61.     Its  effects,  669. 

Swiss,  character  of,  145,  146. 

Switzerland,  144.  Government  of,  147. 
—  See  Helvetic  Confederacy. 

Sympathy,  influence  of,  155. 


Tallage,  112. 

Taxation,  212.  Arbitrary,  quotation  from 
Hume,  90.  A  prerogative  of  the  Wit- 
enagemote.  111;  of  the  people,  628. 
Right  of,  120,  628.    In  the  Netherlands, 

93 


under  Alva,  212.  In  England,  under 
Henry  VHI.,  232  ;  at  the  present  time, 
530.  Effects  of,  532.  In  America,  562, 
628;  pamphlets  on,  572. 

Tea,  duty  on,  568. 

Temple,  Sir  William,  his  character,  329. 

Test  Act,  353, 694.  William  III.  attempts 
its  repeal,  353. 

Thanes,  greater  and  loss,  109. 

Thicbault,  Recollections  of  Frederic  the 
Great,  512. 

Thirty- Years'  War,  219.  SchiUer'a  His- 
tory  of,  225. 

Thuanus,  French  History,  185. 

Toleration,  156,  158.  Act  of,  under  Wil- 
liam III.,  354,  388. 

Towers,  History  of  Frederic  the  Great, 
511. 

Treason  Bill,  382. 

Trent,  Council  of,  Father  Paul's  Histoiy 
of,  170. 

Triennial  Bill,  382. 

Truce  of  the  Lord,  69. 

Tucker  (Dean  of  Gloucester),  Tracts  on 
American  Taxation,  572. 

Turner,  English  History,  82.  History  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons,  82,  148. 


Uniformity  in  religion,  impossible,  169. 
Act  of,  304. 

Union  of  England  and  Scotland,  434. 
Attempted  by  James  I.,  ih. ;  by  Crom- 
well and  Charles  II.,  435.  How  carried, 
under  Anne,  443. 

Utrecht,  Union  of,  215.    Peace  of,  408. 

Uxbridge,  treaty  of,  270. 


Vellt,  681. 

Veto  of  bills  by  William  IIL,  381,  382. 

Villaret,  681. 

Villers,  Essav  on  the  Reformation,  177. 

Voltaire,   Hi'story  of  Louis   XIV.,   308. 

Correspondence  with  Frederic  the  Great, 

524. 

W. 

Waldeorave,  Lord,  Memoirs  of,  489. 

Walpole.  Sir  Robert,  Coxe's  Memoirs  of, 
452.  Burke's  character  of,  463 ;  Hume's, 
702.  Principal  events  of  his  administra- 
tion, 451 .  His  exertions  in  favor  of  civil 
libertv,  453.  Gives  up  the  excise  scheme, 
454,  457. 

Wars,  civil  and  religious,  in  France,  188. 
Incident  in,  1 89.    Conclusions  from,  1 90. 

War,  in  the  Netherlands,  206.  Thirty- 
Years',  219.  Civil,  in  England,  268. 
Of  Succession,  400.    Seven-Years',  522, 


738 


INDEX. 


End  of  the  French  in  America,  556. 
American  Revolutionary,  547. 

Washington,  George,  his  Letters,  615,  617. 
Marshall's  Life  of,  622.  Chosen  Presi- 
dent, 649.  Maintains  neutrality  of 
United  States,  659.  Retirement,  660. 
Death,  661.     Character,  662. 

Wentworth,  Peter,  speech  and  examina- 
tion of,  235. 

Westphalia,  treaty  of,  227. 

Whigs,  character  and  policy  in  the  Revo- 
lution of  1688,  344,  347,'379,  698.  At 
the  accession  of  George  L,  450;  minis- 
try, during  his  reign,  536. 

Wickliffe,  178. 

William  III.,  crowned,  350.  Signs  Bill 
of  Rights,  352.  His  efforts  for  religious 
liberty,  353.    His  character,  390.    Un- 


successful in  war,  ib.  His  Continental 
wars,  391.  Important  events  in  his 
reign,  391,  392.  His  Partition  Treaties 
with  Louis  XIV.,  395, 396.  —  See  Prince 
of  Orange. 

Witenagemote,  103,  104,  109.  Preroga- 
tives of.  111. 

Wraxall,  Memoirs  of  the  House  of  Valois, 
186.    History  of  France,  187. 

Y. 

York,  Duke  of,  319,  694.  —  >See  James  II 

Z. 

ZlSKA,  165. 
Zuinglius,  169. 


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